For a really long time I wanted to climb some of the big fir trees around here. It seemed a shame that I could only appreciate them from below. So I looked into getting some gear, but man was it expensive, so I had to wait a while. I eventually met a guy who told me how we could make some money cutting trees if I would put in for some climbing gear. So, I coughed up some cash I'de been saving from some cutting jobs and bought all the essentials and made my money back real quick on a few tree jobs. It took a while to get the hang of climbing, and I quickly realized that I wouldnt be heading up any 10ft thick fir trees anytime soon, unless I had some inclination to kill myself. Turns out it takes a little more than beginner skill. That was a couple years ago and I been working on my skills to climb some of the big stuff. Climbing is just fun. You can swing around and get a good look at things. But another thing I found out the hard way was that climbing trees alone is real dumb, and no one wants to climb trees. So it's tricky to work out good climbs. I'll post a picture of a tree I went to climb in Tillamook, Oregon with my wife. Well, thing looked smaller on the map, cuz when I got there, I found a 16ft thick, 250ft tall sitka spruce with the first limb higher than all my rope. It was worth the drive just to see it though. By the way, I'm standing on some burl about 5 feet up! Later I'll try to post some pictures of other tree's I climbed (or tried anyway!)