The Tree Climber’s Guide. Jack Cooke

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      Climbing bare-footed is an altogether more immersive experience. Where shoes divorce you from the tree, skin attunes you to the feel of different types of bark and is well worth the odd stubbed toe or splinter. In wet weather a rubber heel can send you sprawling to the ground, and bare feet do less damage to the trees themselves. Sap is a wonderful natural glue and before long your naked feet will stick to bark like a gecko to a wall. If you must wear shoes in order to feel your toes in the depths of winter, don’t try shimmying up a trunk in a pair of snakeskin brogues. The espadrilles once used by pioneering rock climbers are an ideal compromise. With these you can judge the camber of a branch and still avoid slipping off.

      Remember to be wary of dogs. Have you ever seen the way a spaniel watches a squirrel? To the canine race, tree climbers are objects of rabid fascination, legs dangling appetisingly from on high like a line of sausages above a butcher’s counter. Often I’ve crouched, paralysed on the groundmost branch of a tree, with ferocious terriers circling below, baying for my blood.

      Climbers can also become predatory themselves. Watching people from the vantage of a branch leads to a hunter’s disposition; a feeling of omniscience arising from seeing all and yet remaining unobserved. One summer’s evening in Victoria Park, I found myself descending a pine after sundown. Nearing the bottom, I spotted a glowing cherry through the branches – two teenage boys sharing a joint at the tree’s foot. I waited in silence for them to finish and leave. After ten minutes, when they showed no signs of moving on, my patience wore thin. In spite of the very real danger of sending them both into cardiac arrest I sprung from my branch and flew the remaining ten feet to the ground. Two priceless screams rent the silence of the park and the boys fled in opposite directions, so fast that I never saw their faces. In my vainer moments I hope they still talk of the devil that dropped from the sky.

      Whiling away an hour or two in a tree top, other awkward confrontations can await the climber on descent. I have gate-crashed picnics, ball games and baby showers, arriving like an angel of ill omen from above. Epithets given me on such occasions have ranged from ‘It’s a fucking monkey’ to ‘Call the police.’ These encounters are a necessary hazard of exploring the high land above London.

      The more we climb, the easier it is to envy those animals better suited to the trees. Watch a squirrel sprint across the bridge of a branch before leaping with gay abandon over a bottomless drop. Observe songbirds, alighting soundlessly on the upper reaches while you sweat through a maze of branches below. We can spend many wasted hours mourning the loss of our primate dexterity, those biaxial ball-and-socket wrist joints and elongated arms with which we might climb higher and farther. But consider the less fortunate members of the animal kingdom, those poor beasts with no prospect of ever attaining the emerald heights. The horse, the hippo, the humble cow; what hope have these of escaping their earthbound condition?

      Above all, wear your scars with pride. Nothing commends a person like a jacket torn at the elbow or trousers greened at the knee. Bruises and cuts from the whip of high branches are badges of honour to parade among well-tailored ground dwellers. Turning in after a day exploring the city’s trees, I once found my entire buttocks covered in a constellation of savage bites. I was eager to know what poor invertebrate had been stirred into such a frenzy of retribution. On another occasion, sitting down to a meal in a Greenwich pub, a cedar cone dropped from my hair into my neighbour’s pint. This wonderful specimen had attached itself to my crop by means of some highly adhesive sap. Although forced to swap my untouched beer for his now somewhat resinous brew, I was immensely pleased that a token of the day’s adventures had followed me back to earth. Stepping into a beech, cedar or pine brings us closer to nature than a thousand safaris, and has as much to teach us as an entire zoo viewed through Perspex panels.

A Warning to the Curious

      Bonae actionis uir, incautius in arborem ascendens deciderat deorsum, et, contrito corpore. (A worthy man, having incautiously mounted a tree, had fallen down, and died from the bruise.)

      Life of Cuthbert, Bede

      In many ways you are never safer than when up a tree. The moment you climb into one you remove yourself from many of the city’s everyday dangers. You are, for instance, unlikely to be mugged at altitude. Pickpockets operate far below and, generally speaking, haven’t hung out in trees since the highwayman’s heyday. You’d be equally unfortunate to be hit by the number 91 from Crouch End, the five o’clock from Waterloo or a lycra-clad cyclist with a death wish. Tourist scrums, crowded streets, screaming schoolchildren: many of a city’s most frightening phenomena are confined to ground level.

      This is not to say that trees are without their inherent dangers. What follows is some friendly advice, most of which is common sense. I want to encourage people to climb, but to do so knowing their own limits and those of the tree. The joy of exploring canopy is too precious to throw under the health and safety steamroller; climbing trees involves a managed risk and, with due care, we need not fall to an early grave.

      It is easy to forget that what goes up must come down. In a fit of cloud-chasing exuberance you might shoot up a tree paying little, if any, attention to your return journey. It is always harder to descend; instead of springing up off bended knee you are lowering yourself on tired arms, while blindly feeling for footholds. Sitting pretty in a tree top, you might be sky high with confidence. Look down between your knees and this momentary elation can swiftly change to crippling fear. However high you climb, always remember the way back.

      On emerging at the top of a tree you might get the urge to jump and shout, wave frantically and generally draw attention to yourself in any manner possible. When confronted with a panoramic view of the city and a host of tiny people wandering far below, the human ego is prone to inflate to regal proportions. I call this ‘king-of-the-castle complex’ and strongly discourage it. Not only does such showboating distract from the important task of balancing on a branch, but you are disrespecting the noble practice of climbing trees. If you had lived in prehistory any large passing predator would have instantly devoured you. In medieval times bored archers might have used you for target practice. Today people will probably just think you’re a jerk. There’s a lot to be said for silent appreciation.

      Remember to take a friend, at least to begin with. Exploring with a companion not only drastically expands your climbing remit, as outlined in the previous section, but also provides you with a handy insurance policy. In the unlikely event of falling from on high and injuring yourself, it’s vital to have someone on hand to be a hero and help out. Lying at the bottom of a tree alone and in pain is not advised; you will only attract the attention of passing vultures.

      Climbing trees is sadly no longer a national pastime, and in the city it’s a rare sight. Because of this, park authorities and other powers-that-be might show surprise at finding you dangling from a branch. There is no natural law that prevents humans from climbing trees but there are a fair few man-made ones. Many of these lie open to interpretation but you may not have an inalienable right to be in your chosen tree. Be polite and find another if needs be.

      When in the canopy try to resist taking endless reams of photographs. Confining the sum total of your experience to the eye hole of a camera creates memories more unreliable than your own. The camera becomes the moment itself and the joy of the climb is forgotten.

      The trees themselves deserve due veneration; they’ve all lived here longer than you. Ancients that have survived many centuries of city life should be allowed to retire gracefully in old age without the strain of climbers on their world-weary branches.

      The trees СКАЧАТЬ