Growing Up Inside A Douglas Fir
“Mom. I don’t want to go camping very much this summer.” I
flinched. It had already been discussed between my two kids and I that this summer
was going to be a close-to-home adventure summer with lots of backpacking,
hiking, swimming, biking, and camping. My daughter’s backseat declaration
that she did not want to do the outdoorsy things that we had planned across the
non-school season was startling. My kids
have grown up in the dirt since they were babies, dragging dolls across shallow river beds, hunting
for pirate treasure and fairy homes in the hollows of nurse logs, and finding
every opportunity to take mud baths with frogs.
Why now, at 9 years old, was she telling me she wanted to opt out?
“Well,” I responded, “given that we’re driving up to the
mountain right this very moment to camp out for the night, I’d say we’re not
off to a very good start of avoiding summer camping trips.” She shrugged and
went back to being annoyed at her 12 year old brother, whose latest favorite
pastime meant sticking his head out of the rolled down window like a dog until
his hair stood on end.
We were on our way to meet up in the Mt. Hood National
Forest with the team from Expedition Old Growth. The plan was to camp out for
the night and then wake early and climb up into a reallllly tall tree. I had
the opportunity to climb with Expedition Old Growth in the fall of 2016, and
the experience had permeated me, transformed my perspective about the forest
and my relationship with it. I wanted my kids to feel just as affected, sooner
rather than later, and to witness the woods from up above the understory.
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photos: Uncage the Soul - full album here |
The matter of fact truth is that kids are natural born tree
climbers. Any parent can attest, as soon as toddlers are confident in their
toddling, they’ll set their sights higher. They’ll instinctively know how to
dig their fingers into the right holds, whether they be the knotty sides of
fallen logs or the unrelenting rigidness of a rock crevice. Up is exciting. Up
reveals a different view. Up means there’s so much more to explore.
But we can only climb so high with our limiting limbs. And
our curiosity-fueled ambitious scrambles are not without affect: our hands
brush away century-old moss and lichen, our knees scrape off bark and branches,
our feet crush tender shoots. By climbing instead with professional arborists
we can ascend higher than if we tried to Tarzan up, and we can ascend safely,
with the proper care to minimize our impact.
Damien Carré, owner/operator of Expedition Old Growth, laid
the ground rules early: Watch where you step. Stay on the trail. If maneuvering
around the base of a tree that’s rigged to climb, take care to not step on emerging
vegetation. Tip toe against the trunk, but don’t kick, don’t grasp or pull. Use
the rope to ascend, not the branches. Remember, we were not invited here to
climb, but we are not unwelcome either. So show respect. Be a good neighbor. And
be a better guest.
No sooner had we pulled into the lot at the campsite then
both kids were out and running, off on a trail that disappeared into ferns and
blue violets. I spotted them shortly thereafter scrambling along the river’s
edge, walking sticks in hand. My daughter was clearly having a hard time
committing to her earlier disdain for a summer of camping. I could see radiant
waves of pure unfettered imaginative bliss emanating off of them as they danced
along the fallen logs and skipped over smooth river rocks, the way you can see
dust particles when the sunlight shines behind them. I love seeing my children in
this light, even more than I love seeing them enjoy kale. Joy, good health,
curiosity, and fresh air. Wild childhood cultivates healthy humans who live
without limitation.
The experiences we provide to children serve as the
foundation for their passions, interests, and belief systems. It is this which
ultimately guides their paths through adolescence, and into adulthood. Climbing
up inside a Douglas Fir is an immersive experience that hits the sweet spot
where adventure and education intersect. It isn’t a flash in the pan thrill
like bungee jumping, it isn’t an Instagram opportunity that begs to be the next
aspirational hashtag. It’s the opportunity to saturate the senses as ascension
reveals new details. A shift in perspective that kicks in somewhere around the
first of the low branches, somewhere around forty feet off the forest floor. A euphoric alteration of the status quo as gravity is defied and toes carefully tip tap
upward along the tapered trunk. The
tangy taste of a fresh fir needle. The sweet and undiluted smell of sap;
tangible and sticky evidence of the vascular similarities between a centuries
old evergreen and a decade old child. Going nose to nose with the thick and deeply
furrowed bark of a living, breathing, sentient being.
Just about anyone over the age of five can ascend with Expedition Old Growth. Climbers are secured in a harness with both foot
and knee ascenders to shift the climb effort from the upper body to the legs.
Or there is the option to be “elevatored up”, where one person who is
already in the tree serves as the counterweight for someone below. My son climbed up like the natural
monkey he's always been, and my daughter took the elevator, and delighted in the feeling of
flight as she was hoisted up while I was lowered down. Once I was back up on
the forest floor I gazed up to where the ropes disappeared into the canopy. My
children were way up there! Hanging out in their harnesses with Damien and “Slug Master Ben” (who earned his new nickname after successfully convincing
my newly squeamish 9 year old that slugs were actually pretty dang cool). No
internet, no apps or games, no schoolwork … just fluffy moss that clung to high
branches like pollen on a bumblebee and an adventurous education 200 feet up
inside a Douglas Fir with these fun and passionate guides.
Right now the world is hard. Maybe parents say that
regardless of generation, but this is the only one I’ve known. And these are my
only children. And it does. It feels hard. Administrative disdain for our natural
spaces, rampant social injustice, violence, a halt to what seemed like
environmental progress. It is a challenge to keep my kids informed without
taking a jackhammer to their innocence. I want my kids to be immersed in this
world and to be compelled to find constant connection, to be stewards, to know
why fighting for the protection of our public lands is critical, to understand
the sacredness of clean air and water and how we will lose those essentials
without the symbiotic relationship we have with trees. I want them to
understand their own role as good neighbors and protectors, and I want them to
live passionately, but without fear as the motivation for action. When it comes
time for them to consider a first job, I want for them to look beyond the fast
food and retail status quo options, and instead consider an apprenticeship as
an arborist, or a river guide, or anything that springboards off of a passion
for the outdoors, one that was nurtured when they were kids, sparked perhaps while
brushing shoulders with a Giant of the Forest.
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Expedition Old Growth owner/operator Damien Carré. |
As my kids floated one by one back down to earth, dappled in
sunrays, they each, unbeknownst to the other, sang a song. My son touched down
first singing “Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can …”. And then my
daughter completed her descent with “I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch
the sky!” We hugged and high fived, and gave our respects to the firs and
cedars and broad leaf maples, to the creek rushing by us, to the chipmunks
flitting out of snags and stumps.
I turned to my daughter, “Do you still not
want to go camping very much this summer?” I asked. She pulled the sucked on
stem of sorrel out of her mouth and said, “Well. I just mean camping that’s,
you know, far away, like out of state. Let’s stay in Oregon and go camping. A
lot.”
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Mmm sorrel. |
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This was not a sponsored article. I simply want YOU and your children to find a way to climb a tree with Expedition Old Growth. Yes, it's thrilling. Yes, it's beautiful. Yes, it's super fun. But a lot of activities are all those things but don't provide that critical fourth element: perspective-shifting. An experience that creates a foundational memory from which a wild child can flourish into a healthy adult who's keen on conserving this splendid planet. Find an event with Expedition Old Growth. Because right now is the best time to grow. Up.
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