Same here, i kick dangerous deadwood spikes so they blend in... it's funny, there has been the same exact debate going on in the rock climbing world about bolting cliffs for sport routes. The leave no trace people say the metal hardware on the cliffs reflects the sunset/rise and sparkles, while some see beauty in this display of sparkles they see ugliness. Is your glass half empty or half full kind of thing... I guess it's really all about how you see beauty in the world, if a beaver cuts a tree in the forest would the cut be beautiful? I think at the beavers omnimax show they said one pair of adult beavers will fell over 400 trees in a year! Other animals modify the forest, from pandas to ants.. they all take a nibble. hmmmm meditate on this i will (yoda voice)

I think its mostly inconsequential... at this point in human history we have modified almost every aspect of our environment... deadwooding during a rec tree climb should be the least of an environmentalists concern... more importantly would be focusing energy on something like the reintroduction of hemp as a resource... then we can press 2x4s out of 3 month old hemp fiber rather than cut down the pine stands we're talking about here in the first place.

For a rec climb for a group in a park like setting prune away. Its a common practice to clean a tree for a programed climb

In wilderness pruning does not belong at all in my opinion. The essence of wilderness is that man is merely a visitor. There is no more need for an arborist in wilderness as there is for an electrician or a banker.





This is precisely my point. Man has made his mark nearly everywhere. there are only a few places you can go and not see any sign of man. I think its a real good idea to keep it that way in those places.

well said Adam.

there are far bigger issues then if someone has pruned a limb or kicked it off if it could endanger someone.

there is being environmentally aware, and there is being environmentally safe, do you all remember that whacko Tim Treadwell, the guy who lived and tried to get cuddly with bears, calling them boo-boo and naming them, trying to walk and live among them without a gun or bearspray?

Even the park rangers who were in charge of keeping the bears safe warned him not to trust a wild animal, he wanted to be more than just a "visitor", he wanted to be "one with the bears" and he was very pro-leave-no-trace... But, that being said,he could have taken measures that would not have been the best for the bears in the event of a problem.

He was killed and eaten, along with his lady friend...

There is being safe and being careless, and me personally? if I were leading a climb and there were dangerous spikes that could, if something happened, impale a fellow climber??? I would kick them suckers off without a second though as to what someone would think when the came across a benign looking limb on the deck.

I am a firm advocate of leaving a wilderness tree as is, EXCEPT if there is a valid threat to human safety, and if that tree was the intended tree with no other options.
limbs and branches come off all the time from wind, other limbs, animal, snow, ice, it happens everyday.


We can't be completely close-minded on some issues where threat of injury that CAN be avoided is present. that being said, I would not take my Silky's out of the kit bag if it was a wilderness climb for fun...

There is something a little amiss here , with this banter over work and rec, I think WE ALL owe a bit of our opportunity to the working or "pro" climbers who came before us, it is with their methods that we climb today, both rec AND work... we share a common root folks

This is good banter. For working climbers, perhaps there are some ideas about climbing and ethics you were unaware of?

Within the rec/adventure climbing community there are many different ideas about what is appropriate for behavior in the woods. I've been in the woods with rec climbers who were busting out every bit of deadwood they could kick loose. And shouting "Headache!" constantly. Talk about ruining a perfectly good climb! Nobody's perfect. Some expectations need to be adjusted though. Working climbers can't walk in and expect everyone to agree with them. What makes sense on the job may be irrelevant off the job. The experienced rec climbers aren't just busting nuts, many years and hours in trees have brought them to ways of doing things that don't match up to conventional work climbing practices.
-moss

Rec climbers aren't in the woods making a living like a beaver, bear or any other member of the forest ecosystem. It's our job to be as low impact as possible. A beaver cut is indeed beautiful.
-moss

I hike quite a lot in National Wildernesses here in the US, mostly around Yosemite and the rest of the Sierras. There's a body of regulations and hiker ethics that's built up over time regarding true Wilderness activity. Leave No Trace and such are often followed, but at the same time it is legal to build fires etc with deadwood collected from the ground. The general rule amongst hikers is if you need a saw to cut it, it's too big for your fire. Might that be a good guide for wilderness pruning?

I agree completely -- 110 percent, in fact -- with Moss. The beaver is part of Mother Nature's plan for the wilderness; man needs to take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints -- unless his family is starving and he is desperate for firewood and/or shelter.

I don't like to quote myself, but a couple of years ago I commented:

"It's every tree climber's responsibility to make sure the non-climbing public doesn't become the anti-climbing public."

I've been told by one of the top superintendents in the U.S. Forest Service that if we'd followed this maxim we might still be able to climb the awesomely giant tulip poplars in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in western North Carolina. Instead, we're banned from climbing any tree that's within 100 yards of a trail (the trail goes to the bases of every one of the 84 giants).

Why? Because a small group of professional arborists took it upon themselves to cut dead limbs at random and drop them onto the trail. One little old lady birdwatcher who just happened to be on the trail below the tree decided to contact her congressman because of the incident.

So, here's my poor adaptation of an old country music song:

"Don't take your saws to th' forest, son,
"Please leave your saws at home.
"Don't take your saws to th' forest, son,
"Or you're doomed to hang alone..."

HAHAHA bear spray!

Those animals live in the forest and feed off of that region. We humans have the potential to descend as a swarm, coming from all over. Although the beavers you mention are making a huge resurgence and are causing problems in their traditional ranges

One person deadwooding parts of a single tree in the middle of a rarely visited pine forest is unlikely to be noticed. To carry it to an extreme, though: Get a crowd of climbers up in the old growth redwoods 'deadwooding' even a little, the public will get very upset. That's why there are wilderness regulations - one person performing an activity may leave little trace, but ten or a hundred doing the same thing can cause problems.

I think a lot of the 'Leave No Trace' ethic isn't about being environmentally friendly, it's about leaving the area relatively untouched so that it feels wild.

(edit) WildBill, you posted at the same time, your example is a perfect one, that's why we shouldn't be trimming deadwood in wild trees.

So what is the point of mentioning the tragically misguided and delusional Timothy Treadwell (in regard to the climber impact/ethics discussion)? Please elaborate, I'm trying to understand what you're getting at. I can sort of guess but would rather you explain it so I don't get it wrong.
-mossy

I have nothing to say here! I just wanted to make the 12,oooth post!

The pro climber pruning perspective is based on hazard assessment for residential area trees.

No one's saying you shouldn't be safe in the woods. I'm saying you don't need to prune except in very rare instances.

As Joe mentioned when you climb a wild tree you need to have the experience and skill to climb safely around hazards. Lead climber makes the assessment, moves ropes around as needed to make a better route for climbers following if needed. Or takes out a hazard if needed, but the bar is set very high, most climbs there's never a need to take any deadwood out. That's the rec climber wilderness ethics perspective you can follow it or not.

If a wild tree is that hazardous that you need to prune the crap out of it to climb it go find another one, right? There's plenty of trees in the woods, no one's forcing anyone to climb a tree that makes them feel uncomfortable. In rec climbing you have the luxury to choose whatever tree you want to climb in the woods.
-moss

Damn you! I wanted that sooo bad!
-mossified

MossyMoss! There is no point here! It's a strategic withdrawal! It's the idea that if you can't win one argument, you change the subject and try to start another one!!!!

there is being environmentally conscious, leave it wild and don't change anything...let it lie.

but you need to be safe too.

Tim Treadwell wanted to leave things wild, untouched, as they are,

he died.

Climbers who climb a dangerous tree with a refusal to do a bit of altering to prevent human injury or worse?? or at least pick a different tree?

that is not safe.

Had Treadwell kept a back-up firearm or at the very least bearspray??

maybe things would have been different?

I used this analogy to say that keeping a saw nearby if needed, or even kicking a potentially harmful deadwood piece of is okay IF it is going to help climbers be safe.

NO amount of leave-no-trace is worth harm to a person because they are too stubborn to play it a bit safe.