"MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME" OR "How Wild Bill tried to kill me THIS time"
I saw my cardiologist last Thursday 5-5-11 on the 8 week anniversary of my heart surgery and he told me my sternum should be healed enough that I could do just about anything I wanted to . So, naturally, I went home & threw a 44' pitch into one of the oak trees in my back yard and rigged for a delta cinch with Poison Ivy rope and rigged for a YOYO climb with the EDDY. I figured this technique uses mostly my leg muscles and would stress my sternum the least. Starting "low & slow" I ascended to about 20' to the first major branch & just enjoyed being in a tree for the first time in over two months. My gosh, it was SWEAT. No discomfort, so I figured I had not done myself any major damage and proceeded to ascend to each available perch on the way up to my TIP. Man, it felt good to be in a tree again. not wanting to over do it, I descended and just basked in the afterglow for the rest of the afternoon.
Friday, I re- threw a 45' pitch and , once again rigged for SRT and climbed to my TIP YOYO with the EDDY, then once again with the GRIGRI. Everything working fine & no discomfort, so I threw a new 20' setting and rigged for DRT. I hip thrust up to the TIP and then descended. I figured this was the acid test because it uses more arm strength (and subsequent pulling on the chest) as anything else. No problems! Needless to say, I treated myself to an adult beverage in celebration afterwards. This was also a "first" after two months.
Sunday, I called Wild Bill Mayer and set up a climbing date for Monday.
Monday morning found me at Galactic Headquarters where Wild Bill graciously provided a couple of bottles of sparking pure Rogue Creek Spring Water & we were off. A brief visit to Swampy's (Jeff Newman's) coffee shop for one of the best bagels and cups of coffee in North Georgia, then we were on our way. Wild Bill directed me down several "roads" through the Dawsonville Forest where we parked the car next to the big fence that surrounds the former nuclear research facility that is now (for some reason) off limits to we mere civilians. Then it was a brisk walk down several miles of horse trails until we got to the end of the road at a huge concrete buttress where the bridge used to be. From there, we turned off to the right and struggled down hill and followed the Etowah River for several hundred feet until we finally got to "the spot". We passed several very large trees that all had the unfortunate luck to be covered in poison ivy vines that looked to be larger than the trees that pretended to hold them up. We finally arrived at "the Tree" : a huge Tulip Poplar about 42" DBH. It took about 10 shots with the Sidewinder to finally get a good 70' setting through all of the underbrush. We rigged a "wrap 3 pull 2" trunk tie off with Wild Bill's Bandit rope & attached my 150' Poison Ivy to it with a carabiner. Wild Bill offered me first climb, so I rigged for YOYO with the EDDY and made my way though the fragrant Honeysuckle understory and into open air as I worked my way up. Once I was at a very comfortable crotch around 65', I lanyard off DRT with the end of my rope, Wild Bill untied the trunk tie off and I pulled up Wild Bill's rope for a delta cinch setting at about 80'. Once Bill joined me at his TIP using Texas SRT, he set up a new TIP for me at about 85', This DRT advance provided me with a very comfortable perch on a pair of branches. Man it felt great to be off the ground and surrounded by fresh green Poplar leaves and newly opened Poplar flowers all around. We just chilled for a good 45 minutes and noted as to how we could easily gain another 20' or 24' higher if we felt like it, but we were both quite content to just sit and chill where we were while Bill entertained me with tails including ones of tree climbers getting their ropes stuck in a tree and having to self rescue or be rescued. We finally decided to head earthward, and I did 3 down pitches to reach the ground. Bill chose to descend SRT on his ID. Once on the ground, I let Bill pull his rope first, then started to pull mine out. Sure enough, Bill put the HOO DOO on me and my rope most inconveniently decided to wedge into the very narrow crotch where the tree split into two vertical leaders about 35' up. No amount of pulling, tugging or flipping was going to free the rope. After another half dozen shots with the Sidewinder, we finally got an acceptable TIP and Wild Bill graciously climbed back up to rescue my stuck rope. A leisurely stroll back through the poison ivy patches up to our eyeballs and we were back on the horse trails and headed for civilization. I think I'm going to call this tree "Wild Bills Voo-Doo Tree" because I've never stuck a rope until he beguiled me with his tales of woe. All in all, it was a WONDERFUL day in the trees. It's great to be alive and climbing again! Sorry, no photos. My son dropped and broke our camera recently and I did not discover this until yesterday. Booger.
Wiley Coyote.

Wiley, it's very nice to see you back in action! Good on ya!

...it was only a half-mile hike, and the poison ivy never, ever got higher than our waists...and the Coyote-man lived to write about it...!

Nice going Wiley!

Congrats for getting back in the saddle! Ive been there with the rope getting stuck when it really shouldnt! Irritating to say the least!! I would think a St. Bernard would work for rope aswell as stuck throwlines..