The Tall, the Wide and the Elders

Are tall trees your thing? What about trees with wide, thick trunks? Or are you drawn to old trees no matter their size?

Any one of these characteristics can be of interest to me; although, I'm also drawn to trees with a peculiar or unique form as they have character and can tell great stories.

I've discussed notable trees in each of these categories when it comes to the oldest known single-stemmed tree in the world to the largest bur oak in Wisconsin.

This time I'm looking through the assortment of climbing trees we use in our facilitated climb programs.

What is the tallest tree we climb? How about the oldest? Maybe more appealing to some climbers, which tree supports the highest route they can climb? Let's look at the numbers.

---

The Crown Jewel

Honestly, I'm not sure any single measurement is the most impressive number that draws my attention. While crown spread may not be at the top of my list of key measurements, it can certainly draw me in when it provides perspective.

The crown of a tree refers to the top section with the branches. The average spread of the crown, or how far out the branches reach, can lead to an impressively large tree that sprawls over a large area of ground.

Our climbing tree in Waukesha's Fox River Parkway north park has a crown that spreads close to 100 feet wide! All the way around, this bur oak is one of the larger trees we climb as it is also nearly 80 feet tall and has an impressively wide trunk.

The Woodfield Oak is likely to be in the range of 200-250 years old.

Another one of our bur oak climbing trees in Waukesha also sports a wide-spreading crown, closer to 8o feet. While the FRP oak is rather tall for the species, the Woodfield Oak is more modest in its height, which is why the wide-spreading branches, swooping low to the ground lends to the tree's appealing character.

Having been lost to a tornado, past climbers enjoyed getting into this huge eastern cottonwood, which had a trunk diameter over 5 feet wide!

Fat Trunked Trees

The tree with the largest trunk diameter (aka widest or thickest) comes in at 48" wide. We actually have 2 trees in this size class. In addition to Amara, the Fox River Parkway tree I just mentioned, the white oak we climb in Verona has also reached 48"dbh.

A trunk's width is measured at roughly 4 1/2 feet above the ground, referred to as Diameter-at-Breast-Height or DBH. The measurement is used in regard to timber harvesting as it relates to the volume of wood in the trunk. It's also used by arborists for a similar reason as it provides a measurement for proper dose sizing with assorted applications.

If you're impressed simply by the shear size of a tree, thick trunks dwarfing the size of a human are a neat sight. Both Amara and Laurelin, the white oak in Verona, provide for a great photo-op when I have a climber on rope and the trunk immediately behind them for scale.

Prior to July of this year, our tree with the widest trunk came in at 63" dbh, over 5 feet wide! Vega, an eastern cottonwood in Fox Crossing, had the most amazing trunk that dwarfed even adults who stood in front of it. The tragic tornado this past July that ran from Outagamie into Winnebago County, toppled or broke the tops out of practically every tree in the park.

---

Respect Your Elders

Age is certainly something that draws my attention, although it is not typically related to the size of the tree. More often than not, the oldest trees in the area are not necessarily the largest trees. Sometimes the oldest trees have been growing in less-than-ideal locations, yet they plug away, day after day, year after year.

Precise aging of a tree involves counting its annual growth rings. The more common ways to count the rings on a stump after a tree has been cut down or use an increment borer; basically a hollow drill bit that allows you to pull out a cylinder of wood from a living tree.

In lieu of those methods, we can take the average growth rate of a tree species and multiply it by the DBH measurement of the tree. This at least gets us in the ball park. If we have insight into the growing conditions, such as soil fertility, climatic conditions, and historic site use conditions, we can use them to adjust the age estimate. 

I believe the oldest tree we climb is at Century School Park in Verona. Being a white oak with a 48" DBH trunk, the age formula calculation puts it at roughly 240 years old. Of course an estimate can't give a precise age given all the variables that would have impacted its actual growth rate; therefore I am more inclined to think this tree is likely to be in the 200-250 year range.

At the same time, the bur oak we climb in Woodfield Park (Waukesha) measures at a 46" DBH. Bur oak has a slightly faster growth rate than white oak, therefore the age estimate calculation based on the formula is 207 years of age. When we look a little deeper, historically this tree was at one time part of a homestead where soil compaction from cattle was believed to be a primary contributor to this tree experiencing a period of declining health.

Eventually the tree stabilized and rebounded, and today exhibits an average growth rate typical of mature bur oaks. All that said, the true age of this tree just might fall well over the 207 year calculation.

Climbing tall trees like these in eastern WI is quite energizing when suspended high above the ground!

Head and Shoulders Above the Rest

If I had to guess, height is where it is at for most people. The two most common questions I am asked: What is the tallest tree you've climbed? What is the highest you've climbed?

The tallest tree we use in our facilitated programs is approximately 85 feet tall. Georgia is a pin oak at our Sun Prairie climbing location. Other trees in the 80ft range include the black walnut in Cutler Park (Alle, Waukesha) and Amara (the bur oak we started with at the top of this article).

All of those measurements had to do with tree size. When it comes to climbers however, more often they just want to know how high they climbed.

The majority of the ropes we set for climbers in any of our trees are going to be 15-45 feet high. In fact, with most of our climbing trees & locations, the highest rope participants can climb are up to 35-45 feet.

One tree, one rope, is higher than all others, and that line setting is in...Alle, the black walnut we climb in Cutler Park. It happens to be right across the street from our office in downtown Waukesha and gets climbers at 50 feet when they reach the top of the rope!

---

Let's Go Higher

Some people are driven ever higher. At the same time, most participants notice that the facilitator's rope (aka my rope) often goes much higher than the ropes they get to climb. That's another question we get often...."can I climb your rope". 

In a few of the trees we climb, my rope is usually set 50-60 feet high. Aside from my staff, students and climbing friends, there are only a few people who get the opportunity to climb to this height with us. Participants at our Open-Advanced Climbs are given the opportunity to climb my rope!