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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 11, 2010 - 06:44pm PT
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Palm Climbing
(All photos by Kike Arnal)
Over the last 14 years, I’ve spent long periods of time living in the jungle in southern Venezuela with Ye’kwana and Sanema people. Palm fruits provide critical nutrition to these indigenous groups and for many others across the Guiana Shield and Amazon Basin. Traditionally, men climb forest palms using bark or vine slings that they lever against the stem with their feet (indigenous women do other work that involves stunning levels of strength and skill).
The climbing can be strenuous. Stems of one of the most important palms, Oenocarpus bataua, are quite smooth--very different from coconut palms on a sunny beach. Add a bit of moss and some moisture and you are facing a very physical effort. Then you get to hang on fifty feet up while you hack through the raceme with a machete.
In a widespread pattern over the past couple of decades, young men have largely rejected climbing. Instead, they’ve taken to felling palms for their fruit, depletion of the resource be damned. Interesting why this has happened now, given that steel axes have been used by most native rain forest people for many decades, if not centuries. There is a genuine hopelessness among many of the indigenous young men I know with its attendant alcoholism, suicide, and uninspiring search for meaning in the wider world that is enveloping them with greater speed and force every passing month.
Emilio Rodriguez, a Ye’kwana leader, and I decided that perhaps the best way to understand the destruction of these resources would be to start on reversing it. We organized the first Caura River palm climbing workshop and competition in 2002. 12-meter poles went into the sand and there was a forest practice component as well. We’ve done two more events since and they demonstrate that traditional climbing competitions and new gear can spark a return to sustainable fruit harvests.
We’ve gone from girth-hitched aiders made from 1-inch webbing (quite painful in bare feet) to the system you see in these photos, which I adapted from a rawhide rope design used in Brazil on coconut palms. And we always emphasize traditional foot sling skill as well, using a variety of materials.
We are still building the palm climbing project. Above you see the winner of the 2008 comp, Shikoy, a Sanema man in his fifties, touching the top on the third and final lap of a traditional ascent. The enthusiasm and grit shown by these guys keep us motivated to improve our own efforts. We’ve a long way to go before this project will result in the widespread conservation of palm populations throughout Neotropical rain forests, but I’m convinced that we can get there.
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adam d
climber
closer to waves than rock
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Feb 11, 2010 - 06:47pm PT
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pretty cool!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Feb 11, 2010 - 06:48pm PT
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Nice work Tarek, admirable.
And really good pix also.
Thanks for sharing.
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Feb 11, 2010 - 06:54pm PT
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Very nice effort!
It seems to add a motivational element to their work.
Thanks for the read and keep up the good work.
Maybe you can send some info and get a company to sponsor the equipment. Seems like a noble cause that many large corporations would want to get on board for.
Mucci
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hooblie
climber
from where the anecdotes roam
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Feb 11, 2010 - 06:56pm PT
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this makes my day. one story like this puts a big wad of that other kind in the shade
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tonesfrommars
Trad climber
California
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Feb 11, 2010 - 07:05pm PT
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Brilliant.
Man, thanks for sharing this with us.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 11, 2010 - 07:10pm PT
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Cool.
(but the title made me think this was going to be about far longer solo ascents,..)
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jstan
climber
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Feb 11, 2010 - 07:16pm PT
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For my palm climbing I just use girth hitches. The ankle thong is really neat but I suspect it does not work so well when the trunk is changing diameter. Maybe I don't see how you are adjusting it.
I am going to cut our palm down. It is getting almost two feet taller each year and I have to go up a half dozen times each year. PITA and I don't want to have it get so wobbly I have to hire a cherry picker.
I did work out a way to cut down on the climbing. I fixed an anchor at the top using wire rope leaving a loop of string hanging down. I pull a climbing rope up through the anchor using the string.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2010 - 08:08pm PT
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Thanks much for the kind words. I've been very fortunate to work with the people in the photos and many others.
mucci: Patagonia helped support the first event in '02, Black Diamond Equipment provided gear at a steep discount.
jstan: you are correct, the foot sling is best in one diameter range and it's not adjustable while climbing. Being monocots, some species of palms can hold one diameter well, but others vary wildly. The new gear we designed loosens very easily, slides up the stem, and locks with no cinching. Almost like a jumar on a rope when you have it down.
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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Feb 11, 2010 - 08:25pm PT
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awesome project, and Kike's photography is stunning.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Feb 11, 2010 - 09:14pm PT
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Jstan,
Don't cut your palm!!!!
People will pay for those, at least they'll remove it for nothing.
I got $1,800 for two rat-infested twenty-five footers a couple years ago.
Don't throw money away!
You're smart to get rid of your palm, by the way. They're ALL infested with rats. Every one of them, even the palms on Rodeo Drive.
EDTI:
If you DO cut it, and use a chainsaw, DON"T use your own chainsaw, whatever you do. Rent one for this job, but don't tell the rental place what you'll be using it for.
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Feb 11, 2010 - 10:20pm PT
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I would second the suggestion to have an unwanted palm tree transplanted rather than just cut down, large ones are worth a lot of money because it takes so long to grow them. Also second the comment about using someone else's chain saw. There is a lot of silica in the vascular bundle sheaths of palms, aka "quartz", and not so hot for any blade.
Tarek, your work on this is admirable. The only thing that saves many palm species in NW S. Amer. is that, for the reasons mentioned just above, they are often left standing when forest is clear-cut. While collecting in Choco, I would sometimes see quite extensive clearcuts with not a stick left standing except certain palm species. You also might have mentioned that the hazards include encounters with nests of very large stinging ponerine ants (which are generally ground-nesting but will utilize trees in areas where the rainfall is particularly high, above 8,000 mm or so per year. Also attacks by those tiny little Polybia wasps which often have small hanging nests underneath large leaves, including those of palms. Small though they be, it is one of the worst stings of any flying insect.
Have you seen the Dayak (especially Iban Dayak) tree climbers of Indonesia/Malaysia? They are even more impressive, especially since they do not even use the foot sling, just manage their legs into a frog-like position and up they go, even on sizable trunks (almost 1 m diameter) perfectly round and smooth, and no branch for 15-20 m or more. It's mind-boggling to see. I managed to learn the basic technique from them but of course was only able to ascend small-diameter trees (up to about 40 cm) and only for about 10 m or so before I absolutely had to get to a branch. In addition to having vastly superior technique, I suspect they are also incredibly strong little guys.
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David Wilson
climber
CA
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Feb 12, 2010 - 12:11am PT
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The back story of these palm climbing projects is they've brought together the indigenous people in this basin and raised the overall awareness of the value of the old ways. Interesting that something as basic as climbing a tree to collect the fruit could be lost in favor of a chainsaw in less than a generation. These palm climbing projects sound simple but could have far reaching results. Bravo to this effort!
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Sebastopol, CA
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Feb 12, 2010 - 12:56am PT
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Well this is all very interesting. I work with this gallery that sells designer palm wood furniture from a company called Pacific Green International. http://pacificgreeninternational.com/ Its supposed to be an Aussie company working out of Fiji. Their tagline: "Save the Forests, Use Palmwood." As I understand it they are using wood from non-producing trees in old coconut plantations. Is it legit, or BS? The furniture is pretty cool, durable and well designed. Their site makes it sound like a good thing for the Fijians.
Btw, if anyone wants some of this stuff let me know. I can ship it right to your door.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2010 - 12:37pm PT
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thanks mongrel, yes the insects...I could go on and on about my experiences with insects up in palms. Many times I've been in a race to cut the raceme loose as ants furiously emerged from their nest deep in among the fruits. Wasps, and all of the rest. Never have encountered Paraponera in a palm--thankfully. If you were aiding and high up when that happened, you could buy it.
Interesting on the Dayak. That would be amazing to see. The palms I show in the above photos can get so slippery that once I was unable to stop a descent using the footsling (after aiding the palm in a light rain), but had to use all the force I could muster just to avoid falling altogether.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2010 - 12:42pm PT
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Jerry, thanks, we were really lucky to have Kike there.
I know nothing about the palm wood furniture, but can easily imagine it being fully legit and a great alternative to tropical hardwoods. It seems to be made possible by old plantations...now if we can just avoid so many new plantations (nothing to do with the company you mention), we'd be in good shape.
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426
climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Feb 12, 2010 - 01:19pm PT
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Interesting stuff. I saw some wild tree climbing in India, mostly solo. Thx for sharin...i thought this was gonna be hard oblique dihedrals...
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Feb 12, 2010 - 02:57pm PT
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Very cool project. Thanks for posting this as it was both interesting and informative.
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taorock
Trad climber
Okanogan, WA
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Mar 18, 2010 - 12:37am PT
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bump for a very worthy thread and for the OP who I remember watching recover great amounts of booty from the Bastille crack..
tao
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 31, 2011 - 01:22pm PT
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More info on the project here
The video has footage from several events, 2002-2009, and its purpose is to raise funds for the next event, in May.
We are looking for old harnesses...to be cut up and used to make stirrups.
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