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(Photo by Marge Felder)
Tree climbers like Genevieve Summers,
pictured here, use ropes, a harness and a self-belay
system to scale anything from hickories and oaks to giant sequoias.
This story appeared in Sports Illustrated for Women, November
2001.
 t
may sound a bit odd for a woman who spends much of her time atop
ten-story trees, but Genevieve Summers used to be afraid of heights. To
be more precise, Summers was afraid of the heights she scaled when she
worked as a chimney sweep. While Summers loved climbing, she had no way
to prevent herself from falling off chimneys. "My life was always
on the edge," she says. "It was crazy, dangerous work and I
was always afraid." Luckily, that’s when she took a recreational
tree-climbing course at the Atlanta-based Tree Climbers International,
where she learned how to scale trees using a climbing harness and a
self-belay system for protection. That was eleven years ago, and Summers
enjoyed the course so much that she became one of only a handful of
full-time recreational tree-climbing instructors in the country.
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At her Alto, Georgia-based Dancing With Trees, Summers,
50, teaches people how to climb Tonya, a 75-foot white oak, and Rachel,
a 125-foot tulip poplar, so they can explore the forest from a different
angle.
"It’s not about getting to the top," she says. "I’m
into journeying, not conquering." Once climbers feel comfortable
scaling trees, she shows them how to do "flying traverses,"
climbing from one tree to another, while 60 feet or more above ground.
"It’s a safe sport that has no recorded fatalities or serious
injuries," says Summers. "Climbers can get ‘bark bites,’
which are scratches from brushing up against the trees, but I tell my
students they haven’t had a good climb unless they have bark in their
underwear."
For students who can’t get enough, Summers organizes tree-climbing
expeditions to scale 260-foot sequoias in California; she also runs
overnight trips—called "B&B in the Treetops"—during
which climbers spend the night in canvas hammocks. "I won’t say
you’re going to get the best night sleep," she says. "The
moon may be rising or you may hear owl calls and all sorts of unfamiliar
sounds." The cost of the overnight stay: $150, less than many
hotels. "I could make a lot more money sweeping chimneys,"
says Summers. "But I love showing people a whole new way to enjoy
nature and for me, it’s great being out of the soot and into the
trees."
—Kari Bodnarchuk
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