It takes only a few moments for the new world's champion tree climber to pull himself up 50 feet of rope and settle into his saddle harness as easily as if he were sitting in a TV-room lounge chair.
"It's beautiful up here," he calls down from the towering white oak behind his Randallstown home. "I love climbing trees."
Michael Cotter loves the dare-devil rush of hanging five, six, eight stories above the ground. For him, tree climbing mixes fear with an intoxicating high all its own.
"It's kind of like sky-diving, he says later. "You get three-quarters of the way to the top and you look down and it's that exhilarating feeling that your life is at risk right now, and the only thing holding you up is this little piece of rope and what you're sitting on."
Cotter, 32, climbs trees for a living, pruning and doing "take-downs" for A&A; Tree Experts in Pikesville. On occasion he'll take a call to rescue a cat, usually a house cat. And once a year, he tests his skills against the best climbers in his region.
This year, he took the regional championship and won a trip to Birmingham, England, for the International Society of Arboriculture's (ISA) annual competition. Two weeks ago, he won the Master's Challenge, beating out 31 other climbers from around the world.
It might seem odd, a favorite piece of childhood escape turned into an international competition for adults, but Cotter and his colleagues aren't shinnying up trees barefoot like in the old days. Their ropes can lift a pick-up truck without breaking. They use special hooks called "ascenders" to pull themselves up, specific knots and harnesses. Some of the tools and techniques come from rock climbing.
In a world where ESPN-2 broadcasts the championship for every conceivable sport, tree climbing has claimed its own niche, complete with a championship cup -- the McConnell Cup -- and a $1,000 cash prize.
The International Society of Arboriculture started 74 years ago in Connecticut and now has 36 chapters in 26 countries. The ISA claims more than 11,000 members. The competitions began in 1976 as a way of preserving skills needed for aerial rescue. These skills were needed to bring down injured people, often someone who had been electrocuted while working around power lines.
One of this year's events involved re-enacting a rescue in which a dummy is lowered to the ground. The climbers have five minutes to get up in the tree and complete the rescue. Another event tests a climber's ability to accurately toss his "shot line" onto a tree limb 40 to 60 feet above the ground.
"Everything has changed drastically," says Cotter, who first competed 10 years ago. "It was kind of raw back then."
Money and bragging rights are on the line at the ISA competition, but there's another group that competes just for fun. Recreational climbers have a home in Tree Climbers International of Atlanta.
"I started it because I was getting so many requests from my clients that they used to climb trees and they wanted me to take them up," says Peter "Treeman" Jenkins, a retired rock climber who is now a tree surgeon in Atlanta.
He started the group in 1983 to help people rediscover tree climbing. Jenkins and others enjoy hanging out in what they call "the high canopy" of the upper branches. So far TCI has 600 to 700 members worldwide in 27 countries. The chapters, called "groves," are in France, Germany, England, Denmark, Atlanta and Fayetteville, Ga.
Jenkins says the biggest draws are the overnight camping trips in trees and "tree-surfing," in which the climbers go up during windstorms. "It is nothing short of magical," says Jenkins. "The noises. It's like surround sound. The breeze comes up, and your hammock starts swaying. [Trees] just have an aura about them."
Cotter understands that sense of mystery about trees.
"I think they're the greatest things in the world," he says. 'N "They've had to learn to adapt to everything that's gone on in this world since the dawn of time."
Cotter doesn't think of himself as a "tree-hugger" or someone who gets loopy over being in the strong embrace of arboreal splendor. His affection is of a much more practical nature. Trees are his bread and butter. And they help keep him alive -- "I enjoy the air I breathe," he says. "That's what trees provide to everyone in the world."
What bothers him is how trees are treated, sometimes cut down for no good reason. "I've been mad at certain points, 'Why am I taking this tree down? Because they're scared of it?' Don't just take a tree down because it's too much shade and you want more sun. That's an idiotic reason. I can prune it and give you filtered sunlight."
The world's champion tree climber came to his profession by accident. He was just about to start his senior year at Randallstown High when his brother told him about the pruning job. It paid more than the landscaping work Cotter did at the time. That was 15 years ago.
The world equates tree climbers with lumberjacks, Paul Bunyan, Sven in a flannel shirt with an ax over his shoulder. Cotter doesn't fit that bill. He's 5-foot-6, 130 pounds, the perfect build for a professional tree climber.
Nowadays, he's as nimble in a tree as "squirrels, chimpanzees, whatever you want to call us." He movements seem effortless. During the ISA championship round, his graceful moves through the English oaks put him above the other four finalists. In one event, the climbers started from a staging area in the tree, then had to swing from limb to limb, hitting a bell at each work station.
"It was all finesse. How smooth could you look," says Cotter. "They don't want you stumbling around like a bear on a rock. ... They want to see you float through the trees."
Cotter says he hopes to repeat next year at the ISA championship in Stamford, Conn. In 2000, he'll be on his own stomping grounds when the championship comes to Druid Hill Park. Until then, he'll keep on at A&A;, rescuing cats when he gets the call and training newcomers to the job.
"I like watching them 'white-knuckle' the limbs. It's the high point of the day," he jokes. "Once in a while you'll get a kamikaze. We call them 'George of the Jungle.' "
The trouble with beginners is that they don't trust the rope, or themselves, he says. The rope, tested to hold more than 5,000 pounds, is nothing to worry about. If it can hold a truck, it can hold a 150-pound climber. Chain saws and electric power lines are the real problems. Three years ago, two climbers were electrocuted working around wires that run 33,000 to 66,000 volts.
Cotter, who has been nicked four times, has a healthy respect for the saws. Some have 62 blades spinning at 1,400 revolutions per minute. Around such machines, there's no room for error.
"If it touches you and it's moving, you're going to get hurt and you're going to get stitches," he says, matter-of-fact. "Your arm doesn't even compare to a tree limb. This is nothing." He holds his forearm. It looks incredibly small, fragile, vulnerable. "This is just bone and flesh."
Cotter has had enough close calls to respect the blade. His biggest nightmare is the image of himself slipping on a limb, swinging back toward the trunk and getting impaled on a stub. It's the kind of vision that could have an experienced climber "white knuckling" the limbs.
"You kind of get used to it, and you lose that fear," he says. "You can 'what if' yourself to death and scare the bejeezus out of yourself."
Better to just climb and enjoy the work, the stunning views, the thrill and rush of your life hanging by a half-inch-thick length of rope.
Pub Date: 8/15/98