No tree climbing for this 60 year old. Though I still use ladders to reach gutters and tree branches that need servicing. My balance is not what it used to be, and gravity has gotten more insistent as I’ve gotten older.
Only to the extent required for installing tree stands in hunting season. And this is done with a small team, ladders, and safety harnesses.
For fun? Not since I was a kid. I’m sixty and usually insist on a helper to even climb a ladder.
No. Anyone who can snap off her wrist bone by falling downstairs is not going to do an climbing.
When I was 60 I built my own 2 story home. Single handed after the rough framing for which I had help. No need to climb any trees but that wouldn’t have fazed me at all. Now at 72 and bad knees I avoid ladders.
Dennis
I climbed a tree not that long ago, but it wasn’t a terribly challenging tree. My dog also climbed it. I think I can’t really count this tree.
The house I lived in till 10 years ago had a very climbable tree in the back, and I did climb it on occasion. Current house has not very climbable trees. You need a ladder to reach the first climbable place or to be part monkey.
The tree my dog and I climbed is in a park.
IMHO: In general, I agree, that is too old to be climbing in a tree. But I believe that certain sexagenarians who are significantly more active than average could do it. I bet my father-in-law would be fine doing that. I bet my dad would die.
Keith Richards fell out of a tree when he was 62 and survived…not necessarily intact, but he wasn’t all that intact before the fall.
Damn, ninja’d but here is a link: Richards in hospital after falling out of tree | World news | The Guardian
Oh, I’m not sixty yet, but getting close.
I don’t think I’ve climbed a tree since I was a teenager. Don’t like heights. I get the jitters going past the second rung of a ladder.
Oh, that asshole.
Gravity was never my friend and I don’t even climb ladders after two falls from full height that prompted my development of my am I paralyzed? protocol mentioned in another thread.
My left knee is killing me right now but if it stops hurting this thread has me in the mind to go climb a tree. It’s gonna need to be a sturdy tree with conveniently placed branches, but if I can find one I want to climb it.
Nice post/username combo!
Gee, hasn’t occurred to me in years. I’m 61 and went up maybe 8 feet about 10 years ago and think I could now, too. I’ll have to try, if I come across a suitably easy and safe tree. I do go up on the house roof, to blow out the gutters, though I really don’t like it much – especially getting back on the ladder to come down.
I’m nowhere close to 60, but I’ve never been a tree climber, and hitting 60 in the future is not going to inspire me to start.
Had an argument with my dad exactly related to that couple of years ago.
See, there is large Cherry tree just behind the house. First tree he planted when he bought that patch of land almost 50y ago. Can be reachable only by ladder or from the roof or blind narrow porch with a lot of catlike skills.
So he goes up 10m high and I go like from under “Dad, you too old for this sh*t”
“Why don’t you go up an pick them then?”
“I don’t wanna get killed, dad.”
“You wanna leave all these to birds? I did not teach you so!”
“Just let it go dad, please.”
For happy ending, he is still alive. His knees prevented him to go up next year and he got them changed this year. Hope he won’t get some weird ideas again. He is 82. He can read newspapers. Fallen from cherry tree is common epitaph around here.
Just the other day, I moved my twisty-tie.
We have a 60’ pine tree in our backyard, and I’ve been trying to climb a little higher each summer. And when I get as high as I can, and after I wave down at all the rooftops, I twist a white plastic tie around the highest branch I can reach. Then in the dead of winter, I slog out through the snow, pause, and look up at my twisty-tie.
Oh, I’m almost 65. As soon as I retire, that tree is getting a treehouse (even though no grandkids yet… it’s just for me)
As an aside, I’ve always avoided the term Sexagenarian, but Hexigenarian sounds cool.
I love climbing trees, and have since I was young. Our oaks here have smooth branchless trunks for the first 20ft, so we have to use ladders to get up them to trim them. Its the getting off the ladder that bothers me most, I get a touch of vertigo/nausea…(I’m 64) but once I’m up there for 15 minutes or so I’m ok. Loss of grip strength and general physical strength makes it difficult to pull up from branch to branch though, so I’m phasing out of climbing and instead I’m handling the ropes on the ground for the other climber.
I’ve never used ropes as they are more confusing and tangling for me than helpful, but guys who use them are well are amazing artists!
You know who else liked to climb trees?
John Muir. He was still just a kid (46) when he wrote this:
I’ll turn 61 this month, and climbed a few trees this past Spring. My in-laws are in their 80s and couldn’t manage it themselves, so I climbed into a few of their large live oaks to cut out some branches. Those would be a twelve year old’s dream for treehouse building. My own trees are all tall straight-trunked red oaks, willow oaks and post oaks with the lowest branches at 25-30 feet. I use a ladder and a pole saw to trim any low-sprouting branches on those, and am always much more uncomfortable than I am when actually in a tree.