This is no wilderness. It's a big park near the Imperial Palace, surrounded by office buildings and packed with businessmen having lunch. But in a small patch of trees, a group called Tree Climbing Japan set up its operation.
Tree Climbing Japan is "dedicated to teaching tree-friendly, safe tree climbing." They bring harnesses, ropes, gloves and helmets - and show people how to hoist themselves into trees in a completely safe, relatively easy way.
On Wednesday, that included four kindergarten girls and me. We paid 100 yen, about 85 cents, for the privilege. (I got a few pictures before my camera battery died.)
This guide roped Lucinda into a harness.
Add helmet.
These are the trees we climbed. You can click the picture for a better look.
Here's a zoom to see the other girls suspended in the trees. The blue hammock is 15-20 feet up. The guides showed us how to climb up the rope by putting one foot into a loop, standing up, pushing the safety knot higher and doing it again.
The girls went up and down the rope twice. Lucinda climbed with complete confidence; she is very strong and didn't use the foot-loop for the last half of the climb. I went up, too, and we sat in the hammock together.
After we came down, the guides told us to pat and thank the trees - only in Japan! We each received this certificate, which says we've made a "Tree Friend." (Click the pic for a closeup.)
1 comment:
Thank you for the pictures and story. The gear and hammock you used are made by a small company in Oregon called New Tribe. The hammock was a Treeboat made for arboreal camping. It was a delight seeing them in use. www.newtribe.com
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