‘It just makes you feel ... alive’
Port Coquitlam arborist heading to U.S. capital for world tree-climbing championships
Kali Alcorn aimed and threw, arcing a weighted sack the size of a beanbag and attached to a thin rope over the branch she had targeted, 50 feet above her head.
It wasn’t some bare branch sticking out all on its lonesome; she hit her target through a crowded canopy of jumbled branches and leaves.
It’s important she clears the branch she’s aiming for because, unlike grenades or horseshoes, close isn’t good enough in her line of work.
“For me personally, it’s so invigorating and liberating,” the certified arborist said.
“When I’m 70 feet up, when I’m on spurs and climbing and you have to drop the big top, that moment when you make your notch and you make your back-cut, that moment when it starts to fall and it breaks off, everything has worked out and you’re just sitting up there, you just want to scream at the top of your lungs, ‘Whooo! That. Went. Well.’
“It just makes you feel completely alive, completely in control.”
For Alcorn, who manages an arborist supply store in Port Coquitlam, climbing high trees, often swaying in the wind, while carrying a chainsaw to cut some deadwood or remove canopy or a tree top that’s threatening a building is just part her job. Thus the importance of getting that thin guide-rope placed just right so she can use it to haul up her climbing rope.
The 30-year-old is also heading to her third International Tree Climbing Championships in Washington, D.C. July 28-30.
There will be about 70 competitors at the championships, about twothirds of them male, from 18 countries. Alcorn, who moved to PoCo from Olds, Alta., in March, is representing the Prairies. In September, she’ll compete in the Pacific Northwest region.
Competitors are scored throughout five preliminary events that mimic challenges faced in the field or emergency situations, with the leaders moving on to a masters round.
Alcorn badly injured her ribs while climbing recreationally this spring and while they’re not as sore as they once were, she’s going into the event with little training or expectations.
“I wasn’t going to pass this up because of some pain,” she said.
Alcorn has been passionate about trees for as long as she can remember.
On her left arm are tattoos of leaves of the prehistoric Ginkgo biloba, which was around when Pangaea was the planet’s only continent 270 million years ago.
Her grandmother had one in her yard when she was growing up in Huron County, Ont., a rural area dotted by small towns and villages that’s bordered by its namesake great lake.
“That’s the first tree I learned about as a child,” she said. “It’s just fascinating. I called it the dinosaur tree.”
She’d like more tattoos, except she could cover her body and there would still be favourite trees of hers to add and nowhere to put them.
“My friends are completely annoyed with me any time we wander around in nature because I’m always educating them about what they’re seeing,” Alcorn said.
That the world championships this year are in the U.S. capital holds special appeal for Alcorn. And who wouldn’t love to see the Lincoln Memorial, the White House and Capitol, the Ford Theatre?
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Alcorn said. “I’ll get to see the U.S. National Arboretum.
“Not only am I a climbing enthusiast, I am a full-on tree nerd.”