School Trip to "The Hat"

Did you know that Medicine Hat is home of the world's tallest tepee? Neither did I until we went down there to climb some trees for school. Now I'm sure you are wondering what exactly I'm doing in that first picture. No I am not exemplifying the literacy of a tree hugger. That is a little something I like to call the "arborist struggle". In lots of occasions one cannot make a graceful entrance into the tree and this is one of those times. I had to be swung to this branch where I attempted to somehow muscle my way onto the top side of the limb. It wasn't pretty but I made it and sometimes that's just what your stuck with.

In the second picture I am installing some foot slings on the tree so I can stand in them because the stem was treacherously slippery due to the snow conditions. I like the perspective of this picture because you can see the people on the ground and how small they look in comparison to me. That is because I am at about 60 feet in the tree at that spot. These were some big trees as you can tell by the diameter of the branch I am standing on at such a height. The tree was probably about 90-100ft from the ground at the very top.

Well since I started this blog several weeks ago and have been too lazy to finish it up until now, that is my brief description of my trip to Medicine Hat. Maybe the long version will follow someday when I get ambitious, and hopefully I will also post a Tri-Ice-A-Thon post in the near to distant future.