Looking around the neighborhood, the largest and cleanest trees are sycamore, wild cherry and walnut. Most of the walnuts are smallish and the cherry too brushy. I know the Sycamore has thin bark and is easily harmed by climbing but wonder can they still be climbed using cambian savers and careful foot placement? Or should we just stay out of them? Thanks, Randy
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Whenever i climb a Sycamore i feel that i should be climbing barefoot. Even with rope sleeves it is difficult to "leave no trace" since they are so tender. Even the squirrels leave tiny marks in them. My latest climb was thursday night in a Sycamore, for the full moon...and what a great tree to be illuminated by the huge moon!
Becki
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Sycamores are great to climb as long as you don't have any reaction to the bark (the whitish dust deposit), some people do. If you're not scratching into the cambium _layer_ you aren't hurting the tree, a cambium saver should be used and will successfully protect the tree from rope damage. -moss
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Great! Thanks for the feedback, guys and gals. I'm headed for a Sycamore or two:> I have a monster behind my house down on a creek but the trunk is deeply hollowed near the ground. Its branches look solid and alive and nearly reach our backdeck 60 ft up. Still, I fear Treeman might rescind my certificate if he knew I'd been climbing a flawed tree. Randy
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I had a reaction to the dust the first time i climbed one but it was in the spring... and that happened after i had returned to the truck. Havent had a reaction to one since. Luckily i had lots of water with me as i felt like i had a huge hair ball in my throat. Lots of coughing and lots of water. I'll stay out of them in the spring.
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Re: Sycamore "toxicity" and/or allergic reactions from The Natural History of North American Trees by Donald Peattie (a fascinating history of native American trees BTW), the problem is the fine "hairs" on the undersurface of the leaves. He wrote, "Though we may smile at this, we may find some reason in this distrust of the abundant deciduous hairs upon the leaves, for being at once very light and sharp, they float long in the air and undoubtedly some people are allergic to them." So, I guess winter climbing would be best? Randy
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