Climbing Trees A Rare Indulgence Ritual Space Should Have Stayed

Author: Oren Frey

I was part of something beautiful this weekend. For a class, we were assigned to construct an interactive symbolic space that addressed an issue we deal with everyday — or forget to deal with.

With this charge to guide us, we set about making some minor, yet significant, additions to the huge Norway spruce tree situated between Old Chapel and the site of the Old Science Center. To this grand, magnificent, strong and inviting tree, whose lowest branches had been trimmed away, we began to attach ladders that extended to the first great branches 15 feet or so above the ground.

Two hundred fifty feet of rope later, we had created a simple yet secure, understated yet elegant, route to the higher reaches of the tree. Paths of stones leading inside the "room" at the base of the tree and to the base of the ladders, a welcome sign, lantern, journal, stools made from the tree that used to stand in front of McCullough and a 'user's guide' to the tree that included instructions, natural history and ideas to ponder rounded out our symbolic space.It did not take very long for the members of our group to become deeply attached to this space. Climbing trees is something that we rarely allow ourselves the luxury to stop and partake in.

Climbing this tree offered not only spectacular vistas — of the greater Middlebury area, of the enormity of the tree itself in every dimension and of the ground visible through the many layers of branches below — but also a feeling of exhilaration as our confidence and trust pushed us upwards.

You're putting yourself into a liminal space in the tree — you're on campus, but suspended high in the air, not really on campus, and you have to come down sometime, but for the time you're in the tree you're just there. You have a chance to think outside of your normal campus life and to reconsider what the important things in life really are.

Monday evening, we lead our class to the tree. Candles were lit as we circled around the tree and began to introduce it. The scene was intimate and peaceful. Several minutes later, the crowd had thinned as 18 people, including our professor, had succumbed to the temptation to venture into the vertical expanses of the spruce. Some of our class members, along with subsequent climbers, left record of their experience in the journal, and their words say far more about the importance of this activity to them than I can.

"This tree has brought me back to my childhood, where nothing matters except for how high you can climb … and once you've reached the top nobody can touch you … free and careless, revitalizing," one entry reads.

Another student wrote: "The strength of this tree, in comparison to myself, is on an order of magnitude unfathomable in everyday terms. It overpowers its surroundings: the horizon, the understory vegetation and the town. Within its heart, noises, wind and sun all dissipate, leaving the experience with something real, true."

Though no doubt many felt noticeably alive and awestruck after descending, there was no expectation that the tree would effect a certain feeling on anyone who chose to climb it. We simply brought attention to and provided the access to all the tree has to offer.

We would have been thrilled had our space been welcomed to remain intact on a permanent basis. However, we were quickly reminded of the limits of institutional tolerance of creative forms of expression and the existence of sacred spaces in public areas, as I received an e-mail that stated: "The ladders you have put up are not approved by the College for use. I find them unsafe and a potential hazard for anyone that may attempt to climb it. I would ask that you remove this project as soon as possible."

My initial reaction to the realization that our project in this idyllic tree was to be very short-lived (which I could not refrain sharing with the administration member who condemned our ladders and other artistic additions) was that we are unfortunately members of a society that is obsessed with the ruthless quest for an abstract concept called safety. Another journal entry voices the sentiment: "Sad that this must be destroyed. Indicative of the institution though."

Indeed, we at Middlebury find ourselves with locked dorms, vans with no cargo boxes, the prohibition of the Hamlin-Freeman tunnel and now trees rendered unclimbable, all in the name of safety.

I find it sickening. In my outdoor leadership experience, I have come to recognize the importance of being responsible for the well-being of others, yet it is both impossible and undesirable to live in a risk-free world.

When studying abroad in Mongolia, the ultimate highlight of my experience was galloping across the countryside at breakneck speed on horses supplied by our school. I could have fallen any second, but the feeling of freedom I enjoyed made the risk seem completely unimportant.

Our ladders were secure by our standards of common sense, and were no riskier than the railings in the hallways over the Great Hall.

If you lean too far over the railings you will fall and damage yourself. If you climbed too far beyond your comfort level and did not use your hands and feet to steady yourself in the spruce tree, you might do the same.

The "real world" is not a place in which all risks are managed and minimized. In real places among real people, hazards abound and learning how to appreciate them — not trying to eliminate them — is the more practical skill. Middlebury wants to create leaders and free thinkers, but instead of welcoming student-made interactive art in public places (remember Supergood's rock garden?), we have the likes of Smog and those odd things in front of Johnson.

But do not let my ideas prevent you from taking away the message that the entries in the tree journal are eager to share.

One visitor to the spruce echoed the thoughts of others in observing that it was not our work that made the place special, but the tree itself.

That visitor's journal entry read:"Somehow the manmade sturdiness in a ladder is nothing compared to the branches of a tree. The life extending through them has a support unlike anything that could ever be nailed together."

Our ladders are now gone, but other climbable trees which have watched Middlebury grow up around them — and other areas of beauty and peace on campus — await your discovery. It is these remaining natural gems that give this place its character.