Ryan Murphy found himself more than 60 metres in the air, with nothing but a rope and harness to protect him as he ziplined from one old-growth tree to another last week in Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park.
“You’re up in the air on a traverse line, and to have all that air beneath your feet as you slide across is a dream come true. It was pretty surreal,” he said.
Murphy enjoys getting up into the trees so much he’s made a profession out of it — and, in his spare time, he competes in tree-climbing competitions. He’ll be one of 30 competitors at the 12th-annual B.C. Tree Climbing Championships Saturday at Royal Roads University.
“It’s something I do as a job but [it’s] also a passion. It’s incredible to be right up against [the tree], climbing it and going out on a limb to see how far you’ve gotten,” said Murphy, who has a degree in environmental science from Royal Roads. His work involves assisting researchers by climbing up to goshawk nests, collecting feathers for DNA analysis.
Competitors from across the world will compete in categories that involve an aerial rescue, a speed race and using a weighted rope to hit targets in trees.
The competition is designed for climbers of all skill levels. Participants have to provide their own climbing gear, including ropes and a hard hat.
For Island competitors, the event is an excuse to show off their home.
“It’s just different here. Showing this to people from Oregon or Washington, they realize how beautiful it is,” said Murphy, who grew up on the Saanich peninsula.
This will be Murphy’s sixth time at the B.C. championships, and the third time he’s competed at Royal Roads.
The championship is a qualifying event for the Pacific Northwest Tree Climbing championships. The winner of that will go to the International Tree Climbing Championships in Toronto in August.
The goal of the event is to help promote arboriculture and make it accessible to the public.
Ryan Senechal, the event’s co-ordinator, said he regularly faces misconceptions about his career as an arborist, which involves planting, caring for and maintaining individual trees.
“People think we’re lumberjacks. But we’re more on the preservation side than the cut [trees] down side,” Senechal said. Unlike lumberjacks, arborists won’t use boots with spurs and aim to be non-invasive.
The championships start at 8 a.m. at Hatley Castle.
