Adults and kids can climb 200-foot old-growth trees at Silver Falls on guided trip

The most surprising part of tree climbing at Silver Falls State Park was how quickly we found ourselves exploring the canopy of an old-growth monster some 200-feet in the sky.

Even with a group of kids with little experience climbing or using a harness, we found ourselves dangling high among the tree branches within two hours, waving at the tiny earth-bound hikers and horseback riders below.

“Hey, that looks like fun!” yelled one hiker who went past.

It was. At least that was the takeaway from a climb that included taking an 8, 11 and 13-year-old on a half-day tree climb at Oregon’s largest state park.

“What I liked most was being up so high and having snacks at the top of the tree,” said Til Diekotto, 11, of Eugene. “I also liked the cool and friendly guide who taught us how to do everything.”

The guide was Leo Rosen-Fischer, owner of the outfitter Tree Climbing at Silver Falls. He operates on a special permit designed to bring new and different adventures to Oregon’s parks system.

This certainly qualified as different. For $149 per person, in the park’s remote backcountry, we channeled our inner monkeys during four hours of ascending and descending an old-growth tree.

“It’s like exploring an alien world — a way to see this perspective of nature very few people ever seen,” Rosen-Fischer said. “I think it also sticks out that we’re climbing some of the largest living organisms on earth. It’s very powerful.”

Explore Oregon Podcast: How to climb or camp in 300-foot trees at Silver Falls State Park

Learning to climb

We met Rosen-Fischer at the Howard Creek Trailhead, in a quiet part of the park far from the waterfalls that lure most people to Silver Falls.

Just a stone’s throw from the parking lot, a “training tree” was set up to teach us everything we needed to know about climbing.

The first surprise is that you’re not “tree climbing” in the sense of pulling yourself up branches the way many did as kids. Instead, you’re using equipment to climb up ropes that have been pre-set high in the trees.

In the past, recreational tree climbers would use slingshots or even a bow-and-arrow to get the ropes into the tree branches. Rosen-Fischer said that nowadays, he uses a drone.

The equipment we used included a climbing harness, hand-held “ascenders” and foot loops. It basically works like this: you attach to the rope and use your legs in the foot loops to push the hand-held ascenders up the rope. The ascender goes up but won’t come down, allowing you to push yourself up the rope like an inchworm.

“You’re basically doing squats to push yourself up the rope,” Rosen-Fischer said.

The equipment combines two different climbing worlds. The harnesses are the same type you’d use for rock climbing, while the ascenders and foot loops were designed for crevasse rescue in alpine mountaineering.

For tree climbing, the secret sauce is the gear’s simplicity — even kids catch on pretty fast. Our 8-year-old had so much fun playing on the training tree she even flipped upside down.

“The reason we use this system and gear is that it’s very intuitive and pretty easy to pick up in a short amount of time,” Rosen-Fischer said. “It does surprise people how quickly they’re climbing, but that’s all by design because we only have four hours and we want people to have a lot of time up in the big trees.”

He said the oldest person to do the climb unassisted was 89. People can also use a battery-powered ascender that allows those with physical limitations to climb. The oldest person he’s ever taken up was 99 years old, he said.

“We can get most anybody up, even granny and gramps,” he said.

The ‘branch tree’ or the ‘river tree?’

Once Rosen-Fischer decided our group was ready for the big time, he asked if we wanted to head up the “river tree” or the “branch tree.”

One has a view of a stream, as well as different layers of a canopy, while the other has lots of branches to play around on at lower parts of the tree.

We went for the “river tree,” and after a short hike, we arrived at the base of a truly massive Douglas fir with ropes hanging down. Rosen-Fischer took a moment, as we were setting up, to explain the virtues of old-growth forest.

The trees used for climbing are checked regularly by park experts. The park requires Rosen-Fischer to use non-invasive equipment, which doesn't dig into a tree. All anchor systems use webbing tied around the trunk. And the trees are carefully monitored.

“Every year, our natural resource team comes in and assesses the trees," Silver Falls manager Chris Gilliand said. "It’s our biologists, our forester, and we see if there’s any damage, or if there’s a pair of birds that moved in or something like that."

If any threatened species are identified near the climbing area, the climbing must immediately cease, Gilliand said.

The climb

Finally, it was time to head up.

We packed our lunch and snacks into a bag and Rosen-Fischer hoisted into the canopy, climbing rapidly ahead of us. We clipped in and were soon behind him, inching our way up the rope as the ground dropped farther and farther away.

One of the hurdles is learning to trust the equipment. It takes a while to feel comfortable floating off the tree, suspended in midair, without worry.

Lief Diekotto, 13, of Eugene, shot up the tree fastest in our group. It was easy to push himself up the rope, he said. As he got higher, he noted how we’d climbed above a lower layer of smaller trees.

“It’s really cool to be aboveall the other trees and looking down on their canopy,” he said. “All those big trees look like little bushes from up here!”

Both of the older boys made their way to the top, taking time to sit on tree branches over 100 feet from the ground. At the top, almost 200 feet off the forest floor, they stopped for sandwiches and food.

“I never thought I’d eat lunch at the top of a tree,” said Til.

Around us, we could see across the tops of the trees and distant parts of the park.

Our 8-year-old also enjoyed the climb, but made it a little more than halfway up before she decided she’d reached her summit for the day. She said she felt a little tired and seemed to have some nerves about being so high from the ground.

Rosen-Fischer said that does sometimes happen with the younger kids. Seven is the youngest age children can climb.

“If they’re just getting to where they’re just beginning to understand heights, danger, fear, sometimes they decide not to climb to the top,” he said. “Each year we have a kids camp and sometimes it takes a while for the kids to push through it. But by the end of the class, they’ve almost always climbed our tallest tree. It can be a good way to learn to push through fear and gain confidence.”

More: Ever wanted to camp high up in an old-growth tree? At Silver Falls State Park, you can

Coming down

The trip down might have been my favorite part. Rosen-Fischer puts a “descender” on your harness that allows dropping down the rope. It allows going as slow or fast as you’d like, although if you try to go too fast too quickly, it does have an automatic stop to keep you from plummeting out of the tree.

Rosen-Fischer encouraged putting our legs out as we dropped down, pushing away from the trunk, creating the sensation of walking backward down the tree.

Soon we reached the bottom, feeling that familiar weight of solid ground below our feet. We’d finished a lot — learned to use new gear, ascended to the top and returned back to familiar earth.

And all in just four hours.

Details: Tree climbing at Silver Falls

In a nutshell: Anyone 7-and-older can climb old-growth trees on a rope and harness at Silver Falls State Park.

Cost: $145 per person for half-day trip, additional cost for "sunset climbs" or overnight tree camping experiences.

More information: treeclimbingatsilverfalls.com/

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. Urness is the author of “Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and “Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: How to climb 200-foot old-growth trees at Silver Falls State Park