Tree climbers build community as they compete in Iowa’s annual competition

When Chase Andersen is getting ready to climb, he doesn’t have to do much to mentally prepare.

Climbing a tree and being in the outdoors makes him feel like a kid again, he said.

So, when it was Andersen’s turn to scale one of the many trees blocked off for the 2025 Iowa Arborist Association’s Annual Tree Climbing Championship, adrenaline coursed through his veins.

“It’s just something that naturally excites me,” Andersen said, who now lives in Des Moines. “So that competition itself is just what mentally prepares me.”

Andersen was one of dozens of tree climbers who gathered in Linn County’s Daniels Park in northeast Cedar Rapids to take part in the competition.

Andersen said he jumped into the world of competitive tree climbing on a whim when he was working out west before coming to Iowa.

“I just wanted some extra outdoor time, and from there I found climbing and loved that aspect,” he said. “So, I just ran with it, with a series of different mentors. I had a really nice intro to climbing and just went from there.”

Saturday, May 3, marked the Iowa Arborist Association’s 19th year hosting the event. According to its website, the Iowa Arborist Association’s mission is to “foster an appreciation for the Iowa tree community, to increase interest in planting and caring for shade and ornamental trees, to promote the science and practice of professional arboriculture and to encourage public education.”

Scott Carlson has been the chair of the climbing competition since its inception in 2006. He said the annual competition started with about 20 climbers per year, but it has doubled in recent years.

“When we started (the competition), they started fairly small, but this was our largest,” Carlson said.

Carlson, who also is a lead instructor and consultant for Iowa Arborist Consulting, said gathering arborists and tree climbing enthusiasts together for the annual competition is “spectacular.”

“They're just a unique breed of people,” Carlson said.

He said the camaraderie is a big part of the event, saying that climbers who meet at the competition for the first time make it seem like they’ve known each other for years.

“They trade tips and tricks and even advice that might harm their personal scores by giving advice,” Carlson said. “Sometimes a competitor will tell somebody in the tree something very important that they didn't have to tell them, but they choose to, even if it makes their competitor’s score better as it relates to theirs. We see that all the time.”

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Building strong community

For Libby Bower, an arborist based in the Chicago suburbs, camaraderie plays a large role in the tree climbing community.

“I think one of the things that I've found in competitions is that most people who are attracted to it and end up staying in it are very competitive people, but it's a very positive sort of drive,” Bower said. “Regardless of whether you've done this for two days or 20 years, everyone's really excited for any new growth that any person has.”

In fact, the level of camaraderie is part of what Bower thinks makes the tree climbing and arborist community “really amazing.”

“It doesn't matter how many years or how many times you've done it, everyone just wants to see everyone else progress,” she said.

For the competition, there were five different challenges the climbers pursued: aerial rescue, ascent, throwline, the work climb and the belayed speed climb, which is when a climber is secured by a rope that is controlled by another climber on the ground.

Bower said her favorite events to compete in are the aerial rescue and work climb.

The competition’s aerial rescue included a test dummy in a tree that the competitors have to climb to, check if they are injured and call for aid.

Aerial rescue “is something that we hope we don't do every day, but it is something that we do take seriously, and we should train on, in the event that something happens to ourselves or a coworker that we're working with,” Bower said. “It's something that is really crucial and really important to this industry, so that we make sure that we use best practices.”

For Andersen, the climbing community is like no other community he has been a part of.

“The camaraderie surrounding these events is unlike any other sporting event that I've been a part of. There is always the competition, and that is present here too, but everyone wants everybody to be at their very best,” Andersen said. “We all want to win, but at the same time, we want to encourage everybody, help them out, assist them with whatever event that they're in, and be able to go through and just help people be their best.”

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Carlson said that anyone who is interested in getting started with tree climbing, or might not know where to begin, should connect with the Iowa Arborists Association.

“I think that people that have not seen climbers before might think that human beings (couldn’t) do these things,” Carlson said. “That’s why we want people to come and watch, whether they're tree people or not, because they gain appreciation for some of those things that they didn’t think people could do.”

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com