♪ (acoustic guitar) ♪
(man) Growing up in Santa Cruz, even before I started rock climbing,
I always played on trees.
I’ve always had a really deep connection with the Redwood Forest.
When I got into climbing, it’s taken me all over the world,
climbing on the hardest routes.
(screech)
♪ (acoustic guitar) ♪
I always come back between my travels,
I come back to the Redwood Forest and walk around,
I started looking up and seeing more than just trees
but actually seeing lines that would be amazing to climb on.
Get back to the essence of climbing and being a kid again,
playing in the trees.
Climbing trees is way different than climbing rocks,
these are living beings.
It was great to come out here with Anthony and Wendy,
these tree biologists that helped us do everything in the most careful way
so that we don’t damage this eco-system at all.
(man) We climb up ropes mostly, and use arborous techniques
to climb up into the canopy.
It would be amazing if Chris can actually climb this trunk.
♪ (percussive music) ♪
(Chris) Whoa!
(Chris) Oh man!
(man) Well that's good, first link.
(man) Almost 25 years of my life has been spent watching people on stone.
There was nothing in my imagination
what it would be like to see the same sort of movement on a tree.
(Justin Vitcov) This is legit climbing, it’s no joke.
♪ (percussive music) ♪
(Chris Sharma) It’s just as cool or even cooler than I imagined.
It’s really beautiful, and it’s proper hard climbing.
♪ (soft music) ♪
(Anthony) The old growth Redwood canopy is a very sensitive place.
We want to make sure that people don’t climb
in the Redwood Forest without permission.
Yeah!
The top of the tree has low water but it has abundant light,
so it doesn’t need to spread out, but it closes--
(Chris) It’s an interesting time to study these trees.
California is going through a huge drought.
(Anthony) So it’s 77.05.
(via 2-way radio) Wendy, if you could write down the number,
the total height is 77.05 meters.
(Wendy Baxter) Copy that.
I was guessing 80, that’s pretty close.
(Chris) You know, we’re taking leaf samples from the top,
from the middle, and from the bottom.
Perfect, this would be the tree top foliage.
(Anthony) This is from the bottom of the tree,
and this is from the top of the tree, isn’t that just amazing?
(Anthony) We’re trying to understand
how the redwoods are responding to the current drought,
and the more data that we have, the better,
so this is another piece of information.
You’ll be able to see the water coming out.
- (Chris) Oh, okay. - (Anthony) Is that it?
- (Chris) Yeah. - (Anthony) So 1.2.
The data show that this tree was not particularly stressed right now,
but you know it’s early in the season,
this is generally the least stressful time of year for them.
(Chris) I’m so connected to these forests,
but I don’t really know that much about the trees.
It’s really cool to learn from them about it.
(birds chirping)
♪ (soft music) ♪
It was a huge dream come true
to come here and climb these trees.
And at the same time, it was super humbling.
These trees are way more difficult than I expected.
♪ (upbeat music) ♪
You know, more than doing some sort of big achievement,
this was kind of an opportunity to connect my climbing career
back to where I’m from,
and put a little twist on climbing, do something different.
♪ (upbeat music) ♪
♪ (triumphant music) ♪
Woo hoo! Right on, Anthony!
Thanks for taking us up here, man.
What a treat, huh?
(forest sounds, music fades off)