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In My Late 50s, I Learned to Climb Trees Again
Reclaiming a childhood skill helped me rediscover physical confidence and connect with my adventurous younger self
Author Marguerite Holloway longed to feel at home in trees as she did as a child.
Hugo Herrera
When I was pregnant with my first child, I once scaled a high chain-link fence to get to the train station on time. The climb was admittedly harder than usual: I was in my third trimester and had to lug my big belly up and over. But it came naturally to me, and I vividly recall the joy I felt at still being able to climb fearlessly, at being connected to my body.
Sometime after I had my daughter and then my son, I realized I had undergone a profound shift. Instead of bringing joy and a sense of prowess, climbing and heights made me panic. I could not approach an overlook or a high window without vertigo and a conviction that disaster was imminent. During my 40s and 50s, heights brought no delight, no invitation to adventure.
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Which is largely why, in my late 50s, I found myself at the base of a towering hemlock. Through my work, I had met twin sister arborists who invited me to attend the Women’s Tree Climbing Workshop, an organization they cofounded. I was torn between my love of trees — longing to feel at home in them as I had when I was a kid — and fear.
The pull of the trees was stronger. So one spring weekend in Western Massachusetts, wearing a helmet, protective glasses, gloves and a harness connected to a rope high in the canopy, I tried to climb one.
I have heard from several women that their height anxiety also developed after they became mothers. But this unease with heights can appear or worsen with age in many people, as an adaptive response to physiological and stage-of-life changes.
Holloway takes to the canopy in her tree-climbing gear.
Photo by Rebecca Seibel
Protective though it may be, this phobia can also mean loss. My own fear was bound up with a feeling that I had lost a core part of myself, my adventurous self who embraced risk. Without noticing, I had internalized a societal norm: that aging means losing capabilities.
“We just expect older adults to be declining, and so they do decline,” says Rachel Wu, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside. Her research shows quite the opposite: that most people can learn new, challenging skills as they age — if, she notes, “you take away the barriers.” One of the barriers being, of course, oneself.
As I attempted to climb the hemlock, I was sure I’d made a terrible decision. I felt old, clumsy, weak, terrified. Despite the instructors’ focus on safety and on letting each person learn in their own way, I was convinced that the rope or knots wouldn’t hold, the whole system would come apart, and I would plummet. On the first day of climbing, after enormous exertion, I managed to get 2 feet up. When I looked down, the world and I spun.
The next day, using a device called a foot ascender that let me use my leg muscles instead of my arms, I reached one of the hemlock’s low branches, about 15 feet up. I had concentrated on stepping and breathing, on not looking down. When I did look, I reeled with panic. Then I would breathe and focus again on the action, on the tree.
Soon afterward, guided by an instructor who was confident I could do what I felt was impossible, I walked out on a branch. To do so, I had to solve several problems. The rope had to be adjusted; I had to figure out how to slowly let it out; and I had to better understand the ascender, knots, pulley and harness. My fear ebbed as I focused on those challenges.
At one point during my limb-walk, I leaned back and looked up into the canopy. Time slowed. I became lost in the beauty of the hemlock, seeing it with a new view — or, rather, an old view: the diffused green light, the coolness, the worlds the tree contained.
This synthesis — solving physical and technical challenges, feeling capable, being connected to the natural world — can be transformative, especially for many of us in later life. “There’s a lot of different dimensions of ourselves that can be accessed and touched upon when we are in the outdoors,” says Nicole Dalmer, a social gerontologist at McMaster University. Those experiences not only give rise to happiness, “but also [to] confidence and self-esteem.” Outdoor activities engage us physically, mentally, spiritually and, when done in groups, socially. Kaitlin Mueller of Slippery Rock University and Allie Thomas of Texas State University, research collaborators and experts on recreational and adventure therapies, say that shared experiences in blue and green spaces can connect people in powerful ways and contribute to successful aging.
A few months after my hemlock climb, I took another workshop. A year later, another. I am now able to be in trees as I was as a child: scampering, climbing, finding refuge and delight, all while safely tied in. All while connected not just to ropes but to a community of participants, some in their late teens, others in their 80s, many of them my age. All while connected to my love of nature and to the trees and forests that so need our care. And to my adventurous self, still there, still flourishing.
AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.
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