With the close of October, my climbing season is over. In my part of the world, it’s become too chilly for such activities, especially as I am far more cold-averse than many of my fellow Midwesterners. On my last climb, I noticed how particularly unpleasant was the sensation of rough bark on chilled hands, and while buying some cold-weather athletic gear might extend my climbing into the autumn, the weather offers too many other complications.

And, more importantly, breaks are good. I like my hobby, but I think I enjoy it more if I am forced to pause annually. I feel content with halting now, a little sooner than I had hoped, because I know that I have made good use of the summer. In short, it’s been a very good season, especially after a quieter 2022.

I made eighty-one climbs, and forty of those were on trees that were entirely new to me. This is typical: looking back over my records, any given season usually involves me making about half of my climbs on new trees. My climbing excursions are often centered around exploring (or “prospecting,” as I call it). I moved to a new neighborhood in late 2021, and I am still figuring out what the climbing options are around me. Here’s a quick map of my efforts this year:

A lot of the new climbs, in yellow, are on the city’s north side, whereas I previously lived nearer to Lake Monona, and so you can see a lot of my earlier tree experiences clustered there. But there’s still plenty of Madison left to explore. And now that find myself with plans to make regular trips to visit my partner in Virginia, I may find myself up trees there next year.

I lifted my body a total of 2,687 ft (819 m) during the season (though that number includes a a few times where my climbing height was very roughly estimated). That’s just over ½ a mile. I touched on this in my last letter, but it’s interesting how the experience of vertical and horizontal length differs. A half mile is a pretty insignificant distance when traveling to the grocery store, but thinking of the effort required to climb that distance feels very daunting.

That’s enough numbers for now. Perhaps some of you are into that; in the last year of writing these (for it has now been a year since the beginning of Dryad), I’ve offered a variety of content: metrics, musings, and imagery. I’m not quite sure what each of my fifty readers is in it for, so I’m going to just keep writing what comes to mind, and what is interesting to me.

And it has been interesting. As I went out into the trees this summer, I made mental notes about things that I thought would be good to share with you. Perhaps, in a prior year, I would have let those thoughts slip from my mind, or pondered them quietly while lamenting that there was no one in my life to listen. While it does take some effort to keep up this publication, your presence has also enhanced my experience. It’s pushed me to think more about what I do, and to express and explore it in new ways. Some of those will show up in future letters that I have planned for the off season. I’ll see you then.

October Summary: I made a total of 3 climbs, on 3 different trees, with a total climb height of about 91 feet (28m). All took place within a single hour on a chilly afternoon, after which I knew it was about time to be done for the year.