After months of brainstorming and planning, we
met Cesar, who was 17 at the time and entering
his senior year of high school. Cesar enjoys indoor
rock climbing and playing video games with his
friends, and he loves his pets. He is skillful at origami
and volunteers at a local homeless pantry.
The first week was a fun jumble of administra-
tive tasks and less structured time that allowed us
to walk around and look at interesting trees, learn
how to tie knots, go out for lunch together, and
climb our first tree. These activities laid important
groundwork for the internship experience.
Over the summer we had a weekly tree climb to
explore a different favorite tree of mine. On our first
big tree, we took to the hills to find a special grove
of coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia). Our big oak
of the day had its first major limb at around 20 feet
(6.1 m) off the ground. Time for the throwline!
I pulled out a throwline cube from the gear bag and
passed it over. Cesar took a quick look, used some
origami skills, and turned the folded triangle into an
open cube, exposing the flaked throw line. I demon-
strated how to hold the line, swing it like a pendulum,
then fling it over a low limb. At first unstable, Cesar
tripped on the line, made a few wacky tosses, and then
"It's a tree climber retirement party! Here we see part of the urban forestry crew gather around Dan, the Senior Urban
Forester, on his last day with the City of Berkeley. From L to R: Ian, Eybin, Cesar, Dan, Francisco, and Ted." —Ian K.
22 CityTREES
