Timber!: The Story of the Lumberjack World Championships

Very Tall Trees

Standing at the base of the 90-foot climbing pole in the loony bin inside the Lumberjack Bowl, looking straight up to the top can give one a stiff neck. Speed climbing the 90- and 60-foot poles is the object of the game, which in a general way imitates forestry efforts. Loggers did not have to ascend to the treetops because they could trim branches after the tree was felled. In some areas where trees were arrayed on hillsides, however, lumbermen climbed trees and attached cables to help guide a cut tree to more level ground. At the Lumberjack World Championships, the event has evolved to emphasize the speed aspect of going up and down, and tree trimming has been eliminated (although it once was its own separate event). In the way the 100-meter dash is a highlight event at a track meet, measuring the fastest humans against the clock, the speed climbs stress pure quickness: how fast can you go up and touch the top of the pole and how fast can you come down afterward and touch the cushioned pillows on the ground. In his heyday (although that specific part of his career is difficult to quantify), Guy German was the fastest. Introduced in Hayward as the “godfather” of speed climbing, German, now in his fifties, competes headto -head with athletes young enough to be his children. German won his first world titles in the 90-foot climb in 1988 and 1990 and he won again in 2002. Before tree topping was discontinued, German won titles in 1997, 1998, and 2000. German sparked a revolution in tree climbing by introducing specialized shoes with better grips. In 1990, when 122 Very Tall Trees Very Tall Trees German captured the 90-foot climb, his time of 20.05 lowered the eightyear -old former record by 6.5 seconds. In the twenty years since, the record has only been improved by 1 second. That’s how dominant German was. It was a hot and sunny day in Hayward for the 2009 90-foot speed climb preliminaries. German, then fifty-five, was still game, going against younger recent champs like the all-conquering Brian Bartow, an eight-time champion and son of late 1970s era three-time champ Clarence Bartow. Lean and muscular, with a soccer player’s thighs, German wrapped his sturdy rope around the pole, slipped on gloves for better gripping, and added elbow and shin guards. The padding made him look like a warrior readying for battle. All German needed to complete the ensemble was a helmet, but no one was going to imitate Darth Vader for the climb. At the end of the 3-2-1-go countdown, the climbers leapt upward, almost like monkeys grabbing onto a tree. Their spiked shoes clacked as they virtually ran up the wooden pole, hauling themselves through leg and shoulder power. Two climbers raced one at a time on adjacent poles, but there was barely time to notice the other competitor. Fans screamed louder the higher the climbers got. Twice German tried to dig in a foot that didn’t take, and he lost time because those missteps threw his rhythm off. The climbers descended so swiftly, barely touching the pole, that it almost seemed as if they were in free fall. By the time German landed, his opponent was already down. “I had two slips,” German said. “I don’t know why. On the first slip I went back two feet and my race was pretty much over. I’m in pretty good shape. I was doing some pretty good stuff at the top.” Between preliminary heats, German munched on popcorn and sipped a beer, not everyone’s idea of a health food breakfast. German was visiting Alaska in 1984 when he attended his first lumberjack show as a spectator in Sitka, a city of Russian American heritage surrounded by massive trees and forest. Something about the climbing events touched German. Maybe it was because he had grown up on a farm in Nebraska with the surrounding land flat for miles. German’s athletic background consisted of playing high school football and running track. He asked a lot of questions, bought some equipment, and decided to compete against the professional loggers who made up the field in the event. He even lived in Alaska for a while. “They were mostly loggers,” German recalled of his foes. “There were five local guys. It got me going. Here...