By Brennan LaBrie
News Editor
If you’re finding yourself bored during the stay at home order, or drowning in a sea of online work with no schedule to hold you accountable, Nick Etzell recommends that you go climb a tree.
For the past two months, Etzell has done just that. For 48 days straight, he climbed at least one tree a day and documented every ascent on Snapchat and Instagram.
It all started shortly after PLU shifted to distance learning in March. Etzell, a junior Business Major, was talking with a group of friends about how the quarantine could provide an opportunity for people to revisit old hobbies and passions that may have fallen by the wayside during high school and college. For Etzell, that hobby was climbing trees, an activity he would often do with his father growing up.
He decided to pay a visit to the PLU golf course to see if the spark was still there. It was. The low-hanging, sturdy branches of the course’s trees made for perfect climbing, and he found himself returning to the course each day, looking for a new tree each time.
“I didn’t plan on going every day when I started,” he said. At first, Etzell, a co-captain of the PLU Men’s+ Frisbee Team saw tree climbing as an ideal physical outlet after the campus gym closed.
However, he quickly found the activity to offer much more than that. Soon he was taking books into the trees, combining another staple of his childhood with his rekindled passion for climbing. He caught several sunsets, and even one sunrise, but his hands got so cold that he struggled to climb down. His favorite aspect of climbing has been getting a new perspective on both PLU and Parkland, especially when Mount Rainier rises above it on clear days.
“It’s really interesting seeing how the world looks when you’re up in the trees,” he said. He’s brought friends up with him, but says that nothing beats the experience of being alone with his thoughts. He describes the experience as exercise, relaxation, and connecting with nature all put together.
He has climbed all sorts of trees, and can tell you the merits of each one. Cedars, for example, are the most reliable, but sometimes their density of branches can be overwhelming. He recommends looking for a comfortable branch with a backrest that will allow you to pull out a book and not constantly worry about falling.
He likes to climb until the branches can no longer support his weight. Luckily, his only miscalculation came just about 10 feet from the ground, when a dead branch snapped and sent him tumbling to the earth.
“I think it was the universe telling me mabe I can’t climb so high,” he said with a laugh. But this did not deter him. “I can’t let one failure stop me,” he said.
Since moving back home to Whidbey Island in April and adding working with the family landscaping business to his homework schedule, Etzell has still found time for the trees.
His father has even come along a few times. He said it has become a way to take a breather between work and homework sessions, and to reflect on this chaotic moment in time.
“It’s an interesting method of procrastination,” he said, adding that it gets him off of the phone and his computer that, as for most students right now, serves as his classroom. His ideal day ends with him going straight from a tree into his bed, no screens involved.
During the 48 day stretch of daily climbing, Etzell made sure to post a picture for his snapchat followers. Towards the end, however, he started sketching in order to leave his phone at home and be more in the moment.
On one hand, his documentation of his climbs was to motivate himself to continue his daily exercise.
“I’m being held accountable by whoever is following me,” he said back in April. “I can’t miss a day.”
On the other hand, he hoped to inspire his friends to find a tree near them, or at least revisit an old favorite pastime of theirs.
“If there’s one resource that we have a lot of right now, it’s time,” he said, “so it’s a good time for getting back into old hobbies, getting a good book, doing something you love.”
To this end, he succeeded, inspiring a few of his friends to take after him and find a nearby tree.
“It’s pretty cool to see people getting outside in some way, shape, or form — and knowing that in some way I inspired them,” he said.
