TIL a raccoon can climb 40 feet of rope in about 90 seconds
Last Tuesday I was doing a crown reduction on a big silver maple in a backyard near Royal Oak, Michigan, nothing weird, just me and my climbing line and a pole saw. I get up to about 35 feet and tie in, and I hear this scratching noise below me. I look down and there is a fat raccoon coming straight up my rope like it was born doing it. I have been climbing 11 years and I have never had that happen once. The homeowner is on the ground laughing so hard she can barely talk, yelling that he does this to her bird feeder every night. I had to swing out onto a limb and wait him out while he sat on my tie-in point and stared at me like I owed him money. Eventually he wandered off into the canopy and I finished the job, but my heart rate did not come back to normal for a while. Anybody else ever get gatecrashed mid-climb, or is it just my luck with this one tree?