By Claire Conger

In the company of trees

From Arborist To Mentor, Tim Kovar Builds A Community In The Canopy.

Photos by Steve Lillegren

All Tim Kovar brought with him was a blanket and water. The cold enveloped him. It was a different kind of cold than he was used to. Oregon’s cold is a heavy, moisture-laden blanket that seeps into the body. He was looking to discover whether he should move from his origins in the Midwest to Oregon, so he set out on this vision quest to find answers.

Many factors can contribute to one’s decision to relocate: a job, weather, significant others, or restlessness, to name a few. Some people use a pro and con list to help sway their decision. Others call a friend or family member for advice. Kovar made his decision using a couple of days alone in a 10-foot circle out in the woods of southern Oregon, where he sat deep in a Grants Pass forest. A friend who dropped Kovar off at the forest’s edge told him to think of himself as the moss in the forest, which adapts to the winter temperatures to stay alive.

Eventually, Kovar came face-to-face with a logging truck driving down Chancreap Road as he emerged from the forest. The sight of the massive trees in tow offered the final straw in his decision to move to Oregon and open a tree-climbing school.

Kovar is a Master Tree Climbing Instructor and the founder of Tree Climbing Planet. He started as an arborist in Atlanta, Georgia doing tree work with Tree Climbers International after meeting founder Peter Jenkins in 1992. TCI developed the first recreational tree climber school and soon, Kovar became their chief instructor. At first, he was pursuing a natural love for nature, but soon he found a new love for sharing his connection to the trees with the public. 

Kovar climbed his first tree in Nebraska at around age 5. His first ascent left him stuck in his neighbor’s apple tree. The next day, he went back to the tree to figure out how to get down on his own. From there, he started climbing bigger and bigger trees.

When Kovar is among the branches of the arboreal world, everything else evaporates. He finds a sense of peace that keeps him coming back, something he wants to share with others.

His first students were two 75-year-old women who hadn’t climbed a tree in 65 years. 

They sat beaming with joy, almost 30 feet up in the branches of a beautiful, wide oak tree. “When they came down they were like, ‘We never thought we'd climb a tree again our entire life’,” Kovar says.

This moment led Kovar to discover his mission: to connect more people with the trees and help them experience that deep bond. 

“Working with just the general public is really part of my passion because there were these profound insights,” he says.

During his work with Tree Climbers International (TCI), Kovar helped create and refine a tree-climbing curriculum that is taught worldwide. In 2010, he founded Tree Climbing Planet, located in Oregon City, Oregon, and uses the curriculum he created with TCI to lead courses, assist in canopy research by taking scientists on ascents, and more. Tim Kovar uses the term “inspirational tree climbing” to refer to their work and imply there is no competition while ascending into the trees. 

“Trees inspire people. I think nature does in general. That's my platform. That's my medium,” says Kovar. “Getting folks connected back into nature.”

The Trees:

Kovar admits that his biggest fear is climbing trees to death.

One of the impacts of working with researchers as well as his own passion for trees is an understanding of the tree ecosystems and how climbing them can impact their wellbeing.

“The research… really put on the map that there's an abundance of life going on up there that very few people know about,” says Kovar. This “abundance of life” is one of the focuses of Kovar’s work. 

Kovar thinks back to a comparison of a tree’s ecosystem to a coral reef. “Just snorkeling and scuba diving, even the best-hearted person up there, one little swift kick of the boot accidentally, and then there could be 500 years of growth gone,” he says. 

Climbers such as Kovar use ecologically conscious methods to climb trees, which he hopes other climbers will take part in as well. One method is using ropes as a pulley system to ascend the tree away from the trunk to avoid scuffing the bark. They use “branch savers” to protect the tree from the moving ropes that drape over the branches. Additionally, they never use spikes to climb in an effort not to disturb the tree’s inhabitants. Spikes also make the trees more susceptible to disease, pests and other stresses as they puncture the tree’s cambium layer — the living tissue beneath the bark.

 Kovar aims to be the connective tissue between the public and a deeper understanding of trees and the environment. One way he does this is by climbing alongside researchers and scientists, reaching new heights to capture the life above. 

After Kovar’s collaboration with Richard Preston, author of Wild Trees, tree climbing suddenly illuminated a new and captivating way, drawing the public’s gaze. Preston’s book unveils the secret world flourishing high above California’s coastal redwoods, where climbers explore a thriving, covert ecosystem hidden among the treetops. Preston describes the relationship of epiphytic plants such as ferns, mosses and lichens as well as microhabitats such as “fire caves”, which provide shelter for various organisms and contribute to the canopy’s complex ecology. Kovar, who served as Preston’s climbing instructor during the research, says the “book is a much more powerful story than just learning how to climb trees.”

A documentarian observing naturally occurring bonsai trees joined Kovar in an ascent into a Redwood tree in Santa Cruz, California. The area had been infiltrated by a lethal tree disease, Sudden Oak Death, caused by water mold, which wiped out oak trees all in this region. Yet, 180 feet above the forest floor, 15 feet out on a slender branch, there is a tiny oak tree the diameter of a pencil growing. Kovar estimates the tree to be around 30 years old. The documentarian told Kovar that finding this epiphytic oak tree was akin to winning the lottery three times over. “Whenever I get doubt in my head, or going through tough times,” says Kovar, ” I think about this little oak tree. It can survive against all odds.”

He adds, “Tree Climbers International, where my lineage comes from, the way we were doing it, most of us looked at this forest kind of more as a sacred area, a sanctuary church of some sort. “We're climbing very mindfully, deliberately being aware of where things are at.”

One of the practices that he brings into the trees with him and encourages his climbers to take part in is being completely still and quiet in the trees. This practice allows for better wildlife observation and a deeper connection with the forest environment. Many first-time climbers, who are often excited or restless, can face challenges with maintaining this stillness. To ease their process, Kovar provides “seeds”  here and there, prompting them to think about what they smell, what they hear, or what they can touch. 

Kovar hopes that by helping others have a positive experience in the trees, he can help them be more mindful of the environment afterward. 

“Maybe just for that moment, that night when they're at dinner or after the restaurant, they don't grab that handful of napkins that they might have grabbed the night before,” says Kovar. “Because now they're thinking of the tree and the whole process of what's going on with them.”

The Climbers:

“I just love the people that trees bring into my life. It's my community,” says Kovar.

From students to collaborators to his own mentors and inspirations, the trees have been a bridge for Kovar to new experiences and connections. One memorable connection for Kovar was Hikosaka Toshiko, who he met through a student of TCI, John Gathright. Gathright is the founder of Tree Climbing Japan. His mission is to help physically challenged people overcome some of the mental and physical barriers that stand between them and climbing. Toshiko was a severely physically challenged 57-year-old woman who visited Gathright and shared with him that if she could do anything in the world, it would be to climb a tree. 

In 2000, Gathright connected with Kovar and Tree Climbers International. From there, Gathright returned to Japan where he was equipped with new knowledge of adaptive tree climbing, such as modified harnesses or rope systems, that could help Toshiko on her mission. 

Before embarking on her climb, Toshiko wrote prayer plaques that she would retrieve from the tree at the time of her climb. Japanese prayer plaques, also called Ema, are tablets that people write their hopes, intentions, or wishes on and hang at shrines or temples for the spirits and the gods to receive them. Gathright asked Kovar to put these plaques in the tree for Toshiko to retrieve. “I remember getting up there and putting these there and kissing these little plaques and hanging them on the branches,” says Kovar.

Toshiko became the first physically challenged tree climber to climb to the top of the Stagg Tree, which stands at 262 feet, making it the fifth-largest tree in the world. “She spent the night on the top of the tree and she came back as a hero,” says Kovar. But Gathright is not the first of TCI’s students to turn his tree-climbing experience into a career. 

In 2006, Wil Orr climbed his first tree with no climbing experience. His mission at the time was to get his nephew out of the house and to try something new. When his nephew didn’t show up to climb at the River House Outdoor Center in Eugene, as they had planned, Orr decided to give it a try anyway. “It just changed my life. I knew. This is what I wanted to do,” says Orr. “I think the closest thing I've ever had to a religious experience.” 

Orr studied under Kovar through Tree Climbing Planet and got his facilitators certificate as a climbing facilitator and arborist. Later, he and his wife, Nichole, started Tree Climbing Eugene, Eugene’s only tree-climbing organization.

During their 2024 season, they held open climbs every second and fourth Sunday of the month from April until October. Their open climbs are “pay what you can” and welcome 12 climbers during a three-hour window, guiding three safely at a time. “I don't expect everyone to have the same life-changing experience I had,” says Orr. “But I know that it's meaningful and I know, even if everyone's not like, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,’ everyone seems to have something they take away from it.” 

Another one of Kovar’s insights regarding climbing trees and navigating through life is not focusing on the endpoint, but the time spent on the way there. “I go towards the top, very seldom do I ever get to the top of a tree anymore,” says Kovar.