"Luis' and Rescue #2

Details

I was preparing for dreamland when the Kat Fone Yowled. It was Gray - his family's kitty, "Luis", who I had rescued in December 2014, was stuck again -- could I help? I checked my schedule and arranged to be there the next morning by 8:00 am. Before he hung up, Gray mentioned that the tree that Luis was stuck in was 'sort of skinny'. This sounded ominous to me. When I arrived, Gray welcomed me, and then pointed across the road. When I saw where he was pointing, my heart sank. Luis was about at about 35 feet in a skinny, wiggly-looking hardwood. It did not look a quite as bad as the Tree of Terror, but it did not look good. I walked across the road and examined the wiggly tree more closely. The trees around it were not any better than the target tree, so climbing a neighboring tree would not work. It looked like there was a smallish branch at about 25 feet that I could get a rope on. I did not want to stem climb all the way up, so I decided to use the branch along with a backup rope in a neighboring tree to give me some protection in case the branch broke. It took me about 45 minutes to get my two ropes installed, and then I started up.

When I reached my tie-in point, I transitioned to stem climbing and kept going. My climbing was shaking the tree quite a bit and Luis let me know with loud cries that he was not happy.When I stood on the branch that my tie-in point was on, I was almost in grabbing reach of Luis. Fortunately, Luis is a skittish/non-traveler, which means that he is not happy about you being there, but he is too scared to go anywhere else in the tree. I put the Kat bag on my right hand, and then used my stem climbing gear to make one more step up the tree. I was now close enough for a grab, so I gently stroked Luis to calm him. I then scruffed him, and after a brief struggle where I had to peel him off the limb and also the trunk, I was able to stuff him into the Kat bag. Just like the last time that I rescued him, Luis became completely silent once he was in the bag. After I reached the ground, I walked to the house, and Gray and I released him inside. He quickly scooted off for his safe spot in the house, happy to be out of the dastardly tree! Hopefully it will be more than a year before I see Luis again!