"Missy" in a Vine Covered Tree

Executive Summary

Bryana contacted me about her 6-month-old kitty, ‘Missy’ – she is a mostly indoor cat, who escaped outside during a party and became stuck up a tree south of Forest. The kitty had been stuck for multiple days, and could not get down. When I arrived, Bryana led me to the lip of a briar/brush choked, mosquito infested gully – the vine covered tree was at the bottom of the gully and we could hear Missy, but not see her. I descended into the muddy gully and followed a path that a cousin had hacked to the tree. At the base of the tree looking up, I could see Missy at about 30 feet, where the trunk made a slight bend and continued up. She was crying for help, I hoped it would be an easy rescue. There was no way to set a rope because of the vines, so I began the laborious, tiring process of stem climbing, fighting vines every inch of the way. About half-way up, I realized that I could no longer hear Missy -- she had become spooked by the vine shaking and gone further up the tree. Bryana had retreated inside to care for her child. I called her on the phone and asked her to come out and call the kitty. She did, and Missy responded, and came back to about 5 feet above the bend. I kept climbing and got to where I could just put my hand on the bend. At this point, I made a mistake. I should have kept climbing until I could easily reach the entire trunk bend with my hand for a kitty grab, but I did not. I pulled out some dry kitty treats, shook the bag, and Missy came down to the bend. She could sniff my fingers, but was just out of reach of a grab. I put the treats up, and tried to advance a little further up so I could get a grab. Missy decided that since there were no more treats, she would go back up the tree. SIGH. Again, she disappeared from view. So, I kept climbing about 10 more feet, and at 40 feet there was a limb that I could put a lanyard around and hang more comfortably in my saddle. Missy was a little higher and out on another limb, about 5 feet away from this limb. She was just lounging, seemingly relaxed. I pulled out the kitty treats again. She got a whiff of them, and came right to me, where it was an easy bag. I was able to rappel down easily and hand off Missy to Bryana. Whew, I was glad that the rescue ended successfully!