Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Beau Nagan, arborist and winner of the Illinois Tree Climbing Championship.
When I first started doing tree work, I was not too terribly comfortable with the heights, not because I’m afraid of heights per se, but because I didn’t really trust the equipment, and it seems counterintuitive to let go of something with your hands. I will, to this day, get a little nervous if I’m in a very tall tree that doesn’t have branches underneath me. There’s something that makes you feel more secure about being surrounded by the tree itself.
