Solo Climbing and Camping in a GIANT Strangler Fig Tree.

The other day I was hiking here in the mountains of Costa Rica, and looking across the valley I could see an absolutely massive tree sticking above the rest of the forest. A tree that I figured must be a giant strangler fig. When I got back home I scanned some satellite imagery and found what looked like the tree Using my drone a few days later I was able to fly over the forest and get up and close to the tree itself. Surely enough this was a true giant with one of the most incredible canopies of interwoven branches I've ever seen. After getting permission from the landowner I knew that I had to go check this tree out and bring my climbing and camping gear along with me. All right here we are. So my plan tonight is to climb this giant strangler fig tree completely on my own and then once I get up there I'm going to haul the rest of my stuff up there. This is my camping gear and my camera gear and I'll be hauling that up into the canopy setting up a beautiful triangular tree tent and hopefully enjoying a wind-free night up in the top of the canopy. But to start out because I've actually never climbed this tree I've actually got to scout out a route that I think is going to work which actually looks a little bit blank. Like there's not that many handholds. Yeah this side looks not that protectable. Kind of dubious climbing challenge here. This side looks kind of blank. This side. How about this side? This side looks steep and quite hard. I am not sure that I want to rope solo that. Yeah this right here might be the best option. Follow that vine system all the way up. Maybe that's just my move to climb up that vine. Gonna start undoing my gear. So for rope soloing I need to make a ground anchor. Something that can fix my rope to the ground. I think this pillar looks yeah that looks about perfect. I'm gonna go ahead and tie that off. Boom. Tie a figure eight on a bite and then fix that to my anchor. There we go. So the rope solo setup that I'm going to use is going to involve an upside down grigri. So the grigri is facing this ground anchor right here. Now that'll feed out pretty smooth. So there we got the rope all coiled up. One end to my bags. One end down here at the anchor. I'm a little nervous because I've actually never been up this tree. Okay. Well why don't we go for it. I'm just gonna triple back up that anchor. That'll keep my anchor upright. Cool. Let's just start climbing. Let's see how this is. Just take it super slow. One step at a time. I'm a little nervous about this actually. I'm not exactly sure about this vine. It looks like it's kind of connected to the tree up there in a way that I might not be able to get any gear in. So I might bail on this one. And it doesn't feel like the most sturdy vine anyways that I want to trust. Maybe we do a backup route of around the corner where it might not look a of this side just a little bit more. Let's build an anchor here. Let's feed myself a bunch of slack just to start out with. Okay. How about some climbing, huh? Any snakes in here? Hopefully not. Okay. Foot hold right there. A little hand hold. Get up on top of this thing. Okay. Why don't we get a piece of gear in here. I'm gonna keep climbing. Let's see what we got around the corner now. I'm gonna be able to protect this. Uncertainty. All right. Why don't we get a right hand in there. A hand jam. There we go. Okay. So where is my next piece of gear? That is the real question. Slash hand hold. I am definitely getting a little run out here. That's kind of crumbly. Maybe those handlebars right there will have something for me. Okay. That does feel pretty solid. But I'm definitely into some no fall zones right now. Well, that's a really good hand hold. Okay. And we're definitely running it out. But okay, we're clipped. Nice hand jam. And let's get like a bomber piece of gear right here. Lovely. Okay. Okay. Every time I do a new tree, I'm always scared of little critters. You know, I don't really know what animals own this tree. So I like to keep talking. Let them know I'm coming. Oh, this is a cool little zone to hang out in. We have definitely made some good progress. I mean, that's pretty much the top. But it definitely looks like I've got some somewhat tricky climbing before I get there. There we go. Beautiful. Kind of wondering, do I just climb up that? That looks a little hard, actually. What does it look like on this side? Completely blank. So this might be the only way. Let's see. Oh, okay. No, it's better. It's good. We've got kind of this half vine that I can pinch there. I should be able to grab that hoop eventually. High foot. Kind of pinchy. Lovely. There we go. Put my arm through while I give myself some more slack. Nice. Lovely. I think that's it. Something just cracked underneath my foot. Oh, this whole thing is kind of just a little bit rotten. Wow. Wow. Look at that view over there. You can see all the way to the San Luis waterfall. That is crazy. Let's go. You can see my stuff all the way down there through the leaves of the tree. Oh, man. And look at this canopy, huh? Look at this nook. This is insane. This canopy. Oh, my God. All of these branches going in every which direction. Wow. I'm going to set up an anchor. All right. There's the end of the rope. Double check. Locked. Locked. So now let's head on down and go get my stuff. All right. Little scary. Oh, yeah. Sweet. Back down on the ground. There's my stuff. All right. There we go. Here we have the rope going up to the canopy on this one clean side. This nice open space will make for great hauling up. Got all my bags. And now I'm just going to go back up on this side and climb again on top rope. So here we've got the rope fixed up. So what we're going to do now is we're going to use this micro traction to climb back up the rope. And it's got these little teeth here so that it can move up the rope but not down. All right. For the sake of not boring you guys, I'm not going to record my top rope, my entire top rope climb. So let's just start the next clip when I'm back up in the top. All right. Now we have a line going down to my stuff. All right. Bag just starting to come up. Let's just keep hauling away. All right. Very nice, clean haul. Very few problems. That was really nice. All right. So there we got my stuff now in the canopy, which means it's time to start looking for a spot that I want to set up the tent, which really very much involves an open area, maybe like that right there with three triangle points that I can anchor the tent to. Very strong anchor points, ideally. Yeah. What about this as one point, that as another point, and maybe this as the third point. I'm just hoping that it's big enough. I think it is. A little bit freaky to go out on a branch like this. So here we go. One anchor point done. There we go. Cozy. All right. Sun is getting low. Got the tent all set up. Got about 30, 40 minutes of daylight left. Life is perfect. Before I lose too much of my light, I want to see if I can do a little canopy mission, poke my head out of the trees. That's pretty cool. Branch. Let's be mighty careful, eh? There we go. That's a good view, huh? Yep. Let's retreat back to the safety now that wind is coming through. All right. Well, I'm pretty satisfied with my explorations around the canopy, so I say it's time to get in the tent, start getting cozy. It's probably going to go down in the last bit of light, maybe fly my drone around a little bit, get a few shots. Nice. Getting kind of psyched. This is so fun. Here we can see all the way down to the ground down there. I would say that's a good 70 feet. It's got to be. In here we got the setup. We got the sleeping bag. I'm not yet in it. Soon to be. Over here we got kind of a storage corner. As long as I kind of keep those sides zipped, should be pretty good. And here I've got my food. So for dinner, we have some pre-made quesadillas. As usual, to make it fancy, we have an avocado. So the avocados here in Costa Rica are incredible. So boom. There's the seed. I'm just going to drop it. Far drop. Oh yeah. Oh, that's incredible. I got to say, this is an incredible feeling. To be honest, for the past like three, four months, I've been working so hard, nonstop, kind of brand projects, brand deliverables, deadlines. And like a week ago, I like finished them all. All the products are done. So I'm obviously out making a video, but this is just pure joy. No sponsor, no brands on it. I just love to come out here because this is really where it all started, you know, just adventuring in the trees like seven, eight years ago. That's where my climbing journey started. And so coming back, having this elevated experience, eating quesadillas 70, 80 feet up in the canopy of a beautiful tree. It just doesn't get better than that. All right, that's it. Also, I want to find my socks actually, because having socks up here is a big luxury. Very nice. 6.04 PM. Nice. Got the sun setting over there. Beautiful. Yep. That's about the last little bit of light that I'm going to get for 12 hours. Let's hope it doesn't rain. Let's hope it doesn't get super windy. Let's hope I don't roll out of bed. No, just kidding. Wearing my harness still with my gris-gris attached. So that's going up to the anchor point up over there. So if this thing were to collapse in the middle of the night, I would have a backup. Another commonly asked question for camping up here is like, how do you go pee-pee and poo-poo? Pee-pee, you know, I just hang off the edge, sit on a branch, maybe let it fly. And poo-poo, I just don't. I am not up here for like more than a day. So I just make sure that when I come up here, I'm all cleaned out. And you know, if I really have to go, I'm just going to repel down the line and deal with it on the ground. Because why do that when I don't have to? Oh yeah. Here's a little look at the setup. And the abyss. There's another branch. It's maybe 8.30. It's been dark for like two hours. Watching some movies. Just enjoying the position. I've been sleeping pretty good. Got the moon coming through the canopy right now. Oh, it's starting to get light out. Overall, that was probably my best night of sleep I've ever had in the trees. So I'm feeling very relaxed, very sleepy. I'm very glad I got to do that. Starting to see the sun come up over there. All right. Well, I think it's about time for me to start packing up. So I start throwing a sleeping bag in. I honestly couldn't be happier. That was pretty sweet. All right. Just because I can see the ground from where I'm at and I'm just going to throw down a sleeping bag. Let's throw the sleeping bag down there. Ready? Three, two, one. Dropping. Oh yeah. Look at that glorious sun. All righty. I think it's time to start taking the tent down. So let's get on it. And then we've got the bags right there. So let's start lowering them down. Running the rope up and over this branch. That'll be my rappel line. All righty. Well, I think I'm going to end the video there, continue packing up my stuff. You know, if you've made it this far in the video and you haven't already, be sure to hit the like button and subscribe to the channel. Those things are free and they actually really help me out, boost these videos to more people. And if you want to keep watching the channel, well, be sure to click here and you can watch a video that YouTube recommends next. I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day. I will see you in the next video.