Before artificial propagation took over, i.e., cloning, the Forest Service hired contract tree climbers to collect cones from a area marked for logging.
The idea was that the trees that did well in a particular stand would be used for replanting seed stock. The cruisers/geneticists would mark the trees in an area, we got paid piece work 50-100+USD/tree to climb them, put the cones in burlap and rappel out with our squirrel stash. Cones were picked green, just as they started to open. So very generally Northern states to South, higher elevations to lower.
I was like 20, living in Missoula, working that old Conoco station next to Ole's on Orange St. right off the Interstate. A mid 40's hippy north of the tracks type, regular customer, asked me if I was interested in forest contract work.
Live on the road? Out of my old station wagon?? Camping out and sleeping on the ground under the first tree I would climb the next morning??? Hanging out with a bunch of Rainbow Family types moving from campground to campground across the West during the best months of the year?!?!?! I was in. The loose confederation of climbers called themselves the 'Squirrels', based more or less out of Ukiah. Sam Campagna and a homeopath named Eddy, were the 'admins'. I met surveyors, hoedads, itinerant backwoods drifters, some gun toting pot growers, lots of folks on a permanent 60's hangover, cruising the land and life of the terminally hip.
Biggest tree I ever climbed was an old sugar pine, somewhere northeast of Angel's Camp, pretty sure, on a hillside overlooking a steep draw. My clinometer said close to 200ft tall, the hillside made it look even higher. We used basic climbing gear, a long rappel rope, simple harness, with a long heavy flip line, and linesman's gaffs outfitted with tree spurs.
One of a few trees I climbed whose diameter was so great, my flip line could not go all the way around.
Another tree climber threw a long weighted slip of nylon cord up to the first good branch, about 30 ft. up, we used that line to pull a belay rope. He held the belay, and I climbed the bark. As I was climbing getting ready to tie in near the top, I could see a dark thunderstorm approaching across the next ridge maybe 6-8 mi. I was not about to give up the tree, the setup and climb were too much work.
The Forest Circus typically wanted cones only from the top 25% of the tree. Exposed to more air flow, therefore better mix of genetics, more viability.
Less relevant for Sugar Pines, their cones grow only way out on the tip of a branch. Not nearly as many as crazy prolific DougFir. Generally the F.S. did not want cones dropped, bagged and lowered was what was wanted. For the Sugars, the plan was different.
The trick the older climbers taught me was to tie off my safety line to the bole and walk out those sturdy long branches. Get about halfway out, steady yourself on the branch above. Then just start rocking the branch you were standing on up and down, each arc a little bigger. When you got the tip in a maybe 10ft arc, just quick like, jump up, then your fall would catch the branch on an upswing. 'Cracking the Whip' would knock the thick stemmed cones off the end, send those 5lb green bricks flying. Lookout below.
So I got busy stomping branches, flipping cones. Fortunately, not much lightning, but some good heavy winds. They don't look like it maybe, but those big trees rock quite a bit at the top in a gale. Pretty exhilarating. By the time I began my descent it was raining a bit. 120ft. later I was looking to tie my rappel in for that last fast jump, and it was coming down pretty well, my climbing branches were slippery. Picking my cones off the ground in the rain, laying out my ropes in the back of my wagon to dry for later, putting up a bit of coffee as the rain blew out, wet and chilly, I could not help but feel I had kinda got away with something cool.
I spent maybe 4 months over the next couple of years in the summer living pretty damn free doing forest work. I ate simple and lean, lived very clean, spent every moment of every day outdoors. Slept on the ground or in the back of my wagon, traveled most of the highways from King's Canyon to the Okanagon, exploring, taking the long ways, all through Idaho and back to Montana. Simplest, most peaceful time of my life.
FWIW, the stories of shooting cones down is true. One of the climbers had a permit from the Circus to harvest cones with a .22, for seeds and to be sold as Christmas decorations in the Bay Area. I saved a cone from that tree, still have it, 40 odd years later.
