Climbers' Corner • Tree Academy
Monday • Tuesday • Wednesday
Trees in Challenge Courses and Adventure Parks: Aspects of a Modern Use of Trees
Summary
Adventure parks in trees offer unique experiences that are very attractive to people, and ropes courses in trees are very popular. Like any other form of activity in trees, they involve risks; using trees as anchor points raises issues of risk management, damages to trees or to the soil structure, and sustainability. This presentation demonstrates how arboricultural experience may lead to a better construction, management, and inspection of challenge courses in trees. It describes the current state of tree-friendly systems to attach ropes and platforms. Results from static and dynamic load tests carried out on trees in ropes courses will be presented.
Conference Proceedings Documents
Presenters
Andreas Detter, Brudi &
Partner TreeConsult, Gauting, Germany
With fifteen years of
experience as a practical arborist, Detter holds an engineering degree in
Landscape Design. As an appointed expert court witness and co-founder of Brudi
& Partner TreeConsult in Munich, Germany, his chief occupation of the past
ten years has been consulting. Andreas Detter is a member of sag-Baumstatik, an
international association of consultants in tree statics. He is active in the
European Ropes Courses Association, promoting awareness of tree biology and
tree statics in the construction of forest adventure parks. Detter has spoken
at international conferences and is the author of publications on tree-statics,
cabling, and physics in climbing and rigging. He was a co-developer of the
educational software Rigging 1.0. He teaches at the University of Applied
Sciences in Weihenstephan, and held workshops and presentations in the U.S. and
several European countries. Andreas Detter has guided research projects on
arborist safety and tree stability funded by the British Health and Safety
Executive and Forestry Commission as well as the TREE Fund's John Hyland's
Grant Program.
Climbers' Corner • Tree Academy
Monday • Tuesday • Wednesday