Hey everyone! I just found this site a couple of days ago. You might have seen me on the other two poplular sites.
I didn't see this thread until I had already posted. So here goes.
I started climbing when my dad had a bid to prune trees on our property. He had the mind set of most people, "geez, that's a lot of money, I'll just get my son to do it."
Well he told me about it, and we started researching gear. I dived into Alex Shigo's books, G.F. Berinaks book, and the Tree Climbers Companion. I learned alot. So we ordered the gear, and I read ALOT, on the forums.
Shortly after my head hurt, from all the stuff I was learning, I went to work for a friend of mine in the business. (Kinda got scared at everyone yelling at the newbies to get proper training before they attempted anything related to arborculture.)
Then my gear finally arrived and we played and played. I then pruned our 22 trees on our property from very mature honey locusts to maples, and the younger trees.
It gave me enough experience before I got the bug to start my own business. That was over a year ago, and I'm still going strong.
I never stop learning and educating myself, shoot I spend almost two hours everynight browsing the forums and the web. (There is a lot of cr@p to wade through.)
All in all, I got the tree climbing bug, and I absolutely LOVE what I do.
Thanks everyone for the information you take the time to share with others!