TREE CLIMBING SERIES: Episode one "TUFA TREE"

Hello everybody! My name is Rafi Vargas and I'm a climber from Costa Rica. I've dedicated my life to climbing some of the most extraordinary trees on earth. I've been in the forefront of the development of a new style of climbing. I climb giant strangler fig trees using special gear just in the case of a fall. Join me on these vertical adventures where each climb, each episode, is a journey of exploration, a search for connection, discovery, and for the stories hidden in the natural formations of Mother Earth. Welcome to my tree climbing series where adventurer meets the art of movement. As I climb this magnificent fig tree I want to share with you a little bit about the story behind how I got here. I grew up here in Costa Rica but more precisely in a small mountaintop community known as Monte Verde. A cloud forest where mist weaves through the trees and life clings in abundance to every branch. This forest has been my home, my playground, and my teacher. Monte Verde is world renowned, a hub for ecotourism and conservation. It was one of the first places on earth to build its future around protecting nature rather than destroying it. Growing up here meant being surrounded by biologists, naturalists, conservationists, and by countless visitors from around the world. As a kid it would be a common sight for me to see people walk up and down my street with binoculars around their neck all looking up in search for glimpses of life in the mist. But for me glass lenses were never enough. I didn't want to just watch from below. I needed to climb. I wanted to be up there. Monte Verde has a legacy of canopy explorers. People who were moved by their curiosity to enter the vertical realms of this forest. People like Nalini Nadkarni, a true pioneer of canopy research. Nalini came here decades ago driven by the same curiosity that drives me now. Her curiosity ignited a movement, one that still echoes through these mountains. And that spirit, that echo, has influenced my own connection to these vertical realms. My journey into the vertical world of these jungles began from an early age, climbing giant strangler fig trees. Monte Verde is home to a high concentration of these strangler figs. These trees begin their lives high above the ground. They are known as hemiepiphytes. To break that down, an epiphyte is a plant that grows on top of other plants, living high above the ground. And a hemiepiphyte is a plant that starts its life that way too, but eventually grows downwards, sinking its roots into the ground until it becomes an independent structure. The cycle of these fig trees begins when a monkey or a bird eats the fruit and eventually drops its seeds, quite literally, on top of another tree. The seeds germinate, feed on decomposing plants, and take advantage of the sunlight high up in the canopy. As it grows, it sends roots downwards in search of nutrients from the forest floor, wrapping and twisting around its host tree. These roots form a cage, tightening up as they grow, until the host tree dies and decomposes as it's no longer able to transport its nutrients up and down its trunk. What remains is a hollow cathedral of living wood, the strangler fig tree. As a child, these hollow spaces were my playground. I would climb inside the hollow trunks, weaving upward until I would burst out into the canopy. I'll never forget the look on my mom's face, pale with fear as her eight-year-old son stood atop of a giant. Later, my curiosity pushed me further. I began scaling the outsides of these trees, using the natural formations as a ladder. Back then, I climbed without ropes, just trust, instinct, and an endless desire to know what was above the clouds. Climbing with ropes came later. After high school, I got a job as a canyoneering guy. There, I learned the fundamentals of knots and rope systems. About that same time, a big wall climber from Yosemite Valley called Mash Alexander came to teach at the school that my friends and I went to. He had already experimented with climbing these figs and saw the potential that these held. When his time in Monteverde came to an end, he left us with a gift, a battered old rope, a handful of slings and carabiners, and an old grigri. When he left, he pretty much said, have fun, try to be safe, and figure it out, because no one else is really out there climbing these trees the way that you are. And that's exactly what we did. We figured it out. We grew with the trees, and the trees, they taught us how to grow. And from there, well, I'll let my tree climbing series do the talking. Whenever I am up here climbing these giant trees, it's as if time dissolves. I imagine our simian ancestors free, untethered, moving effortlessly through the vertical jungles. This is more than just climbing to me. This is traveling millions of years back into the memory of evolution itself. My goal with this series is to bring you into this vertical world, to let you see the extraordinary shapes of Mother Nature, the wonders that live only in the canopy, the living and ever-changing paths created by these towering fig trees, and to show you this exploration through the art of movement. Thank you all so much for watching this video all the way to the end. And stay posted, because on the next episode, I'm going to be climbing with my childhood friend and climbing partner, Izzy. Izzy is known for being a bald climber who is not afraid of pushing hard and taking big whips.