From a distance, the tree looks almost fragile.

A pale, skinny chopstick stuck straight up into the jungle canopy. You’d almost think you could snap it in half if you tried. Then you step right beside its buttress root and realize the rainforest just played a massive optical illusion on you. Up close, the trunk is massive, so wide it takes three people with outstretched arms just to wrap around it.

The air down here is cool, dim, and smells of damp soil, while the top of the tree lives in a world of its own, high up in the bright sunlight.

Cranking your neck to look straight up, your eyes play tricks on you all over again. The highest branches look like delicate little twigs, and the huge, heavy wild bee nests clinging to the wood look no bigger than tiny mushrooms. In reality, those branches have been holding their place up there for generations, carrying the weight of the forest canopy, wild bees and everything else that comes with living twenty stories above the ground.

Standing beneath a living giant that has outlived generations, you suddenly become very aware of your own size. And looking all the way up, a rather practical question comes to my mind:

Why would anyone want to climb this thing?

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