The Man Who Climbs Trees: The Lofty Adventures of a Wildlife Cameraman

“A vertiginous, white-knuckled adventure through some of the most spectacular forests in the world.” —Washington Post

Meet the man who climbs trees for a living. In this adventure memoir, Aldred carries us with him across the globe and up to the top of these towering forest titans as he recalls his most memorable encounters with trees and their inhabitants.

Every child knows the allure of climbing trees. But how many of us get to make a living at it, spending days observing nature from the canopies of stunning forests all around the world?

As a wildlife cameraman for the BBC and National Geographic, James Aldred spends his working life high up in trees, poised to capture key moments in the lives of wild animals and birds. Aldred’s climbs take him to the most incredible and majestic trees in existence. In Borneo, home to the tallest tropical rain forest on the planet, just getting a rope up into the 250-foot-tall trees is a challenge. In Venezuela, even body armor isn’t guaranteed protection against the razor-sharp talons of a nesting Harpy Eagle. In Australia, the peace of being lulled to sleep in a hammock twenty-five stories above the ground— after a grueling day of climbing and filming—is broken by a midnight storm that threatens to topple the tree.

In this vivid account of memorable trees he has climbed (“Goliath,” “Apollo,” “Roaring Meg”), Aldred blends incredible stories of his adventures in the branches with a fascination for the majesty of trees to show us the joy of rising—literally—above the daily grind, up into the canopy of the forest.