Tree cone collector has 'exhilarating' seasonal vocation

The Record
MICHELLE MACHADO
Record Staff Writer
Monday, Sep 25, 2006

WEST POINT - For a few weeks each fall, Robert Beauchamp trades
working on wood for climbing the woods to collect tree cones for
government agencies and private industry.

The Davis furniture maker is barely discernible among branches near
the top of an 80-foot incense cedar, heavy with rust-colored cones
that hold seeds needed for reforestation projects.

Beauchamp - his cedar bending to whistling wind gusts on the
mid-September afternoon - sways like a high-rise dweller during a
magnitude 7 temblor.

"It's a little unnerving, and, in a sense, it's exhilarating,"
Beauchamp later said.

The only other sounds in the privately owned timberland near West
Point are treetop conversation between Beauchamp and Mark Leffler, a
picker in a neighboring tree; the click of the 1-inch-long cedar
cones dropping into half-bushel buckets; and the thud of cone-filled
burlap sacks hitting the ground.

The ever-capricious Sierra skies begin to darken, and the air
thickens with moisture.

Nearly two hours later, Beauchamp has stripped the cedar of four
bushels of cones.

He rappels as a light, but steady, rain threatens to settle in. The
rain slickens the limbs, so Beauchamp cuts the cone-collecting day short.

Most workdays run 10 hours, beating up all but the best of climbers.

"You have the potential to make good money, but you're going to earn
it," Beauchamp said.

During about 10 years, collecting cones for the U.S. Forest Service,
California Department of Forestry, and Sierra Pacific Industries and
other timber companies, has become an increasingly lucrative sideline
for Beauchamp, 48.

"I've negotiated better and better contracts. My goal as a climber is
to make $1,000 per day," he said.

Beauchamp's charges are based on a per-tree minimum, which varies by
species, and on the number of bushels picked.

Red fir, which has large cones that can be quickly collected, is the
least costly.

By contrast, incense cedar, which has down-sloping, slippery branches
and small cones that have to be handpicked, is more expensive to harvest.

Other tree species from which Beauchamp and his counterparts collect
cones are Douglas and white firs, and Jeffrey, ponderosa, sugar and
Western white pines.

Conifers have naturally occurring cycles of cone production that are
not necessarily annual. Cones are collected in August and September
only from those species with the largest crops.

This year, Beauchamp hired nine subcontractors, mostly arborists or
rock climbers, who worked from a few days to the entire season in an
area that includes the Sierras, the Northern Coastal Range and the
Southern Cascades.

Each climber must carry his own equipment and $1 million in liability
insurance.

Still, labor demand exceeded supply. "There is a tremendous amount of
work I did not get done this year because I could not find qualified
climbers," Beauchamp said.

In 2005, the California Department of Forestry targeted 5,000 bushels
of cones for collection statewide, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman
for the agency.

Sierra Pacific's Martell District, which keeps a bank containing
thousands of pounds of seed used to replace harvested, burned or
diseased trees, takes all the cones Beauchamp can collect.

Timing is everything. If seeds are immature, the germination rate
will be low. Wait too long and the cones will open, dropping the
seeds to the ground as nature intended.

Sierra Pacific checks seed ripeness by shooting cones out of
evergreens, focusing on healthy trees with good branch structure.

"We literally go through thousands of .22 shells during two weeks of
sampling," said Steve Kafka, a forester for Sierra Pacific, which
owns or manages approximately 1.5 million acres of California forestland.

In a two-year-long process from seed to seedling, the cones are first
sent to a processing facility, where the seeds are extracted and
cleaned, then to a freezer for storage and finally to a nursery for planting.

Seed is zone specific: Seedlings must be planted within 1,000 feet of
the elevation from which they were harvested.

Trees achieve harvest size in 25 years to 30 years.

Beauchamp pushes to collect as many cones as possible in a weeks-long
window, but safety remains the paramount concern.

Tree climbers use spurs or a cam-based rope ascending device and
secure themselves with a variety of harnesses and adjustable slings.

Beauchamp has developed layers of safety protocol that minimize risk:
When using a carabiner - a metal loop with a sprung gate commonly
used to attach a rope to a fixed anchor - he listens for the device
to click closed and then visually confirms that the gate has shut.

"There are hazards you can control on your own and others you have no
control over," he said.

Among those are tangling with hornets or wasps while perched high in a tree.

"That can be a dangerous to deadly encounter," Beauchamp said.

He has had a decade to learn the perils and pitfalls of cone collecting.

In the mid-1990s, Beauchamp joined a friend who was collecting cones
on the Northern California coastline.

Out of 31 days, the pair climbed 28, with Beauchamp's earnings
averaging $400 per day.

His level of climbing experience? "None. He knew I was a pretty
outdoorsy and capable fellow," Beauchamp said.

That assessment was understated. Beauchamp competes with three team
members in international adventure races, during which participants'
physical and mental limits are fully tested.

"There are opportunities for trust and faith and for total disgust
with teammates," he said.

When not competing or cone collecting, Beauchamp makes custom
furniture out of trees he falls and mills through his self-named business.

The pursuits all require Beauchamp to grapple with nature or natural
materials with physicality and precision, demands which he embraces.

"I don't see stopping anytime soon. I'm totally irrational," he said.

Contact reporter Michelle Machado at (209) 943-8547 or mmachado@recordnet.com