Scottish Woodlands are long time sponsors of the pole climbing competition held in the Forestry Arena at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh each year. After supplying two new 30m Douglas Fir poles for this year’s competition, two members of Scottish Woodlands staff threw caution to the wind and joined the professional climbers to raise some funds for charity.
Dessy Henry (Regional Manager – North) and Adam Stokes (Timber Harvesting manager – Castle Douglas) kindly stepped forward to raise money for our chosen charities; Diabetes UK and Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland.
Traditions were maintained this year with a new set of 30m high Douglas fir poles being supplied by Scottish Woodlands, from Kirkennan Estate in Dumfries & Galloway. The climbing poles have become a major landmark within the showground as they dominate the skyline over the show making them a formidable challenge which Dessy and Adam were only too happy to conquer!
Although rumour and speculation was rife on the day of a world record being made, Dessy and Adam decided to set that aside and let the younger boys go for that challenge. It’s fair to say that both Dessy and Adam were thrown in at the deep end with this challenge, with little to no practice but when you’re ‘in the depths’ there is only one way to go and that is up, and up they went! Adam hit the top with an impressive 52.59 seconds with Dessy coming in at 139.40 seconds. Dessy did admit to taking a few phone calls on the way up, but he is happy with his time and is keen to beat it next year.
A special thanks to Graeme Hodgson who runs the event each year, for his help and support getting Dessy and Adam to the top.