Cameron Coppock '10
The Climber
When Cameron Coppock was about 6 years old, he desperately wanted to climb a red alder tree near his home, but his mother wouldn’t let him because it was on their neighbor’s property. In that case, he decided, his family needed more trees on their own property, so he dug up some seedlings of big-leaf maple and planted them in places where he wanted to climb. That was the beginning of a tree garden that today numbers more than 200 trees of 180 different species.
“We have about every tree that grows natively in the Pacific Northwest—ashes, larches, firs, maple, alders, redbuds,” Cameron said.
The collection also includes many exotic trees, some from warmer and drier climates, requiring coaxing to grow on his family’s 40-acre property in La Center, Washington. Occasionally trees will die during freezes or snowstorms, and in the dry part of summer, he hauls in water to the trees that need year-round moisture. When he takes a break from his work, he can survey the surrounding mountains.
“You have to climb a tree to get a view of the volcanoes but that’s no problem,” he said. “You can see Mt. Hood, but Mt. Baldy is in the way of St. Helens. On a really clear day you can see Mt. Jefferson from the top of the tree.”
The tree he climbs for that view is not one of the maples he planted as a child. He scales a much older Douglas fir, and he also climbs trees without low limbs by using mountaineering gear that his father has taught him to use. Together they climbed Mt. Hood when he was 10 years old and 14,000-foot Mt. Shasta the following year. They have climbed in British Columbia and have done technical climbs up several different faces of Mt. Hood.
Cameron says he loves the concentration and physical exertion involved in mountaineering: “When climbing you are focused on maintaining three points of contact; it’s simple but there are real consequences.”
He also finds pleasure in the physical work on his family’s La Center property. He enjoys thinning the wood lot with a chainsaw, chipping the smaller branches, and splitting the larger rounds for firewood.
“Lots of people think of manual labor as unpleasant, but it’s pretty relaxing compared to writing essays or something,” he said. “It’s pretty soothing, and I can inspect all the trees while I am mowing or cutting weeds.”
That’s not to say he is not interested in academic effort. Cameron attended OES from Kindergarten through graduation—a total of 14 years including his year in the Primary class—and says he appreciated the resources available here. For five years he worked with classmate Sam Obletz on science projects involving hydroelectric dams, suspension bridges, cable-stayed brings, and analog and digital noise cancellation. He continued pursuing his interests in engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
