Bolting trees

Drilling through and installing steel bolts or threaded rod in trees is common practice for installing support cables/brace rods. However, it is uncommon to see more than two bolts in any one stem, and these should be spaced at least the diamater of the limb or trunk apart.

You can also whack frogs with a golf club for fun.

Briggs Lazalde wrote:

I dunno, something is telling me that may not be the moral thing to do. It would be much more rewarding for you to love and nuture the frogs. Then find them suitable homes. Then slowly destroy their way of life with high taxes and a growing gap between the upper and lower class. Hey I never said there would be a happy ending

...I'm sorry kids, its medical testing for the lot of ya.

Putting bolts thru trees is also common practice for zip lines. Depending on the length of the line the forces can be quite high, much more than you would ever see rock climbing. Though I really can't imagine a scenario that this would be the best option in the context of rock climbing.

Russ Keane wrote: You can also whack frogs with a golf club for fun.

Glad I wasn't drinking anything while reading this thread

Ted Pinson wrote: You know how they say “there’s no such thing as a stupid question?”

They’re wrong.

I think this is the quote you're looking for.

Buck Rio wrote:

...I'm sorry kids, its medical testing for the lot of ya.

But couldn't you have your balls cut off?

When I was a kid (think 12ish) I had the old Jeff Lowe, Ron Fawcet et al Authored "The Climbers Handbook" or something like that which got me started.  I was too young to drive over to the Gunks or buy much gear but I DID get the old Campmor and Ricky Rock Rat catalogs in the mail.  I also lived near a large creek in Southern NY with TONS of large trees.  So they became my proving ground.  I had an old Climb High harness, a few carabiners and 30m of rope I bought from an early Ropes Course company.  Most of these trees were north off 100' with minimal branches down low.  To get up them I aided using 16p nails and rivet wire hangers tied from 4mm cord OR hand made beaks bent and filed out of S hooks pilfered from my swing set.  Both were quite exciting.  The nail heads tended to moved ben slightly with body weight AND you had place them just so as the heads were not symmetrical and there was a "good lip" side that held the loops and a bad side that did not.  The S Hook beaks were even more exciting as they really only went in maybe 1.5"  They were fast to place though! I had hand tied aiders from 1" webbing and would simply tie the rope around the base of the tree and start lead aiding on double prusik knots.  The relevance to the OP is that, for pro when no branches were around, I used 3 or 4" x 3/8" Stainless Steel LAG SCREWS with the 4 Metolius bolt hangers I had purchased.  I carried a socket wrench with me and when I was scared enough would screw one in.  I typically could get up to the branches in 1 "pitch" with that setup.  Every now and then I had to establish a belay before that. That was usually 3/8" x 4" lag eye bolts from the hardware store.  I went so far as to leave "summit registers" on top of these trees in small 35mm plastic film cans.  I would unscrew the lag screws but typically left the eye bolts to rap off of.  Years later (a decade or more) I went down there while visiting my folks and couldn't see any of the eye bolts.  The tree had grown right over them.  So yes, you can do it I suspect but as many have noted, it's probably best to leave the trees be.  Doubly true if you have any tree fungus etc spreading about where infection is a risk.  The trees I climbed were all considered "Weed Trees" or "Junk Trees" - Silver Maple etc and typically would be culled by a good ice storm every decade or so.