“Come on Bob, let’s go,” said Khadija Smithers, 23, grabbing on to the lifeless body.

“Love him,” advised John Nickontro, who led 11 members of the Tahoe Center of the California Conservation Corps through a tree climbing exercise Wednesday afternoon.

“I think he’s still alive,” said Smithers, her tongue in cheek.

Bobby, a dummy the CCC uses for practicing aerial tree rescues, is a substitute for an injured forester who gashed his leg with a chain saw and needs immediate medical attention.

It took Smithers 12 minutes to hoist herself 20 feet up a pine tree, rescue the dummy and get Bobby back to the ground. The ideal time to get up and back is five minutes, but it was Smithers’ first attempt at such a rescue.

“That was hard, huh?” said Nickontro, a conservationist for the CCC who spent three days teaching the group the finer points of tree climbing in a classroom before they tested their knowledge in the forest at the end of Acoma Court, a street in El Dorado County off Pioneer Trail.

“It’s a workout,” said Smithers, who moved from Banner Elk, N.C., last summer to join the CCC. “It’s technical. But these are skills I’ll use in the future for sure for tree work.”

The Tahoe Center of the California Conservation Corps is a program that teaches men and women between the ages of 18 and 23 how to work in a forest and conserve the environment. The center recently moved from Echo Summit to Meyers, closer to forest land it maintains for California.

Skills such as tree climbing and aerial rescues, both of which were practiced Wednesday, allow CCC members to thin forest fuels and remove trees that are too close to homes. Most of the work is done in vacant lots in the Lake Tahoe Basin, owned by the California Tahoe Conservancy and protected as open space.

Aerial rescues are rare compared to tree climbs. Climbing a tree allows a forester to top a tree with a chain saw or anchor a rope to it so it can be pulled to fall in a certain direction. For the climbing exercise, the CCC group strapped spikes to their boots and stabbed their way 55 feet up a narrow tree.

“Dealing with the heights, I’d say that was the worst part for me,” said Chris Villegas, 23, of Napa Valley and two-year CCC employee. Villegas wants to be a smoke jumper for the U.S. Forest Service.

“I’m afraid of heights, but once I got up there it was pretty cool looking down,” said Danielle Harris, 19, who has been with the CCC for nine months and also wants to fight fires for a living. “For a first experience, it was a really good experience.”

Some people can’t handle the climbing exercise, but all 11 of the CCC members successfully scaled the 55 feet and rapelled to the ground.

“Some can’t do it physically, some can’t get beyond their fear of heights,” Nickontro said. “Something the community of Lake Tahoe needs to know is that these guys are up here honestly working to gain knowledge and help out the community.”

– Gregory Crofton can be reached at (530) 542-8045 or by e-mail at gcrofton@tahoedailytribune.com