Mr. Web Diva never ceases to amaze me. This year what he wanted most for Christmas was tree-climbing gear. You can see the results in the photo at the right.

Of course there’s a story behind this. The Cliff Notes version is my dearest college friend is married to Peter “Treeman” Jenkins. They gave him a taste last fall and he was hooked — literally.

He’s far from alone. Tree climbing is turning into major form of outdoors recreation, with organizations, gear, catalogs and (you guessed it) websites springing up all over the world. The root (so to speak) organization, though, is the Jenkins’ Tree Climbers International.

Last year they did a complete overhaul of their website, and the result is outstanding. It’s not just pretty and interesting. It’s packed with great information, has lots of Web 2.0 technologies like forums and a “gear rater,” and  — best of all — it’s easy for a non-techie to run it. The Jenkins decided to use Joomla! (a major open-source content management system), and they hired 3by400 to do the job.

They are thrilled with the results — and with good cause. This, I’d say, is the web at its best.