Game is rad af, and I love the look, sound, and feel of it.
That said, unless both players try to avoid each other, there's really no way for a player to gain advantage until the treeline is really close to the finish line. It's impossible to build your tree all the way up before your opponent connects their tree to yours, at which point it's no longer your tree.
Might be cool if the game kept track of which player planted which branches, and gave players a speed debuff when on their opponent's branches. Or maybe players shouldn't be able to walk on their opponent's branches, they immediately bounce off, so they can still use them to gain altitude, but they have less control and make easier knockdown targets?