'elf & safety - TV tower style

Given a choice I'd rather go up the mast than trust 100 year old crumbling concrete and rusting iron work cantilevered off a cliff face.

Oh yes - I remember that one from elsewhere

Terrible - no wheelchair access

This is another fun one:

Or how about this one (speed free-climber Dan Osman [RIP])

Well it seems you've got some sort of safety wire..

Course that may not be in that good a nick either;!..

Really dunno why they don't use a railok system for these towers in the states. I wouldn't mind that sort of height, after all once your above a few 10's of feet the outcome is likely to be the same anyway, just needs one slip and that can an does happen quite easily .. and the weather there is fine at the moment but wind and rain can kick in very quickly then its a differing ball game!..

Don't know why someone doesn't develop a simpler to maintain tower light system..

bike roads down it to see if they can survive ..something to tell the children I suppose and thats ... !!!! NOT TO DO IT !!!!!

I'm like that. My wife and I went around Conway castle and I was frighted almost out of my skin, by imagining that the walls would crumble. Many years later, I had to do some work on the top of a Tornado F3 to fit a camera, at a hight of about 25 feet from the floor, not that high. I had to work on the top of a scaffolding platform and it didn't bother me one bit. On the other hand, there are some very delicate coaxial cables that had to be pulled back and stowed and the electrician who had to do this job came up on the platform and he stood at the other side of the fin as I started to rock my body weight, to make the scaffold rock from side to side.

He said f*** this, I can't do this job and was never seen up there again.

Like you, I have confidence in modern structures, but not the old ones.

Blackpool tower is quite close by and they have fitted a glass panel in the floor of the observation platform. I'm not sure if I could stand on this, due to it being an old tower, but a new panel, so I'm not going up there :-(

Dave

Id rather trust something that has been up for 600 years than something put up yesterday by a drunk scaffolding crew who haven't tightened the bolts..

One of the most spectacular climbs I did..not allowed now .. was the pyramid at Chichen Itza. 45 degrees 'staircase' with only a guide rope and carrying 20kg of photo gear, in 35C/ 90% humidity..

I'll see your Working At Height Regulations and raise you... :-)

Actually rather reminded me of working aloft on a square-rigged sailing ship, which I do for a couple of weeks every year or so. I notice he uses at times the same technique I do; holding onto the inside of the ladder so that you grip with your forearms rather than your hands and so exercise the biceps rather than the smaller gripping muscles. We have the same system of a short tether to clip on once you get where you're going, or for a rest, although we also have fixed safety lines to put the tether onto while doing the trickier transitions.

Obviously we're not as high - not that it matters in practice as above a certain height you're just as dead either way. It also feels a bit less exposed as there are sails and stuff around you:

Makes an interesting change from the rest of the year when I sit my lardy arse behind a desk and the furthest I walk is to the pub :-)

The only time I've scared myself aloft recently was when I started to come down after greasing a wire rope. Thin slippery grease all over your hands does not make for effective climbing!

Pete

These pics give more of an idea:

Pete

I could well understand why, one missed step and you hit the bottom :-(

By by life.

Dave

videos - nutter that he was! (saw footage of one ascent he did - over taking some "traditional" climbers half way up. They took 2 hours to do the ascent, he did it in under six minutes!

I can't see that bothering me too much after the first climb.

What's that prog on TV where they climb the rigging and stand aloft? Now that would scare me.

Dave

The CN tower ...

Bloody hell - that guy is basically a human spider!

I couldn't ascend a set of stairs of the same height that quickly! Not only is he a genius climber, but if you think about the potential energy involved, he is rediculously fit too!

Me neither now. I have done with heights except our gutters and the house is slightly dormered.

Dave

Where there would be someone waiting with a knife to remove his still pumping heart ...

Not sure what you mean. Stand on the masthead? There's a few crazy people on the ships who do that. Would scare me too :-)

Pete