Transmission Tower Free Climb

Ard ArvinSeptember 15, 2010

8 Comments 0

Buildering

8 Responses

September 17, 2010 Kiell Reply

And it’s been taken down before I managed to watch it. Gutted.
September 17, 2010 ardarvin Reply

New link. Up until it’s gone. Not sure what the deal is on the copyright claim.
September 18, 2010 SelfTrainedClimber Reply

sorry for the language but HOLY FUCK. Did you see the earth bend? I might climb buildings but that’s to high.
September 19, 2010 ardarvin Reply

Ya, it made my palms sweat. I love the “safety” when they rest…a biner slid over the rung, with a little nub on the end in case the biner shifts, but man that would take some getting used to! Oh yeah, and the other parts when they’re free climbing might take some getting used to as well.
September 20, 2010 Kiell Reply

Nice work, ard. I’m trying to find out a bit more information about it but can’t stumble across anything (not trying very hard as I have to buy car insurance this morning). I did find the discussion on MeFi, however, possibly an early source of this meme – http://www.metafilter.com/95720/Thatd-make-one-hell-of-a-trapeze I’d be keen to find out where it is and what sort of health and safety code allows them to do this without ropes cos I’d love to read their risk assessment. 🙂

The responses are quite overwhelming and I say the following with the disclaimer that I could probably never do this and if I tried, I’d be sure to wear brown trousers and write my will out beforehand.

Once you’re accustomed to climbing to a height where a fall is going to hurt and then to a height where it means certain death, any additional height becomes, in a strange way, irrelevant. Becoming used to the level of exposure and creating the confidence in your own climbing ability is not as mind-blowingly impossible as some of the comments on MeFi make out, in my humble opinion.

All that said, bits of that vid are quite difficult to watch and, christ, I wouldn’t fucking do it. 🙂
September 20, 2010 Kiell Reply

Aha.

http://www.theonlineengineer.org/TheOLEBLOG/?p=545#comments
http://www.theonlineengineer.org/TheOLEBLOG/?p=561
September 20, 2010 ardarvin Reply

Hmmm those links don’t go to the applicable comment, at least not on my browser. So where is the tower located? Man I’d jump at the chance to do that thing, using the same daisy and biner for rests. But damn I’d be gripping tight!

For me, I’m sketched until I’m about 3 pitches off the ground, then after that things are all good. Probably because the ground doesn’t seem so real after that, and I’ve got my climbing rhythm.
September 21, 2010 Kiell Reply

Yeah, sorry, should have mentioned – I suspect that the poster has deliberately not revealed the location to protect the identity of the dude in the video. He seems to regret having posted it so more information is unlikely to be forthcoming.