[Closed] I didn't think I suffered from vertigo

What happens if you have a sneezing fit, or you have to scratch your nose and your arse at the same time ? Free climbers = complete nutters.

Arrrghh, and to think i had a moment up the Manchester wheel last friday. My 4YO made me laugh though, "dont be nervous daddy".

I grew up in Hong Kong and for a couple of years lived on the 16th floor of an apartment block. Most of the time it was fine but it got a bit hard to sleep when the whole building would occasionally 'shudder' during a typhoon, enough for you to fall over if you were stood up.

Lovely view from the balcony though...

tails - Member

I presume when he is clipping on to the top he is attached to the chap below??

definatly not- if he fell, then he'd bring the other guy down with him..

Getting into this line of work is easy- just go on a Rigging course, and join any of the 000's of rigging companies out there..

The money is nowhere near what it used to be, and to be fair, due to H & S there is less work out there doing this.. you tend to find most new antennas use VETs that can be remoted mounted at ground level thus negating the need to climb..

However, there is still a fair bit, when these things need changing... 😉

Afraid of height?

Nope, just respect them..

I too would happily jump out of plane, as I have on many occasion, but, will not ride North Shore thats 10ft above ground.. 😐

I used to live on the 26th floor of a high rise in Glasgow. I hate heights as they give me the urge to jump off to see what it would be like. Spent most of my time there pissed and even managed to piss off the balcony a few times (student place)

headfirst - Member

I grew up in Hong Kong and for a couple of years lived on the 16th floor of an apartment block. Most of the time it was fine but it got a bit hard to sleep when the whole building would occasionally 'shudder' during a typhoon, enough for you to fall over if you were stood up.

Lovely view from the balcony though...

Remember watching guys working on bamboo scafolding in HK and thinking that would not be for me 😉

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do they have to climb down too? or base jump?

definatly not- if he fell, then he'd bring the other guy down with him..

In that case can I recommend that one guy unclips whilst the other is clipped 💡 or am I missing something.

tails - Member

In that case can I recommend that one guy unclips whilst the other is clipped or am I missing something.

Why?

So you'd always have one on the tower?

Wow, even watching that has left me feeling a little nauseous and with sweaty palms!

Fair play to anyone who does that, that's crazy.

At work and shouldn't be watching, but actually genuinely feeling wobbly so can't .. made it about 10 seconds in just past the 'toolbag' arrow..... really, really scared of heights... 😯

Bit of a pain if your dropped your screwdriver 😉

😯

Holy...................

I genuinely thought it was going to be a wind up and the guy was going to "accidently" fall off, still made me feel sick though!

Very impressive, my stomach was tight for just about the whole video getting particularly tight when the view changed and he looked down and up quickly and I couldn't get something to fix my eyes on.
A bit much like rock climbing, the piece of rock 30cms in font of your face at 2m off the ground is much the same as the piece of rock in front of your face 20m off the ground. Just don't look down!

Yep, very impressive. Was thinking that it looked 'do-able' until I realised he wasn't clipped on. I love to have a go although definetely with a safety line on.

Didn't know I could hold my breath for 4 minutes.

Any work in the UK that comes under IRATA rules requires that anyone must always be attached to 2 separate systems. So you have a third system when changing over etc.

I used to do this for a living. Well, not for a living, I was doing a different job but it involved climbing TV masts and guided towers quite often. It also involved climbing towers in the dark in areas where the favourite pastime of the local population was lobbing bricks at you or, occasionally, shooting at you.

It was recommended to climb with two clips, with one always attached, or a fall arrestor (on the smaller towers) but doing it this way was slow and tiring, so we always used to freeclimb.

Actually the climbing wasn't the worse bit if you had a problem with heights. The worse bit was clipping on with the polestrap at the top and letting go with both hands so you could rig or derig the kit you were working on. We had many one-handed riggers who simply couldn't do it and eventually moved on to other jobs!

Climbing down was also more worrying than climbing up, as you had no choice but to look down.

We used to climb one TV mast on the top of a mountain occasionally. We always used to take the new riggers up there because you'd have to look down the mast and the mountain onto the city below. And yes, we did have a couple who froze and had to be talked/bullied into climbing down again.

a bit different but mad all the same

apologies if shown before

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "and now its getting boring" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did he do all that just to replace the bulb in the beacon? 😯

It's hard to imagine just how high 1768 feet is.............

Until I watched that!!!! 😕

Strangely that video didn't bother me. I reckon I could do something similar. After all, all the bits he was climbing would be totally doable if they were just 3 feet off the ground, so what's the problem? 😀

Although that bit at the very top when he took both hands off to clip the thing on.. Don't think I could've done that.

After all, all the bits he was climbing would be totally doable if they were just 3 feet off the ground, so what's the problem?

Isn't that the reason that it's not heights that I'm scared of it's the ground and hitting it a a high velocity!

i used to climb, soloed up and down lots of stuff (including Brant!), and back then i could have done a transmitter tower, but I lost my head for heights overnight. it was very odd and that video just made me feel sick.

Did he do all that just to replace the bulb in the beacon?

'No, I thought you'd picked up the spare bulb..' 😉

Ball shrivellingly scary. Truly the stuff of nightmares.

marsdenman - Member

'No, I thought you'd picked up the spare bulb..'

Don't laugh, I climbed NTL Lichfield- a 1000ft Guyed Tower, shimied out on the 4 ft crank arm, nekt down to undo the paging antenna only to realise the guy bring the new connectors up had brough the wrong type...

I had to wait the best part if 3hrs up there till he got back up there with the right ones...

What's the best way of cleaning barf out of a keyboard???

That made my tummy go all icky and my testicles retract!

I reckon i could climb up but then i'd be stuck as i'd crap myself trying to get back down

Oh and Teetosugars is buff

I was watching this for the first 20s or so thinking, 'yeah, that is that all? he's got a safety line somewhere....oh no he doesn't!!!!!' Wooooooah! 😯

I am pretty good with heights, but that really freaked me out a little. Anyone wanna try to do a local copy-cat video up Winter Hill?

Not my cuppa, but [url= http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/ ]these guys[/url] do it for fun.

There were some pics on there from a 60-storey tower I was working on in Docklands - I had been up the frame in daylight (wind test on the hoist at 40 floors maxed out so had to climb the rest - only stairs but in an open frame that was enough for me!) but these guys climbed it at night, then up the tower crane too!

Some great photos though, we debated about using them in publicity, but as we aere also responsible for site security decided best not to!

I find the "climbing with a safety line is slow and tiring and workers prefer free climbing" attitude interesting.

I've done a bit of via-ferrata and it's not that much slower compared with watching him, and it's very safe because the in-situ cable has quite close stops (every 5-10 metres) to arrest a fall with the "brake" system you put on your harness.

There's also an alpinism technique called "Moving Together" which is almost as fast as free climbing and quite safe if done properly whwre there is low risk of falling (lots of easy holds): Two climbers joined by a shortish rope climb together continuously. The lead climber clips the rope through intermediate runners and the following climber unclips it. The runners can be quite widely spaced - if either climber falls, the other may get wrenched off but because there is at least one intermediate runner, it should not be a fatal fall. It's slower going if you have to fit runners, but on an installation, the runners can be in-situ.

It's just a macho thing I reckon.

GavinB - Member
I am pretty good with heights, but that really freaked me out a little. Anyone wanna try to do a local copy-cat video up Winter Hill?

You climb up the inside of Winter Hill so the video wouldn't be as fun...

Oh, and it did have a lift.

Until that accident... 🙁

I don't consider myself to particularly like heights but strangely that was OK and all i had to do was fold my arms quite tightly. I imagine its a million times worse in reality due to the inevitable wind at that height, the wind noise and the whole thing moving about. And almost certainly i would forget a really essential tool or piece of equipment!

all wrong.

I used to free climb on antennas as I. Was paid for the work I did. The faster I worked the more I earned

I had a safety inspector out at one job and he pointed out when I got back down that he'd seen me thru the binos nearly getting pulled over by my safety line as I walked across a beam on the pylon I Was on as I clearly forgot it was there as I obviously never used it lol

Buzz I used to iceclimb in a pair tied together always struck me as odd tbh 😉

Amazing what I used to do and I still pap it on very easy bits of bike trails how's that work ?

marsdenman - Member
'No, I thought you'd picked up the spare bulb..'

Don't laugh, I climbed NTL Lichfield- a 1000ft Guyed Tower, shimied out on the 4 ft crank arm, nekt down to undo the paging antenna only to realise the guy bring the new connectors up had brough the wrong type...

I had to wait the best part if 3hrs up there till he got back up there with the right ones...

😯 bet it only took you minutes to get down and kick his butt after that though.... 😉

Yeah you need really decent runners. The very tiny bit of winter climbing I've experienced had virtually nothing!

Brill video,

You can see the wording on the job advert...
NOT A JOB FOR A FAT BASTARD.. 😉

I wonder how many rungs I'd manage to climb before I went blind from terror. About 30 probably

😯

In a very sick way Id almost like to try that, despite being 99.999% certain Id hate it. 😕

'hello, is that Direct Line? I want to arrange life insurance'

'sure, what is your profession?'...

'sure, what is your profession?'...

😆

Would a helmet [i]really[/i] help at that height ..........

Like watching a frikin horror movie! My uncle was a lead beater at Salisbury cathedral and has been to the top of the spire on a bosons chair, apparently he has a total disregard for altitude, an attribute that evades me!