There's daring accomplishments, there's "crazy" and then there's....

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When I was 17 I climbed the tower at my High school, it was about 400 ft tall. But the ladder (rungs only) didn't start until 50 feet off the ground. Luckily there was a three story building close to the tower so I made a hook out of a tire iron and tied a rope to it. Then I waited until midnight to scale the three story building. From the roof of the building I was able to crawl across a horizontal chute (it was pretty crumbly) over to the tower where I could reach the first rung. It didn't have a ladder, only rungs like the ones in the video, the ones at very top of the tower. It's much more difficult climbing rungs as opposed to a regular ladder. With a regular ladder you can stop and wrap your arm around the vertical part when you get tired of climbing...with rungs you're screwed when you get tired of climbing. Either way I climbed to the top and sprayed "SRS '70" (the year I graduated) across the upper part of the tower. It actually took me 3 attempts, the first 2 attempts failed (minor injuries) but I succeeded in the end!! Most people don't realize that tall towers are designed and built to sway (so they don't break in a high wind), me being 17 years old I had no idea. When I got to the top I could feel the whole tower moving. This was a very tall tower with brick on the outer face. I thought for sure it would break with me on top. But now I know that it's supposed to sway with the wind. Nobody ever knew (except the guy that dropped me off and picked me up) that I did it. Now everyone knows on FABO!!!
I would have done a dance on top like the folks in the video but my legs and arms were cramping so bad it took every once of energy just to get back down to the ground!!
The tower was built in the 1950s.
 
I don't mind (and have done many times) climbing stuff if I feel safe.

There is, however a fairly hard line in my own comfort zone that I will not cross.


**how bout that, I Freudian slipped "fell" for "feel".....in a climbing thread.
 
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Treblig said:
It didn't have a ladder, only rungs like the ones in the video, the ones at very top of the tower. It's much more difficult climbing rungs as opposed to a regular ladder. With a regular ladder you can stop and wrap your arm around the vertical part when you get tired of climbing...with rungs you're screwed when you get tired of climbing.
Click to expand...

Years ago I put up a thread involving a tower climbing video, but some of the photos are gone now......

The reason I called you all here

There was a tower climber death involving those rungs. He was free climbing and a rung failed....... You can see it's rusty, either the bolt was defective, or someone overtightened it and cracked it

Tower%20Climber%20Fatality1.jpg


PA Climber Death
 
67Dart273 said:
Years ago I put up a thread involving a tower climbing video, but some of the photos are gone now......

The reason I called you all here

There was a tower climber death involving those rungs. He was free climbing and a rung failed....... You can see it's rusty, either the bolt was defective, or someone overtightened it and cracked it

View attachment 1715189091

PA Climber Death
Click to expand...
Believe me....the whole time I was climbing those rungs I was thinking about the fact that the tower had been standing out in the open for over 20 years in the salt air (we live very close to the Ocean). Every time I grabbed a another rung I tested it as best I could before I put too much weight on it. Yes, they were rusty and had been concreted into the brick of the tower. Each rung stood on it's own so anyone of them could have failed. I was really crazy back then and fearless. Now I'm just crazy!! My first attempt at scaling the 3 story building ended when the grappling hook I made "broke" when I was about 30 feet off the ground. I fell backwards off the side of the building, landed on the back of my heels. Luckily I was young and dumb and very flexible. Now I'm old and dumb and not very flexible!! LOL
 
I knew a guy back in high school that would do crazy stuff like that. I saw him once climb an 80’ rock wall in an abandoned quarry using nothing but an old garden hose tied to a tree at the top.

A few years later he had climbed to the top of a 15 story building that was partially constructed and abandoned with just concrete floors and pillars all left unfinished. When he got to the top, he apparently tried to walk across some boards left across the top of the elevator shaft opening and they broke.

He fell 13 of the 15 stories. They found him dead a few days later hanging impaled on some long rebar ends sticking out of the top of the second floor into the shaft.
 
I have been.to 18,300 feet in a helicopter but there is no way I would do that!
 

No way Jose'. Not today!

I did a tandem skydive at 13,500 feet, but I can hardly climb to the top of a 12' step ladder!

Terry Trace 0037.jpg
 
I don't like choppers, and I've only ridden in two of them. One was to "Mica Peak" one winter day. We damn near got fogged in. the pilot was yelling "we have to go NOW" Barely got our tools and us in the bird, looked back in about 20 sec after liftoff, and you could not see a hilltop or tower at all in the fog!!

There are emergency supplies on that hill if you get "caught" but it would be no fun. There are no pads or bunks, just a little canned food and water. It would be a "hard" night!!!

mica.jpg
 

Do you have any idea what would happen if you so much as scratched your nose during a flight?:D

I like this one, and the jet wing is even better


 
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