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[Steve M Smith]

That's nothing.  Do a search for Fred Dibnah Steeplejack.


Steve.

[TrevorMilburn]

America = power washer and done. England = Spoon and bucket, life time job scraping shit.

Great idea apart from 2 minor problems. First, the column is almost 170' tall so it would need a major pump to get the water up that high and second, you would need about a ton of hose and electrical cable to get to that height - factor in the weight of 170' of water inside the hose and you have a huge mount of weight up aloft that would need to be supported. It was steam cleaned in 2006 but that cost about 2/3 Million dollars and needed a huge scaffold tow to be erected. Much simpler (and cheaper) with a spoon and bucket especially if it keeps someone in work! (The amazing thing is that numerous people have climbed the column without the aid of the scaffolding including several base jumpers. Idiots!)

[Dave Garoutte]

How about a rope from a helicopter?

[Michael Lawrence]

Or you could do this. Climb a 1700 foot tower to change the bulb at the top. Just, you know. Just climb up there.

[Tim McCulloch]

Or you could do this. Climb a 1700 foot tower to change the bulb at the top. Just, you know. Just climb up there.

My first job in communications was tower work.  Free climbing 300-700 ft towers?  Routine.  Stuff like this 1700 ft?  Nope.  The climber pulling himself up past the top beacon was the end point for me.

[David Buckley]

That's nothing.  Do a search for Fred Dibnah Steeplejack.

A man from a bygone age. 

And what's funny is that Fred just gets on with it; you never feel that he is one of those chaps that needs a truck for his massive balls.

[Scott Holtzman]

My first job in communications was tower work.  Free climbing 300-700 ft towers?  Routine.  Stuff like this 1700 ft?  Nope.  The climber pulling himself up past the top beacon was the end point for me.

Are you sure we are not twin sons of different mother's? I climbed from 1980 until 86.  Mostly under 500 land mobile stuff.   Scariest thing we had to do was go out on an arm to aim/swap an antenna.

That video of the climb, which seems quite old says he earns 20k to do that job.  I highly doubt that.




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[Stephen Swaffer]

My first job in communications was tower work.  Free climbing 300-700 ft towers?  Routine.  Stuff like this 1700 ft?  Nope.  The climber pulling himself up past the top beacon was the end point for me.

If you fall, what difference does the extra 1400 feet make?  Other than a little more time to think about your misstep?

[Tim McCulloch]

If you fall, what difference does the extra 1400 feet make?  Other than a little more time to think about your misstep?

None at all.  You're equally dead with or without the last hundreds feet... it's the psychology of how small the stuff below you starts looking, I think.  For this particular climb I'm also wary of the climbing pegs in the last 100 ft or so, having found some of them bent on towers I'd worked on...

Mom begged me to quit tower work and I did as soon as I paid off some bills.  The last tower I built was only 500 ft, but in Kansas winter, trying to get the next section (with the guy wires) stacked before the storm hit.  Nothing like 80 ft of unsupported tower with a 40 ft gin pole/rooster head, pulling that 20 ft section up in windy conditions.  As soon as we had the bolts tight I rode the winch line down.  It took a couple of weeks for the weather to cooperate again and we stacked the top 100' and I retired from tower builds.

[Bob Leonard]

I've erected plenty of 50-100-150 foot towers in my HAM heyday. It became apparent to many people that I always worked as much as possible on the structure side of the tower, the side close to the building or house. There was a reason for that. If I fell I was hoping to hit the roof and not the ground.