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Nope, most definitely not, felt dizzy just watching, especially the end bit where he crosses the beam.
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no chance - my stomach went into knots watching him.
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I now feel EXTREMELY unwell thank you.
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I can't be doing with heights - that was frankly very disturbing. I now have little grooves in the edge of my desk where my fingernails were scrabbling, and I suspect there was some involuntary squeaking too. Amazing.
If they put that in a Imax cinema in 3D I reckon the wussy half of the audience, like me, would faint dead away.
I'm the one who had to gallop down from Striding Edge having just reached the top, grunting and squirting urine at every step.
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>> I'm the one who had to gallop down from Striding Edge having just reached the
>> top, grunting and squirting urine at every step.
Did better than this bloke then :)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-31584794
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I was out in t'Dales in those conditions on Sunday. Fine lower down, but over 1700' conditions were Arctic, mainly due to the gale force winds and driving snow. Coldest I have been for a while, even with full winter kit.
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Nutter. I've no problem in climbing ladders, but climbing ladders on derelict chimneys in Romania is just asking for it. It won't be his mistake that kills him, but a rusted fixing. Idiot.
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>> Nutter. I've no problem in climbing ladders, but climbing ladders on derelict chimneys in >>Romania is just asking for it. It won't be his mistake that kills him, but a rusted fixing. Idiot.
>>
Quite.
Unless there was something we weren't told, he just relied on a couple of cables hanging down the side of the chimney to pull himself up the first 50/60? feet. How did he know that they would take his weight?
The various access ladders and walkways were in a completely unknown condition.
There is brave and then there is foolhardy.
In my youth (1963?) I worked on the fitting out of the Portland Tower in Victoria, that was about 350 feet, if I remember correctly. Which involved working on the outside of the building. It was hairy at times.
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Interesting though how some people don't seem to have the inbuilt fear of heights that most people have, at least to a degree. Personally I don't like heights but find that you do get adjusted after a while. I always fee a bit nervous up a ladder for the first five minutes or so but you do get accustomed to it.
Not too keen on walking near cliffs and other verticals drops either but again after a while you become accustomed and end up enjoying the view!
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 24 Feb 15 at 12:08
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I am experiencing a mild return of the jitters just reading these posts. What surprised me when he was at the very top was the complete lack of wind (apart from my own). I believe that that is unusual at that height, but of course I stand to be corrected as usual. :0)
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>> What surprised
>> me when he was at the very top was the complete lack of wind (apart
>> from my own). I believe that that is unusual at that height, but of course
>> I stand to be corrected as usual. :0)
>>
I was wondering that too.
When I go up a ladder to remove our boiler chimney cowl for periodic cleaning I often find that it is scarily windy 20 feet up even though calm at ground level.
I hate heights, and have to steal myself to do this job. But it is true, one does get very slightly used to it. Two years ago we holidayed on the Llangollen canal. The famous viaduct was bad enough, but nothing to the near-panic I experienced in the Chirk tunnel a few miles further on.
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Funnily enough, we stayed in Chirk last year in a cottage just at the far end of the viaduct. I think it was actually called Aquaduct Cottage or something.
So to get to Chirk for the paper each morning you just turned right out of the front door, walked over the viaduct and there you were.
Do you know, after a whole week of this I was just fine, which I was pleased about. It turned out that taking the car the long way round took only twice as long.
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I was fine walking over the aqueduct, but walking through the tunnel terrified me. Couldn't see enough to see the edge of the towpath.
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I don't mind heights at all but no way would I do summat like that chimbley ! What gave me the willies was walking around on the top on all those broken and missing bricks/tiles.......one trip ?
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Try things the safe way then ?
www.youtube.com/v/f1BgzIZRfT8#t=108
Should have used LEDs ?
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That didn't get me going like the Chimney thing.....thankfully. Just had a Chilli con something so disruption wouldn't have done.
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That is some video: the chimney I mean! Right from the start it seemed dodgy. Visions of the crumbling anchorages letting the ladder go! Have copied to a Romanian acquaintance to see what he knows of the site/intrepid climbers:)
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Tue 24 Feb 15 at 19:51
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We went to visit friends a few years ago who had bought a 4 storey house which wasn't quite complete. They gave us a bedroom on the 3rd floor with a lovely view. I chucked the bags down and opened the door to the balcony and noticed there was no railing. I hardly gave it a second thought, I strolled out, walked about 3 yards and froze. I absolutely couldn't move, I couldn't turn round, I was panicking. I had to very slowly and very carefully sink down to my hands and knees and slowly back-up to the door.
Odd that you can go all your life without ever knowing you were afraid of something - until you face it. I wouldn't say I'm frightened of heights, more frightened of not having a railing or safety barrier. Very bizarre.
Last edited by: BiggerBadderDave on Tue 24 Feb 15 at 20:31
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I'll quite happily jump off or over quite high things on my bike or on skis, I enjoy rock climbing too but I'm not good looking out of windows in high buildings where it's ironically absolutely safe.
Funny critters humans.
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>>
>> Odd that you can go all your life without ever knowing you were afraid of
>> something - until you face it.
>>
That's me with tunnels and small spaces. I'd never really encountered tunnels quite so close to the rock face before. I spent years on London tubes, and although I'd never particularly liked them, especially that humming noise when they stop in a tunnel, it had never actually scared me.
But the Chirk tunnel set off nightmares and I suddenly realised I got panic attacks in confined spaces, or crowds indoors. I chickened out of an MRI scan quite recently - I couldn't face even the room let alone the chamber itself, and I panicked trying to run out of the labyrinthine corridors of the hospital.
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With you there Cliff. I'll climb up the outside of a mountain and enjoy it but don't ask me to go down a pothole type thing. I'd freak.
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This post reminds me of a link a friend sent me a few years ago... Camino De Rey or something. Might have been S America with that name? A crumbling concrete path following a cliff face. Not something I would do out of choice.
Give me an icy black ski run any day.
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I think you probably mean El Camino del Rey, Spain: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmDhRvvs5Xw
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Thanks bt, for some reason I thought it was an old path built to service a high level water supply pipe in the Andes.
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I happily climbed telegraph poles in my youth and flung myself out of a 'plane at 1800ft (after standing on a ledge above a landing wheel with the stall warning blaring away).
A building I worked in had a large,open staircase. Looking over the barrier from the 12th floor would give me the willies!
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Spain, Legsy.......Footpath of the King. Plenty on YouTube. Built in the 20s or 30s to aid a reservoir/water project in the mountains. Now illegal to walk it but no-one gives a toss !
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmDhRvvs5Xw
Beaten to it by BT.
Last edited by: Ted on Tue 24 Feb 15 at 23:42
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>> Footpath of the King. Plenty on YouTube. Built in the 20s or 30s to aid a reservoir/water project in the mountains. Now illegal to walk it but no-one gives a toss !
That clip's been here and/or on HJ a few times over the years. You wouldn't catch me going anywhere near it thanks.
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Just checked to see if it was the clip I remembered. It was, and I watched all of it again with horrified fascination. You'd have to be intrepid, and you'd have to have an impeccable sense of balance and be therefore super-fit. Did you see the back-packs on a couple of other skywalkers?
I couldn't and wouldn't attempt it on all fours or even carried by a n impassive barefoot local Indian in a papoose-carrier. Nyet. Nada. Nein, nein, nein!
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That wouldn't bother me at all AC. A cave though, oh no, not on your nellington. All that stuff above your head imminently about to fall on you.
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The Neil Moss tragedy put me off caves for life.
It was in the Manchester Evening News for days. He's still down there.......poor guy.
I could do the Camino if some of my balance hadn't gone up the spout.
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Tragically someone killed just up the road from me last week in a rock fall. Very sad. I don't envisage myself venturing underground again, despite having numerous friends in caving clubs who keep inviting me. The nearest I get to caving is descending into Gaping Ghyll with friends from overseas on one of the two annual winch meets in a bosuns chair.Last time was with my local landlady.
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>>The Neil Moss tragedy put me off caves for life.<<
I was taken potholing in Febuary 1970 by a fellow uni student. I had never been able to remember exactly where, but remember vividly that he pointed out a side passage, sealed with concrete, that was where somebody had been trapped and died. So now, having Googled "Neil Moss", I know where I had been!.
I remember going under a sump, and having been pretty frightened by the whole thing, and have never been potholing again. At least MRI scans holds no fear, you are not surrounded by water.
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Bob Leakey was involved in the rescue attempt. He died aged 98 in 2013, and I used to chat with him in my local until a few months before he passed away. He stood for Parliament in 2010 aged 95, and my pal was his agent, the youngest ever, in his early 20s. He used to come to the pub most nights, early doors, for his daily bowl of porridge and half pint of coke. We have a plaque on the wall above where he normally sat.
An amazing man. Aviator, cave diver, advocate of virtual currency, sometime inventor ( Leakey boats) his like will not be seen again.
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Without Googling, I seem to remember that Moss went down a shaft which gradually narrowed. He went feet first with his arms by his sides so couldn't reach and grab the ropes that were lowered to him.
An experienced potholer, a slip of a girl, was asked to go down head first on a rope and put ropes under his arms but she was some hours away. On her way, the car radio reported that Moss had either died or been rescued so she turned back. I think he died of suffocation in his own carbon dioxide.
It was the Peak Cavern in Castleton........His 'grave' is now the Neil Moss Cavern.
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Camino del Rey.
Been there - seen it (before repairs, recently completed, I think) it's a hell of a drop. Shudder.
Last edited by: Roger. on Thu 26 Feb 15 at 13:40
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Would you ?..... - smokie
