It's strange how one event (and it was a non-event) really changes one's perspective.
I used to love heights. As a kid and teenager I'd climb everything in sight.
As an adult I took up Abseiling and mild mountain climbing.
When I was a Youth Worker I took the youth from our centre to the Grampians for mountain climbing and abseiling.
But all that changed in an instant on one of those trips away with our Youth.
Up in the Grampians there is an amazing sheer cliff lookout (Zumsteins I think ).
One of my fellow Youth Workers wanted to show the youth how it looked away from the safety barrier.
In this particular spot, to the left of where the barrier ends, there is a flat-topped rock that juts out into open air. A bit like a shelf. Nothing below it but a sheer drop!
This clown decided to take some of the youth out on the edge of it and sit down with their legs over the edge as if it was just a comfy chair!!!
About a thousand foot drop below them!
I panicked!
Ever since that exact moment I have been affected badly by heights.
Then you probably wouldn't like or approve of this Ken.
Pulpit Rock - Norway - 1,800 feet, straight down. Popular, and apparently no-one has ever fallen off.
Yes Chris, it was just like that 2nd pic!
I would normally love it too, but something about the preservation of those kids kicked in and it affected me badly.
By the way, the boss was there too when it happened and Wayne, the fellow youth worker that did it, was sacked on the spot when we arrived back in Ballarat.
Yep, I agree Ken. In my experience, kids generally have an over-confident opinion about their own safety. I'm not one for molly-coddling mind you, and in fact I'm a firm believer that kids these days don't experience enough danger to know where the boundaries lie, but an 1,800 foot drop is a terminal sentence if a kid showing off and being silly does the unthinkable.
Awesome work and footage.......I remember watching a program a while back called Worlds toughest fixes on National Geographic channel that showed a crew replacing an antenna with another on a tower of similar height. Surprising that American occupational and safety allows free climbing as the narration in the vid says, thought a static line to hook onto would be mandatory once your climbing outside the structure near the top Wearing a safety harness is no guarantee you'll survive an accident, people have died from suspension trauma that can set in rapidly after a fall and at that height rescue would be impossible to achieve quickly.
Watching that video my toes were tingling. I generally don't like heights without a safety line. The view would be fantastic but climbing without being tethered up there is far too dangerous for me. Good thing some people will do it.
I can get a bit shaky changing a light globe so you may guess what that vid did for me. Very cleansing. If the world was waiting for me to get up there all communication would be by land line!
Watching that video my toes were tingling. I generally don't like heights without a safety line. The view would be fantastic but climbing without being tethered up there is far too dangerous for me. Good thing some people will do it.
Toes tingling. There is something wrong with you. My backside snapped shut and will take days to relax again. Constipation by default.
your right about some Aussies and their sense of humour, when Molly bless his little heart had his fall putting up xmas decorations the first thing that went through my mind was it must of happened when he was sticking up the fairy lights.
).
