Mr. Moto, I was thinking along those lines. After all rock climbers have been using a roughly analogous ascenders for climbing purposes. But as I said before, who is going pay for it unless it’s mandated? Expect a tumble every now and then.
Yikes…This is like watching a blockbuster thriller movie…but it’s real.
Yeah, I wish I could watch that, but I could only make it through a few seconds. Acrophobia is a bitch!
Roddy
I’m amazed at how scared I felt.
How could a tower that tall and narrow be so sturdy?
shudder
The last minute… I could feel my butt clenching tight and all my muscles contracting involuntarily and I was chanting “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…”
Awesome. Where do I sign up? 
Wow, that was thrilling and frightening. Those guys have serious balls!!!
Saw this a few weeks ago and was ENTRANCED… amazing! These guys definitely earn whatever they make.
The second climber’s face was blurred – I’m thinking this was not an authorized climb, or why hide his identity?
It didn’t seem very difficult in a technical sense, except for the extra weight of their humongous balls.
When i first saw the video, a month or so ago, i believe that the company that the two guys work for had sought to have it taken down. I think that, rather than being an unauthorized climb, it was an unauthorized video.
From the brief reading I’ve done, this job pays from 12-25 an hour. NOT FUCKING ENOUGH
It’s also absolutely in direct violation of OSHA regs to free-climb. They have 2 safety lines and one must always be connected. But it’s generally cheaper and faster for companies to ignore OSHA and pay the fines the few times they’re discovered breaking rules.
How strong these guys must be. Just the stamina they need for a climb that far, and straight up, is remarkable.
Climbing up seems like the easy part.
Getting down is fast, and easy.
It’s the landing that’s tricky.
The face was hidden because they were free climbing which is typically frowned upon. Apparently there’s not a lot of people who do this kind of work, so it didn’t take much for the people that hire these types of guys to figure out who they were and not hire them. That is, if I need a light changed at the top of my tower, I’ll call the guy who I know isn’t going to fall.
That’s what my dad said. Look at the spots where they have to climb around something and imagine trying to get back down. Think about how hard it is to climb down a slide ladder when it goes from two rungs to one and that’s only a few feet off the ground.
The trick lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
I’ve been watching this on and off for over a month now, and it never fails to produce the same effect. Every time I’m like “Stop looking down!”…scares the shit out of me!
I’ve done this climb a couple times. It’s tricky, but if you pay attention to how everything lines up, you should know about where your footfolds will be on the way down. Also, I wasn’t 1,700 feet in the air.
Best commentary quote:
[qoute]If a storm’s blowing through, there’s no quick way down
[/quote]
.
Uh, yes there is 
double post