I'll admit, my first time at 250 feet and I was as nervous as a long tail cat in a rocking chair factory. After 9 hours of climbing around like a monkey plugging rods I was doing a bit better. At first your mind seems to do a lot of work pushing where you are to the back of your head. I didn't look straight down much, essentially blocking my location out. After a week of climbing around at heights becoming more comfortable with my equipment it became easier. After a couple 300 footers, a 400 footer and soon to climb 845 footer my mind is now comfortable with it, actually think it's addicted to it because I welded 800 feet of gas pipe here over the last two weeks and it bored the ever loving shyte out of me. I used to love welding off in the ditch, now it's more like, yawn, are we done yet??? Pipelining would bore me to death now.

This last time out I was literally laying down at certain locations to get in to weld. Feet propped up on the x bracing, laying back nearly upside down, head resting on a boom. Hard to keep stuff from falling out of your tool bags that way though! Lost several bottles of MIO that way!! Actually fell asleep for a few minutes up there late in the afternoon while the guys were working above me loosening bolts so we could get our half pipes in. I'm not the only one, the other guy I worked with said he fell asleep many times while I was welding and he was waiting for me to get done. When you talk to people and say that your going out on an 845 foot tower they look at you like Then I smile and tell them that I can't wait to get up there. 95% of the people tell me that they're glad I'm doing it because they wouldn't. I know if a person is nervous at first some will overcome that fear and other won't. Think I have heard several stories of guys that just could not get thru it and had to literally be rescued off of the tower.

Guess I'm just an adrenaline junky!! Best part about this is when your up there and you clip your positioning lanyard off on the opposite side of a leg, then put your safety over there too. Unhook your current safety then literally push off the tower and swing to the other side, talk about fun!! Have done this same thing around massive bundles of cable as well, easier than stretching your legs 4 feet to try and get around it.

Each of us has our own thing I guess. I want nothing to do with high tension power lines or the voltage that they carry. In my minds eye those guys are crazy! They think the same about me welding on live gas lines! Neither one of us would do the others job if we switched today.

Down side of it is you don't take lunch like your normal guy. "Well, we're running off to McDonalds for lunch". Sometimes the foreman will call up and ask if we want something from the fast food joint or something and 99% of the time we say no. Lunch is what you pack in your tool bags. A bag of beef jerky, nutrigrain bars, couple bottles of water and some MIO. Phone, headset for listening to music. 10-12 hours up there, better be sure you have your "movement" before you climb up. Came down one day and told the guy as we were climbing down that I had to pee like a nine d___K dinosaur. He laughed and said that he has had to do a number two for the last 4 hours!! 30-40 mile per hour winds, tower will literally shake on a self supporter. Rain, lightning, snow and you pack gear for different conditions. On the flip side 30-40 mile per hour winds on a guy tower and it don't shake or wave in the wind it twists! After days or weeks of doing this I will have a "moment" once in awhile on the ground, not dizzy but it will feel like your moving, but your not. Kind of a weird thing to describe. Think it has something to do with the inner ear thing and being on the tower and watching what your are doing. Your eyes say you are not moving but your inner ear says, "oh yes you are". Clothing gets burned up like nothing I've ever done before. Burns on your arms and legs like I've never had before. It's not like you have to many choices on positions when your up there. They don't get it all ground off and you hit a bit of galvanizing and a big blob drops off onto your pant leg or shirts, catches your jacket on fire, no really! So you pat yourself out and continue on.

Ramble, ramble. I love the heck out of this stuff. Nuke plants, shutdowns, pipelining, structural, equipment repairs...gulp, handrail....YYyyyaaawwwnnnn. Give me a good tall tower, wind blowing like mad, tower shaking like a dog pooping pea seeds and I'm loving it!! WHOOP WHOOP!!!

Steel Riders!!

Does that make you feel sick or anything when you pass by them? I've heard some people claim they got sick or nauseated when working around those higher power antennas.

Chris