It's not bad. I guess for the new guys at these heights it's putting it out of your mind until you trick your brain into not worrying about it anymore. I've trained 3 guys green as spring grass since I started doing this. They were usually the unlucky guy being my helper since they were the green horns and the experienced guys stayed on the ground burning up the payroll doing nothing.

The thing that got all of them was getting outside of the tower. Climbing around on "X" bracing, moving around an entire face covered in cable, boom mounts and whatever else they can attach. The guy I worked with longest was still skeptical after 6 months. He could get outside the tower but would see a missing bolt or something like that and he would get nervous. The guy we had in Illinois got to 25 feet and would not climb again for three weeks when the company told him that he was not hired as ground crew but a climber and if he did not climb then he would be let go. He made it up to 375 near the end of the job but that was it for him. He went up then stayed there for 20 minutes then he passed us around 275. He took a break there, hugging the ladder for dear life. He made it back down on his own but didn't climb again and eventually was let go. He just could not get it out of his mind, better for him to be on the ground. Hats off to him though for getting to 375 at least. The third guy worked construction but didn't climb like this. Worked with him for a little over a week. The last I heard of him was they were working a job in Kansas, one month of experience doing a decom on a tower with another guy who had 5 months experience. They were running a ginpole and something happened, tower collapsed, killed him instantly and the other guy never made it to the hospital.

I had tunnel vision the first few days out at 275 working. I'd raise the hood and my eyes would go directly to the rod bag, grab a rod, look at the weld, down went the hood and start to weld. After doing it for a year plus it's not big deal. Been on the side of a tower in ice storms, blizzard in Illinois where you could barely see the truck below. Watched a guy climb up to retrieve my leads one day with lightning flashing all around us. Foreman said, "It's ok, the tower is grounded". I laughed and said, yeah, but if the lightning hits you or near you you're dead anyhow and if not your eardrums will be finished from the noise. I was on one in Indiana with my 25ft positioning lanyard tied off. I was at the bottom end, 12-13 feet down from my attachment point. I got ready to move and unhooked my safety. The wind blew so hard it pushed me from one leg clear past the second leg and over to the third directly opposite from where I started. I was a least 5 feet off the side of the tower, legs and arms extended out to catch myself when I came back in. The only thing I said, was, "WTF!!!". I was pizzzzed off and my helper saw it. When I landed he looked at me and said, "you're scaring me Shawn". We climbed down off the tower and I told the project manager I wasn't going to try and weld in that wind anymore today. He looked at his computer hundreds of miles away and said, "I'm only showing wind speeds of 10 miles per hour according to my weather". I laughed and told him it was a bit more than 10 miles per hour. My harness, tools, and gear I weighed in around 210 pounds, blew me like a rag doll.

I've been doing it for over a year now and we stacked a tower in Missouri a few months ago. That was interesting. Being outside the tower with tower above you is not big deal. We had a ginpole connected and were flying in two 20 foot sections and a 10 foot section. The first section sat on the catwalk on top of the tower so maneuvering it around was not big deal. I then welded it in place. The second and third sections you climbed to the top and tied off and stood on the diagonals. They flew the section in and there were three of us up there with bull pins, 295 feet up. Grab the leg and wrestle it into place, drop the bull pin in the bolt holes. It was a lot different than being on the side of the tower. Being on the very top is crazy because there is nothing above to tie off to. By the end of the day we were cranking down the last bolts, sun had already set and we were working from the little bit of light supplied by the headlights off the cars over 300 feet down on the interstate!

100% tie off, a good harness, cable grab to make the climb to work quicker. Watch the loonies free climbing as they are out there. I never let them do work while I was welding. When they had to do diagonal replacements or removals I'd make them wait until I was done. Take out to many and next thing you know you're on a wild ride to terra firma. You might check but it seems like if you're going to be climbing on the towers you need to have climber certification/training. They have a card that goes with it and I believe if you're on the tower and OSHA shows up and you don't have a card then it's not good. Especially with 6 dead tower dogs this year already, OSHA is vowing to clamp down.

How high is the tower they're talking about?

Shawn