Pics of places that look like places from the films, or are just nice.

halfwise wrote:

It's the people with the backpacks on that scare me. Throws the balance way off. The guy with the harness who's stopping at every cable connection point is doing the safe thing: you have two cables with carabiners, and at each connection point you first switch one, then the other so you are always connected. But that cable seems to only be there 30% of the time, and usually not when you really need it.

don't know what u mean about the feet, but i didn't notice them being secured by any rope.

Our guide was being cocky and stupid, doing actual tightrope walking technique on the metal beams. The safe way to do it is face the wall, lean against it with your hands, using your feet perpendicular to the beam rather than parallel. That way you have to slip all the way from arch to heel and if you are wearing boots your heel sticks out so can't slip. The way he was doing it you only have to slip sideways and you are toast.

*toast* vertigo!

halfwise wrote:Our guide was being cocky and stupid, doing actual tightrope walking technique on the metal beams. The safe way to do it is face the wall, lean against it with your hands, using your feet perpendicular to the beam rather than parallel. That way you have to slip all the way from arch to heel and if you are wearing boots your heel sticks out so can't slip. The way he was doing it you only have to slip sideways and you are toast.

:S oh god...i wouldn't do it any of those ways, i'de turn around.

halfwise wrote: The safe way to do it is face the wall, lean against it with your hands, using your feet perpendicular to the beam rather than parallel. That way you have to slip all the way from arch to heel and if you are wearing boots your heel sticks out so can't slip.

It sounds so easy when you say it like that!
What would you think about doing it with your eye closed.....?
....or drunk.....?
...or both...?

or freaking out.

For some people drunk is the reason they'd be doing it. Such people either have childhood guardian angels watching over them (the only way I made it through childhood ) or are no longer with us.

About 20 years ago a friend of mine showed me the warehouses behind his house he used to climb around on as a kid. We went up there, and I was looking down at the grass 15 feet below thinking "as a kid I used to jump off things like this." But this annoying inner voice I didn't used to have as a kid kept telling me not to do it. This enraged me: if I listened to the inner voice it would be tantamount to kissing my inner child goodbye!

So I jumped....and found out why we develop inner voices. Broken ankle, childhood (and the flexible bones that came with it) gone.

When I was ten I decided to go off on my own and follow a river to see where it went. A mile or so later and up half a hillside later I was standing beside a river that was now at the botom of a ravine some 80 feet or so high with sheer cliffs either side.
The cliffs were mainly mossy wet rocks with the odd tree growing out of them here and there.
Being a bit tired I decided to go home, but the slow tricky way back down the river wasnt too appealing, and I decided with all the nievity of being 10 that it would be quicker and easier just to climb up to the top, then I could just walk back down through the fields.

Well, I got a liitle over halfway up and was starting to think this might not be such a good idea, as I had just had to climb an overhang.
Problem was there was another one right above me, much bigger- I couldnt see a way to get any further up.
So I tried to get back down the overhang below me, and almost fell off.
I couldnt go sidways as I couldnt see anywhere to get a grip on my left which was sheer rock with a small torrent of water running down it, and about 3 foot to my left, but out of reach, was a tree growng out the cliff blocking me.

So I did what any 10 ear old would do- I panicked.
After a bit I realised that wasnt helping. BUt I still couldnt find anyway to go and I was starting to freak out up there.
So despite being in a ravine halfway up a hill above a roaring river I tried hopelessly shouting for help.
I shouted myself out up there, and of course no one came.
By this time, about an hour of hanging on, I was really, really terrified and certain I was going to die.
I figured there was no chance of getting over the outcrop above, and not much better odds of the one beneath either without slipping, and there wass nohing but air between there and wet sharp rocks.
So I took the only other option and did the bravest thing i have probably done still in my entire life. I jumped.
Not down but across the 3 foot gap between me and the tree.
Doesnt sound much 3 feet, but when your ten and vey high up, scared and have almost no room to manouevre it seems a very long way indeed.
Somehow I managed to get a hold of the tree and clamber up onto it.
I stayed there a bit till I had recovered enough and stopped shaking enough to climb the remainder of the cliff and get out.

Few years ago I was in the area and decided to go see if I could find the spot, I dont think I was exacly where I was as a kid, but looking down from the top I was suprised to find memory had not exagerrated it all- it was a crazy thing to do.
Its amazing what you will do as a kid.

Yep, it's wonderful the human race as a group makes it through childhood. Thinking about many of the things I did back then gives me the heeby-jeebies.

Didn't Pippin jump 8 feet in Moria? I always considered that a weakness in the book, it was a bit implausible. Plus nobody thought of using Sam's rope: after the big'uns were across they could have used it as safety to yank the smaller ones across.

btw Petty, did your tree grab consist of wrapping arms around it, or was it a finger grab? Just helps to imagine what you had to do.

omg, that is an amazing story, petty, i don't have any like that.. well, maybe the time i hanged around a horses neck in gallop..

did your tree grab consist of wrapping arms around it, or was it a finger grab?- Halfy

It was more a grab, with one arm. As it was a sort of sideways jump with me facing the cliff pretty much -there wasnt enough to stand on to turn to the side and face th eway I was jumping-I hooked my right arm over the main trunk, swung a bit, then got my other arm hooked too and scrambled and panicked my way up onto it from there.

I once jumped off a ferry, but thats just boring.

Mrs Figg wrote:I once jumped off a ferry, but thats just boring.

did you get a splinter in ur foot?

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