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Comment by stevesearer | Hacker News Reader

Here's a video of a tower worker climbing a 1700' tower that really gives me sweaty palms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDYK0zaQuZs

I've also been impressed with the amount of high quality content on Medium over the last several months. It seemed like a glorified blogging platform at first, but there have been a number of really interesting stories like this one and the one about the inventor of the Aeropress.

https://medium.com/backchannel/first-alan-adler-invented-the...

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At first I thought, "oh, i'm sure there's a line you can attach to your harness to keep you from falling..." but then he gets outside the tower, free-climbs 140 feet, finally positioning himself on the very top of a 1,700 foot tower, with zero support and a tiny piece of foothold, all the while carrying 30lbs dead weight [to say nothing of wind], whereupon he finally clips in his harness.

Jesus fucking christ.

Yeah, i was kind of gripping the table almost unable to contain shouts of "attach yourself already" :/ The worst is the final 20 seconds when he dawdles and fumbles the clip with two hands, simply standing at the top looking down :/ But i guess from his point of view that's easiest, he's not climbing any more...

I've heard those videos caused a lot of flack for the workers, due to the lack of safety equipment use.

there was another series done where a tower climber showed the proper way to climb a tower https://youtu.be/9b9LahaBJIk

For some more sweaty palm fun, check out professional climber Alex Honnold "free soloing" various rock walls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR1jwwagtaQ

The whole video is worth watching, but the meat and potatoes starts at about 11:30

Another heartstopper is this POV video of two Ukrainians illegally scaling the 650-meter Shanghai Tower while it was still under construction, which gets really nuts when they start climbing the construction crane at the very top:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLDYtH1RH-U&t=120

These top-level guys try to climb when it's really cold and at night to prevent sweaty fingers.

Kevin Jorgeson climbing the Dawn Wall in Yosemite this winter for example:

http://www.climb.pl/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/pitch15_crux....

It gives me sweaty palms too. I wonder why that particular physical reaction happens, surely sweaty palms is the opposite of what you want?

Probably a byproduct of generalized "increase sweat output b/c you might have to run / fight in the near future" response.

If I recall fun trivia from my childhood correctly, slightly damp skin has better grip. Obviously drippy hands won't work, but it makes some sense in the context of cartoons showing the character spittin on their hands before putting their back into something (like an axe whose head inevitably flys off the handle (which was expected to have better grip now)).

I doubt this. Rock climbers carry powdered chalk to constantly dry their hands. It's my own experience that dry hands grip better, as well.

Note, we like other apes evolved to climb trees not rock walls.

I will note also that compared to climbing rocks, climbing trees with slightly sweaty hands is MUCH easier than with dry or chalked hands. I think its due to bark being the grip target versus rocks.

Nothing more than my experience but sending a cliff is nothing like climbing trees.

Eh, if you can wrap your fingers around something like a branch, then it probably doesn't matter. I find that for that first ten feet of bare trunk, however, dry hands are better.

Just noting climbing a tree is infinitely different than sending a 5.10b route.

The strategy involved in the two is night and day. One focuses on fingertips not slipping and the other involves not losing grip.

Actually there's a moisture level that is ideal for climbing on rock. Chalk just helps climbers stay near that ideal level.

In fact there's a high level climber who's sweat glands do not work and to compensate he has to bring a water mister around with him so that he can climb.

omg, my fear of heights is much better now than it used to be, but I felt physically ill watching that movie.

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