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 theloki
 
Location: UK
 |  |  | Chimney Climb - Northern England - April 2012
< on 4/23/2012 3:05 PM >
|  | | | If you pitch up in any town in the North of England and take a look at the skyline, the one thing you’re guaranteed to see are the silhouetted smoke stack relics of the Victorian industrial revolution. As humble as they are by todays standards, these hundreds of surviving mill chimneys are the skyscrapers of the 19th Century, and when my good friend tweek let slip of a laddered up 200 footer he’d seen at the top end of Halifax while on a draining expedition, the urge to get it climbed was inescapable.
The grade II* listed 200-odd foot chimney at Shaw Lodge Mill in Halifax, UK really is a beauty of a structure. It was built in 1855 along with the new engine house and boiler for the massive Shaw Lodge Mills in an octagon shape, and sits nicely upon a big blocky millstone base.
The chimney hasn't seen any smoke for years but still undergoes periodic inspection and maintenance, which more often than not comes accompanied with a temporary install of LADDERS! The has been chat over the past couple of years to turn it into a climbing wall, and after tweeks spot of it whilst draining in Halifax we figured we give it a pre-opening test run.
A far cry from our last chimney climbing endevour (the 132 meter concrete monster at Hope Cement Works - http://testchamber.net/?p=204) the ladders here were all wood, which had gotten slippy as hell in the typical Yorkshire spring weather. Getting up the sheer face of the 60ft base was a mission in itself (a fishing rod, 2 lead lines and stack of good luck), but once we'd started up the first section of the first ladder we were up in no time, the only minor obstacles being the masses of winch rope trailing down the ladder rises and the tiny squeeze at the top to get on to the high platform. Free climbing a 150 foot ladder might seem a bit sketch, but compared to the Hope climb, this was rather enjoyable and didn't feel that shaky.
going up?
Cracking views.
The chimney itself has a massive lid on it..
I love the brickwork on these chimneys. Despite the fact the guys building these structures knew that only a handful of people would really ever see the fruits of their work close up, they all stuck to their rigorous no-compromising attitude to attention to detail, not something you get with modern concrete smoke stacks.
Going down.
After a leisurely downward climb it was time to pack up and vamoose... Chim Success!
props to jobs as usual for the mad skills.
[last edit 4/23/2012 3:32 PM by theloki - edited 4 times]
http://testchamber.net |
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strangePlaces
     
Location: Toronto
Gender: Male
| |  | Re: Chimney Climb - Northern England - April 2012
<Reply # 1 on 4/25/2012 1:56 AM >
| | | | Great climb!
Stories like this always make me wish i could do a similar thing!
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