Are these guys nuts ?

[hutch--]

Daredevils conquer 'world's hardest climb' at Wells Grey Provincial Park

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/daredevils-conquer-worlds-hardest-climb-at-wells-grey-provincial-park/story-e6frfq80-1226217061928

[baltoro]

I'm NUTS,...
...But, if I had attempted the climb described above,...I'd be dead,...

[Bill Cravener]

I'm so acrophobic I don't even like looking at photos that envision height. Can you imagine how hard 210 pounds would hit the ground? :eek

[donkey]

I've done some pretty risky things in my life, still doing some of them, but no way I'd even think about trying that. Those guys really are nuts.

[Bill Cravener]

Oh I still live a risky lifestyle even at the age of 60. I ride motorcycles (powerful very fast ones) and have had numerous close calls with moronic teenage texters driving automobiles but love riding just the same. Yet get me on a ladder two stories up to clean out gutters and I feel the fear of falling with great intensity. It has come to the point where I pay to have my gutters cleaned out spring and fall. . . .Fall?!?! There's that word again! :eek

[anunitu]

I am with you Bill,I am also acrophobic..Once we(family) went with friends to the hotal in San Francisco that has those outside elevators(Glass outside the building). I could NOT bring myself to even step into the thing.

[vanjast]

It's.... because it's there.. :bg

I used to be a 'adrenalin junkie' until I became sensible  :bdg I'll always remember this day..

Early morning looking at out the waves.. with no way to get out to the backline without getting 'pounded' and surviving.. if your lucky.
Why.. Well it was a challenge, and you'd be a hero afterwards (or a stupid fool if you ended up in hospital). It's always a calculated risk, and I was superfit at that time (I was going to go on the world circuit until conscription messed that up) and if the odds were 50/50, it was in your favour.

This day the waves were 15ft, maybe larger, breaking about 20m within the sharknets. From the peer it was a good 50 to 75m paddle to get beyond the 'impact point', and that day it was really bad, as the backwash going out from the incoming waves was so bad that the water level dipped down some 2 or 3 foot at this point. To stay in one  position required full speed paddling (swimming) 100% of the time.. There was no rest.

So I managed to get out 1st time through the impact point with the waves breaking right over me... I was lucky. Then a guy paddled for a wave and as he stood up, so did the wave... and swallowed him. There he was within the 'curling' part of the wave some 3 foot thick.. thumped down 15 or so feet. I sat there and watched. His surfboard was on the way to the beach.. he had dissapeared. Another wave passed.. it was now 45 seconds or more.. no sign of this guy...I was worried. Then he appeared and all of us (10-15 guys) cheered like mad - he was OK. He didn't surf for the rest of the day.

I did ok that day, but it was a good day for me. Sometimes it's bad and I'll be sensible and go chat up the girls on the beach instead.  :bg

Nowdays they have jetskis or helicopters to get them to the lineup point.. there's no challenge in that. The biggest challenge is getting to the lineup point. Catching the big wave is a minor issue to this.  :wink

[FORTRANS]

Hi,

   Like some of you, I am acrophobic.  Normally mildly so, but
sometimes it gets worse.  For a while last year I could hardly
drive over a bridge here.  Got some medicine and things got
better after a while.  Some Imax movies have an extra bit
of interest to me as well.  Funny, as a kid, one of the things
we found fun was daring each other into jumping off the roof
of the house.

Cheers,

Steve N.

[dedndave]

fear is a good thing
it makes you hold on to that tower rung just a little bit tighter or double-check that knot you tied   :U
i hear the term "overcome your fear", as though some guy flips it off like a switch
a better term might be "use your fear in a positive way"

[hutch--]

Funny enough heights don't bother me but I am really careful anywhere there is a risk of falling. Over time working on this house I have laid bricks up high on the top of a ladder while looking down the abyss but you make damned sure you don't make any mistakes.

I know of guys who have fallen off ladders as they were getting older and they are finished after they have done it, usually two broken legs and never properly mobile again. I broke one leg in a bike prang long ago and it was the perfect lesson never to do it again.

[xanatose]

Is either a case of "No guts no glory", or a case of "I just got divorced and she got everything, to hell with it".  :bdg

Now, seriously, you either have to be very brave to try something like that.

"Is not the fall that worries me. Is the sudden stop that follows it." -- Mc Gyver.