Climbing Architecture

[JosephH]

Scaling up to your room | arons Gelauff & architects

 

[billcoe]

Free solo fire escapes from burning skyscrapers...hmmmmm

[PhöQ]

sisisisiis que chido estaria que en mi universidad fuese asi cuando estudie

como dice maf no como ir a la huasteca pero entre clases estaria de pelos

[Off_White]

While not the biggest fan of pulling plastic, I'd have to say that looks pretty cool, both being outdoors and the overall height would add a lot to the fun quotient.

[Mtguide]

I clicked on this thread thinking it was about Buildering, climbing ON architecture; there used to be a little clandestine guidebook to the buildings on the UW campus in the late 60's and 70's. I particularly remember the NW buttress of the Suzallo Library. We also did routes on buildings at PLU and UPS in Tacoma, and the pylons under the freeway at the south end of the Roosevelt Way bridge in the U district were not too bad for aid practice.

 

Buildering can be pretty challenging sometimes, mainly because you get a layback, jamcrack or finger crack that's dead vertical, and the same width, surface texture, etc. for the entire height of the structure, sometimes very isolated as a feature with little else around it for supplementary holds, or hard to protect. So, "strenuous and sustained" as one of the route descriptions stated...

 

Usually though pro was pretty simple; we didn't have cams or chocks, but you could often just use slings on modern architectural features like vertical aluminum square tube attached to the building with standoffs (9-story Tinglestad Hall at PLU), or a lot of cracks in masonry would take standard angles or aluminum bongs, same size all the way up, so we might have to pool our gear to get enough stuff to make it all the way.

 

I suppose nowdays with increased security this would be hard to pull off, you'd probably be charged with suspected sabotage or terrorism, instead of just trespassing. Even back then we always had to do it in the middle of the night and be damned quiet about it, driving pins with a muffled hammer (a small chunk of tire tread duct-taped on) and other such secrets of the trade.