Fear of heights

I don’t do heights. I won’t go anywhere near an unguarded significant drop. I climbed up the side of a very steep temple in Bangkok and then refused to come down when I realised I was now on the edge of what appeared, to me, to be a cliff with a sheer drop. Took me an hour of whimpering and scrabbling to eventually make it down.

So I was quite surprised at myself when I volunteered to go up in the gondola at the bungy jump in order to get a couple of photos from on high.

But I was mainly surrounded by steel, and I was wearing a harness which was connected to the frame; so I could not have fallen out even if I had wanted to, which I most certainly didn’t.

Returned from the bungy event feeling rather unwell and by the evening, a bout of the dreaded man flu was upon me. This was a shame because I had planned to go and shoot the vegetarian parade on Sunday morning; a more attractive prospect than sitting snuffling in a corner with a box of tissues and a raging headache. Yesterday was pretty much a write-off, and I retired to bed early with an iPad to watch the exploits of the ultimate jumper, Felix Baumgartner.

The rather slow ascent of his balloon meant I had little to do for two hours but sniffle and wait. A problem with his visor heating resulted in an immediate cessation of the feed from the control room, which simultaneously heightened the tension, but also added to the boredom as there was then nothing to watch except a swelling balloon and a readout showing an increase in height.

Still, after a couple of hours of this you were left in no doubt that this thing was high; and when the door of the capsule finally swung open I could feel my heart rate increasing, this was a crazy thing to be doing.

The actual jump was astonishing. You could hear his hurried breathing, and then you couldn’t (was he OK?); then he went into a crazy spin at some insane speed close to the speed of sound (was he OK?); then he seemed to gain control and finally his parachute opened and he was back on the earth.

You can watch it retrospectively on YouTube, but for the full experience you had to watch it live, tucked up in bed with a head cold and a fear of heights. Respect.

Comments 🔗

2012-10-15 | Grant says

Nice composition Spike! The blue of the pool, the orange of the roofs, the yellow of the photographer…

2012-10-15 | Chang Noi says

Spike if you ever feel the urge to overcome “not doing heights” then climb on to level 7 of “Wat Phu Tok” with Thai safety at an cliff where you could make a 200m sky-dive.

2012-10-15 | Spanky says

The pool would have broken the fall. Would have been perfectly fine.

2012-10-15 | Spike says

Yes, very witty….

2012-10-15 | Grant says

Dunno, if he’d followed the focal point he would have just about clipped the left-hand white table…

2012-10-15 | biggrtiggr says

Truly amazing feat (the Austrian, not Spike)……….. enters the Austrian Hall of Fame, alongside Mozart, Hitler and the bloke who kept his daughter in the cellar

2012-10-15 | Grant says

Yes indeed, it’s like trying to find famous Canadians, although the Austrians did also broadly start WW1. I’m just relieved he managed the descent without spearing through the cabin roof of an underflying jumbo jet full of tourists…

2012-10-16 | Spike says

Justin Bieber. I am suddenly an expert.

2012-10-16 | Spike says

This video of the jump is enlightening: http://youtu.be/yFU774q6eVM

2012-10-16 | Grant says

Expat to expert in one sentence, well done old chap! Justin what?

2012-10-16 | Grant says

It certainly is, and it lasts only a minute forty four, which is only just over my attention span. Truly the greatest Austrian technical tour-de-force since Ferdinand P almost invented the overhead camshaft…

2012-10-16 | biggrtiggr says

Ferdinand P almost invented the overhead camshaft…

Is that a specialist position for intercourse?

2012-10-16 | Grant says

Prince Henry Austro Daimler old chap, screwed the competition…

2012-10-17 | Spike says

I checked it out. The perfect combination of climbing and sheer drops, no thanks.

2012-10-17 | Grant says

How you managed that magic vertiginous mall shot some months back without fainting I can only ascribe to your splendid British pluck…

2012-10-20 | The Lightweight says

I found the entire jump thing useless and when Mr. Baumgartner did his salute just before jumping I moaned in silent agony. But when he opened his parachute way before he had to, leaving that one last world record for the longest free fall with Kittinger, I felt a lot of respect for him. Imagine that this guy jumps down from 39 kilometers but still decides to pay his respect to his predecessor and sacrifice a world record he could have gotten. My full respect goes to him for that (well, of course also for the jump. I cannot even properly ride a bicycle without breaking some bones…)

2012-10-20 | Grant says

Time to give the penny farthing away old chap and try one of those new-fangled ‘safeties’…