The Tower

I climbed a rickety old fire tower once. In the dark during a storm. The thing was built in the 1930s and never maintained. It stood 300 or so feet in the air on top of a hill, the highest hill in 40 miles. The wind was at a constant 50 mph. To get to the first platform I had to climb a makeshift wooden ladder. The 3rd of 6 steps fell off and I pulled myself along with 60 pounds of kit, up with my arms and laid on the first platform for nearly a minute. The next 5 platforms took me only a few minutes but felt like eternity. When I got to the top, I had to balance myself to get through the trapdoor to the floor and close the trapdoor. I laid on the floor shaking for nearly 5 minutes while my brother in arms smoked a cigarette and looked down at me. The entire time I lay there seeing the base bolts crack and give way as the tower swayed nearly a foot back and forth, and in my mind felt myself getting smashed into the wall behind me as the tower fell over. It didnt of course. When I could finally stand I apologized for being a little bitch. The man next to me said "Fuck this tower. We need to worry about snipers more than we need to worry about this tower. All of this is unnatural." I almost snatched his cigarette and smoked it. I quit smoking cold turkey when I was 17. Sometime during that 8 hour shift we felt a sharp CRACK. The wind died down and I was so busy with my duties I didn't notice. At the end of the shift I decided to stay and pull a double because I was digging my new calling. When I came down from the tower, I came down like a wet cat from a tree. I was so exhausted at the bottom from holding on that I had to lie in the back of the ATV. I decided to break my fear, not the fear of heights but the fear of FALLING and took tower the rest of the week.

A couple weeks later I tripped on a base bolt during a grid search and pursuit of a bogey. It rattled loudly across the concrete base and gave away our position to anything within 500 feet. Upon inspection, I discovered that the bolt face had sheared off with the amount of torque applied by the swaying of the tower in the wind that night. After that discovery and experience I don't fear the fall. What will be will be. I now just don't like heights; I prefer ground that doesn't move.

Being close to death is fucking amazing. I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie now to a larger extent than I was before. When I climb grain elevators and roofs I miss having snipers pointing their rifles at me from god knows where. To compensate I usually don't wear a harness. Is that fucked up? I don't know.

I want to go back. I imagine that's somehow illegal for me now.