India Mill Chimney Climb, Darwen - June 2011.
Ojay/Stepping Lightly/Ninjaboy
India Mill chimney now stands as a lone memorial to King Cotton
This chimney needs no introductions from me - Just watch a legend explain this iconic structure HEREhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R3-YwDZrzg
Rewind nearly 2 years and myself and Stepping Lightly stood at the foot of this beast
"One day we will stand on top of that"... Hmm
Having looked at many pictures including the iconic black & white shot of the 'old chaps' which I'm sure SL will dig out, a waiting game it was
We knew an inspection was probably imminent and after a chance conversation I overheard ladders were in place
No fucking about here, we had a small window of opportunity, SL was out of the picture so myself & Ninjaboy decided to hit it up,
I left SL a message and decided to make our ascent all the same, I always knew he'd race back from the airport for this one
This was no mean feat, a 9M climb up the base, followed by a further 13m up the pitched roof to the ladders
Whilst lit up like an Xmas tree and surrounded by dome cameras was indeed, getting up was fun
Without further a-do I shot up the ladders without a care in the world until I reached the 31m mark and looked back down
It felt like the whole of Darwen was watching us, as the moon was strong and the sky was bright
I carried on up to the first ledge (approx 60m) from ground level and waited for Ninjaboy, stopping for a few pics before carrying on
As I hit the first overhang, suddenly the rope started to stretch.. WTF?
I couldn't pass the deviation between the connecting ladders so literally had to un-clip and free climb back down a good 40ft+ to the ledge below
As I neared Ninjaboy, told me that someone else was on the rope - Stepping Lightly no less, and within no time he joined us on the ledge
This was now starting to become emotional..
There was now a genuine buzz as we carried on up the ladders one-by-one towards the summit, SL naturally shooting off into the night sky
As I approached the final overhang (around 80M) my gear got caught around the fixings, I couldn't pull myself over or even move back down
A school boy error on my part no less, some scary shit as gravity was pulling back to earth, but I had no choice but to man-up and persevere
I soon got my shit together and made it onto the final ladder, a quick 5m climb and I joined SL, followed by Ninjaboy on the top of the chimney with the biggest grins ever
Plan B - Get a few pics and get the fuck down...
We made it
"You can ride a bike around here" - Fred Dibnah
India Mill
Darwen
And finally our ladder awaits
The sun was rising, I hadn't slept, full of mixed emotions we made it back down safely, bitten to death by midges for a quick ppl shot we packed up and f00ked off
Massive props to Stepping lightly, Ninjaboy & Blinker who made it up here
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