It wouldn't surprise me if getting up here had been thought of before, possibly by the route we took (as you'd have to be a jammy bastard to make it past the front doors and metal detectors without being nabbed), but I'd hazard a guess that the high probability of waking up to a parking ticket and a bowl of Her Majesties cornflakes was enough to put most people off.
It took us a few run-ups to do this one, not in terms of technique or trying different approaches, just in nerve. We drove into Manchester at least three times, and just hung out on a bench and talked about how daft we were before we plucked up the guts to just bomb it past all the cameras and start. If any building was going to be on the ball in terms of its security, you'd have thought it would have been this. You'd have thought wrong though...
Using the sunshield on one side of it, we were able to make quick and cozy-safe upward progression, aided by a load of thick steel beams we could wrap some chunky slings round. It was a bit nippy on the fingers climbing 17 floors of 2mm steel grill, but aside from a horrible mid section, it was mostly pleasant climbing punctuated with plenty of little rest stops as we made slow progression upward.
We'd pushed our luck a bit in terms of time, so about 5 or 6 pitches of abseiling later (bring a longer bloody rope next time!) and we were touching down on the ground and running like nutters away from all the cameras and the new security shift who would almost certainly have been starting in the next couple of minutes.
Good one!
u wot m9?!
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