Monday

Angels can be climbed...

"This sculpture is classed as a building. You wouldn't climb an office building just to take some pictures from the rooftop, would you? So why would you climb the angel of the north"
The inspector looked at us with a serious face. It was hard not to laugh! Why? I think the answer is obvious...


The 410 mile trip started in Manchester at around midnight. I had wanted to do this climb so badly since i first heard about urban exploring. It was the climb i had been dreaming of so often, the Angel of the North, a steel sculpture, 20 meter tall, wings of 54 meter width, designed by Antony Gormley.

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Due to a temporary speed limit of 50 on most parts of the motorway we arrived at the angel just as the sun was starting to rise. We knew we only had a limited amount of time before it would be to light so we worked as quickly as possible.

By the time scott had reached the top, the daylight had arrived. If drivers on the motorway or residents near by would look up, they would see the silhouette of a person standing on the giant wing.
As half of us were up, many locals had gathered around, some drunk, some amazed, some scared and others angry, but all of them were interested in what was happpening.

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We had no time to loose, i was the last one to climb. Half way up and i froze. Police had just arrived. I was so close from reaching the top. But fate had decided that i was not to reach the top, I had to retreat.

After a nice chat with the two officers about the reasons why we were climbing man build structures, we found out that a lorry driver had seen us and thought we were gonna jump.

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©Yaz




The disappointing outcome of the climb however was not gonna stop us from having an awesome weekend.
After a quick sleep and a short visit to the sea we headed to Thornaby Traction Maintenance Depot.

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But the luck was not on our side. After ten minutes i heard scott running. BTP had seen us. If we got caught a 1000 pound fine would probably not be avoidable.

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We had to hide whilst we could hear the officers sneaking around trying to find us. We were lucky. After half an hour we run of the site and managed to get out.

A few more stops later, including a slacklining session at a service station and an unplanned run onto a stadium rooftop we headed back to Manchester.

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Shouts to userscott, yaz and luke for an amazing weekend!

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