Have a Fear of Heights?
 

Then you might not wanna click here.

Pics of people working in VERY high places :)

An architect friend in Chicago looks out his 57th floor office window and sees high-steel workers at eye-level, sitting on a beam, eating lunch.

I've worked at heights, but I was more secure than that. I still get a bit nervous, but not as much as I used to. You get over the fear quickly or you get another job.

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

There are two types of people in the world.

The first type looks at those pictures and says "oh hell no."
The second type looks at those pictures and says "where's the line to buy a ticket?"

I'm pretty much in the second camp. Maybe I'd turn into quivering jelly if you put me out on an I beam at 90 stories but so far I've yet to find a heights situation that really scares me.

Though in on respect I've turned into my mom over the years. She had no fear of heights. She had a fear of other people at heights. And it is increasingly the same for me. When we were at Moro Rock last year the kids crawling around the ledges had me in knots but I wouldn't have had a problem joining them.

I understand what you're saying, Alex. I'll be the first to lean backward off the barrier at the HB Pier (decidedly not too high in the air, but dangerous) and look off the Grand Canyon, but just quiver at the thought of seeing those doing it who I am less confident of. I love sky-rises and just about any opportunity to see everything. It's a lesson in my own insignificance.

Oh hell no.

first group line begins here people

Let's go get Starbucks while Group II enjoys that feeling of imminent death.

What he said.

Grand Canyon - I'm the one hugging the rocks and freeking out as other people get too close to the edge.

I can finally lean over the rail on the HB pier and look in the water below.

Oh, it's not imminent death when you're securely in place up high. It's just imminent death when the cables break.

You could say there's imminent death by walking out your front door. Anything's possible.

At medium heights (sky rides, balconies) I share my mom's inexplicable phobia that loose and semi-loose items on my person (wallets, keys, cameras, shoes) will somehow work themselves free and fall. Look closely and you'll find me cutting off circulation in my hand as I wrap my camera strap as tightly as possible without crushing bone.

As I go higher (cliffs, skyscrapers, Supreme Scream), I get rather paralyzed.

ok, but I need to stop at the store first. I need a spatula and a sponge for group II

I once had a lighter work its way out of my pocket and explode on the ground during a ride on Supreme Scream. Really not sure how that happened. Supreme Scream is about as high as I can go and I have the force myself to keep breathing. The sky thingie that turns scares the heck out of me. Yet I find myself OK in the skybuckets at the SD Zoo and the big giant ferris wheel at the OC Fair.

On coasters I am convinced that my rings (that barely come off as it is) will fly off and I will lose them. So I usually ride with a closed fist. I'm convinced earrings will come loose and somehow a necklace will fly off.

Have a Fear of Heights?
 

Supreme Scream i won't ride anymore. I am was afraid of heights and the last ride i had on that was beyond normal. We were CM and i on the yellow tower one and we went up past the camera thingys and heard no "click" like it usually makes. So we went up higher than normal. At this point i was kinda freaking out i kept telling myself breathe breathe (I just that's almost too high for me really) then it took like forever before we actually dropped not the usual three -five second counting either. CM explained what happened after we were safely on the ground and i vowed never to ride it again.

Now ontop of Stratosphere that's a different story. Big Shot (same thing as Supreme Scream) whether it is day or nite (last i rode in March at nite) i hate that ride. It feels like you're just floating higher and higher and if you look down you see the top of the tower disappear. After our ride on XScream i nearly "kissed the ground" when we got off.

Now the other rides XScream (front seat night view) was scary for me but i would do it again in a heartbeat. My friend Brea who loves rides and isn't scared of heights was so scared she cried. Insanity the one that takes you out and spins you as you're sitting that one is our favorite of the three rides. Somehow that elevator ride doesn't bother me nor being out on top of the top of the tower. But yet we rode to the top of Paris in Vegas and out on that little catwalk at night with the wind blowing quite moving the tower a bit (little bit of swaying) was bad enough for me. Go figure.

I love ferris wheels and i love Maliboomer and those drop rides about that high in height not any higher though.

I took the elevator to the top of Stratosphere, with Big Shot ticket in hand. But once I was on the observation deck, there wasn't a chance in hell I was going to set foot outside. If I'm inside a skyscraper like that, I can can deal, thought I'm pretty uneasy the whole time. If it's a really important landmark (e.g. Eiffel Tower), I'll suck it up and brace an outdoor observation deck. But never in a million years would I strap myself into something like Big Shot. No way, no how.

Oh hell no. No way in hell, no amount of money in the world could get me on any of the things on top of the Stratosphere. Especially after I saw a the two rides that go out over the edge break down. HELL NO.

I like my feel planted on the ground TYVM.

It's not the cable breaking or the fall that kills you - it's that sudden stop at the bottom that gets ya.

I'm not afraid of heights; I'm afraid of the ground.

I can handle the high stuff, but I am surprisingly uneasy on the overhead sky chairs at the LA County Fair (or whatever they are called - the thing you sit on to ride from one side of the Fair to the other).

But count me in on line 2. I would probably be frightened, but I would do it anyways.

Yep, I'm afraid of heights. I hate being in tall buildings, but I find it interesting that I have no fear if I am at the equivalent height in an airplane, I'm only scared if I'm on something that is attached to the ground.

I have no problem with heights as long as there is a barrier (even if it’s just a railing) or some kind of restraint to keep me from going over the edge. I once freaked out a friend by pressing myself against a floor length window in a 20th floor hotel room.

An open I-beam?? No way in hell.

I also will not walk on a glass floor. I don’t care if it’s only a foot off the ground and 6 inches thick, I will not walk on it.

Lani won't do drop rides (she's fine with heights generally, just not with dropping) because they scare her.

I won't do them because they bore me.

When I was about 10 I fell out of a tree from about 50 feet up (I was well above the roof our our two-story, atticed house). Somehow bouncing off branches, uncontrolled, on the way down I suffered no injury but some scratches. I think that feeling of invulnerability (others might have focused on the failure of falling but I focused on the cool success of survival) completely destroyed any potential heights phobia that might otherwise have developed.

I have a love-hate relationship with heights. I would never go out to a place without a barrier of some sort - but only because i'm a klutz. I don't have a fear of heights - although the bottoms of my feet get all tingly when I look down from high places - I have a fear of tripping and falling.

The last time I danced in public was on the glass square in the floor of Tokyo Tower just to mildly freak out a phobic companion.

But the glass floor thing is very instinctive in human. I remember in a developmental psych classes back in college watching a video where they tried to coax toddlers (still crawling) out onto clear suspended plexiglass and could not do it, even when something else (toys generally) was on the plexiglass to show that they wouldn't fall.

I was okay with heights until I had kids. Now I get nervous if I have to get up on the roof of the house. The deck is fine, the roof is not.

I don't like ski lifts. Which is what those remind me of. The last time I was on one for the Alpine Slides in Big Bear I was a kid. It was windy and I was alone. And very unhappy.

Ski lifts don't bother me. Getting OFF the ski lift bothers me.

Heights don't bother me much. Ski lifts etc are fine as long as you're not with some jackass who thinks it's fun to swing them around.

I've taken a turn for the more daring, as of late. Never been afraid of heights, but after I did the big giant swing thing (added link: read the section on the Skycoaster) at an amusement part in Utah, the sensation of falling has really captured my interest. When I was in Utah last, J brought me to an indoor skydiving place that just opened up. I had so much fun, but unfortunately, I wasn't feeling good AT ALL and was stuffed up. Anyone who's done anything like that knows how much wind comes up at your face - I just couldn't breathe.

The plan is to do it again. Down the street from where he's living now they have a small airport and I'm always seeing people skydiving. I'm not sure if I'll go skydiving by the end of this year, but definitely by next spring, and in the meanwhile, there's indoor skydiving - where I can learn to control my movements.

I guess what I've come to like about it are the endorphins that stay with me throughout the day. Better than any drug I've tried, hands down.

And in this line of discussion, I would like to mention that Susan HATES that feeling of your stomach lurching on a drop ride like a parachute ride (although she does like ToT). However, what finally convinced her to try skydiving was when she found out that you don't experience that sensation.

When you jump out of a plane, there isn't a "drop" as much as a changing of direction: you are moving forward and then you turn to be moving downward.

For her it was made better by virtue of being strapped to a very good-looking Aussie!

Why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane? And it's not like the skill of skydiving would come in handy if you were in plummeting jet.

I'm not afraid of flying. I'm afraid of crashing.

You haven't tried enough drugs.

Drops don't bother me, it's the slow climb. Goliath at MM is right on the edge of what I'm willing to put up with for a good drop. Maliboomer and Superman the Escape I can handle no problem because you start low, and are up high for only a short period, in motion the whole time. Ditto on ToT (aided by the very enclosed experience). Supreme Scream had me not breathing half way up.

For the same reason people ride roller coasters, et. al. - for the sheer thrill of it: the endorphin rush. I am not sure I could do it at this stage in my life, but I enjoyed it when I did it in my 20's.

Trust me, I've tried a lot (I just don't talk about it with most people probably because of the following), and I've always been disappointed in one way or another, just as I'm sure I'd be disappointed if I died. Wait... And like the Coca-cola discussion, I'm hardly an abstainer.

I just think that the thrill and subsequent elation for me feels much less false. Drugs, for me, have always been a stepping away from reality, whereas doing actual thrilling things has been like a total immersion of reality. I like knowing that I can die, I like seeing how insignificant all my little worries in life are pressed against such an enormity of life and death. Not that I want to die, but thrills are generally a perspective-fixer that doesn't just fade away.

I have a feeling that when I'm done with school, I'll be making more time for trying new things like this.

Have a Fear of Heights?
 

Funny i've done a skycoaster and loved it. Same with shoot the thingy at Magic Mountain and Sling Shot. Those didn't bother me too much. Skydiving i've wanted to do it just scared of the fact of jumping out of a plane but watching my brother skydive it does look fun. Plus you're strapped to an instructor your very first time. Now bungee jumping no way no how. Ouch. The things CM tells me about it too no thank you.

I used to snow ski alot. I love chair lifts. The funny thing was is i used to ride them in bad bad winds as well as snow storms where the lifts were being swayed back and forth the chairs themselves back and forth like swings seriously. I just held on and didn't really panic much. Knowing snow was below me instead of pure hard ground.

That's why I don't particularly enjoy roller coasters or drop rides. I get no rush. There is not even a smidgen of fear, so there is no excitement for me. Going really fast in a completely controlled environment or dropping really far sitting in an almost flawlessly effective restraint system takes all the fun away (for me).

Have you tried skydiving? I would be interested to see if you got a rush or experienced fear out of that.

No, I never have mostly because I'd have to do it alone and it hasn't been worth the effort. I'm interested though.

I've often wondered the same thing. I think I would find it very exciting the first few times I did it alone when my own inexperience creates more risk but I suspect it would quickly wear off. The tandem jump doesn't sound very exciting.

Have you guys seen or read about this?



It's a new bridge they built over the Grand Canyon! I read about it and it looks pretty cool & spooky. It's a thick bridge and according to the article I read, it doesn't move when people inevitably jump up and down, which so many of them have been doing. It is clear, it must feel kind of like your'e floating in air.

I'm not scared of heights (which is pretty amazing, considering I'm practically scared of my own shadow) but those pictures made me gasp! Another member of the oh hell no camp is born. ;)

On the 4th of July, my boyfriend took me to his work, where there is a long ladder inside the utility room that scales to the rooftop. It was so amazing! The streets were filled with so many people, and here we were alone, on a blanket, snuggled up & watching all three firework shows in Stevenson Ranch, Valencia Town Center & Magic Mountain! The people below even had patriotic music blaring! It was just so amazing!

However, when I had to climb back down that ladder I was extremely nervous. All I could think was "are my sandals going to slide off?" and "Thank God I'm not drinking!" :eek:

me next

Yup - read about it. Not to thrilled about them building into the canyon... but HELL NO! No way in hell would I go out on that thing. Nuh uh. No way. No how. Nope. Not going to happen. Nuh uh. Nope.

I'd imagine I'd force myself to go out on it.

Whether my boxer briefs would survive unscathed is questionable.

Why'd they ruin it with those walls? Maybe a slight downward slant towards the far end?

I'd do it if it were cheap, but there's no way I'd pay what they're charging.

ok, see now THAT I'd do in a heartbeat. I'd be the pr!k that went out there and jumped up and down on it.

:evil:

The prompted me to look it up...holy hell, I'd barely be able to motivate myself to walk out there for free. >$80? "Oh hell no" doesn't begin to describe it.

Yep, zapp and I were all set to go ... until we saw the price tag. Ef That!

But I'd do it in a heartbeat ... and I think the glass walls on the finished product are a lot lower than on that artist's rendering. But $80 after an hour's detour down an 18-mile dirt road is not getting me out on that bridge. Fear of Heights has zip to do with it.

(Now that it's been mentioned, I'm also not keen on it sticking out from the rim. Structures like the Watchtower and the Lookout which blend with the rim are wonderful, and those like the Kolb Studio and this bridge should be torn down!)

At Bryce we ran into someone who had just been on that bridge thing-y. He said the clear portion of the floor is already all scuffed up.

I should add that I have no problem with rails being put up on canyon formed structures (I think we went out on Bright Angel Point) and a few other jetti's that had railings around them. Yes, they go into the canyon too but I don't think (and that's just my uneducated opinion) that they would cause as much damage as the sky walk.

$80?!? Um, no effin way!

I used to have a very debilitating fear of heights, but cured it (for the most part) by doing things like zip-lines and skydiving and standing on scary edges whilst reminding myself that I was no more likely to simply fall over (or have things somehow rise out of my pockets) when standing on solid ground adjacent to a sheer drop than I was when on solid ground in the midst of other solid ground.

That said, I don't like rollercoaster lifts that climb too high, and I'm more comforable on a mountain peak than a skyscraper cap.

I agree with GD:

You'd see me screaming like a baby.

But, if the floor was solid (and the price reasonable), no problem.

Have a Fear of Heights?
 

Hell no i'll stick to solid ground thank you very much and only $80 heck if i liked heights i would pay that in a heartbeat but since i don't no way. Ain't gettin me out there on that thing.

I got to slowly ride to the top of Supreme Scream in maintenance mode, and it was pretty groovy.

blueerica, if you like the skycoaster at Lagoon, you should do the 300 ft. model in Florida - you fly out over water and it's got an amazing amount of freefall.

OK - getting a little off topic, but in a search for more info about Supreme Scream (I honestly did not know it was at Knott's), I came across this entry about a roller coaster called Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ:
I would be surprised if CM has not already been on this (and has appropriate commentary), but the description alone scares the heebie jeebies out of me :eek:

That's a smidge taller and a smidge faster than Knott's Xcelerator. And I guess Xcelerator doesn't have the helix. (eta: actually, looking at photos of the two, I can't really tell if Ka has more of a helix or not. Matt?)

Funny thing is, I'm more willing to go on either of those (would have ridden Xcelerator last time I was at Knott's had it been open) than on Goliath, which is over 100ft shorter. It's all about the slow climb, getting to heights at speed doesn't really bother me.

I am going to assume that this was said with tongue in cheek:

HEIGHT:
Kingda Ka: 456 feet
Xcelerator: 205 feet

TOP SPEED:
Kingda Ka: 128 MPH
Xcelerator: 82 MPH

LENGTH:
Kingda Ka: 3,118 feet
Xcelerator: 2,202 feet

Source for Xcelerator stats
Source for Kingda Ka stats

Goliath at SFMM is actually 30 ft taller than Xcelerator, and although Kingda Ka is taller than Xcelerator, Xcelerator's initial acceleration (from 0-82mph) is actually quicker - just about 2 seconds.
Kingda Ka has a really nasty "shake" to the trains as you roll down the launch track, and it's really just a big climb over a tower, an airtime hill, then brakes.
Xcelerator launches, goes over the tower, then does two overbanked curves before braking. Xcelerator is the prototype Intamin Rocket coaster - it's initial test run clocked in over 114mph (the first run on this video).

I seriously love Xcelerator (So far, I think Xcelerator is the nonDisney coaster I've ridden with the most LoTters - I lost track of how many times Chernabog and I rode it).

There's a plaque inside the motor room for Xcelerator that has slightly different numbers from the press release numbers.

My favorite thing about the Xcelerator hydraulic motor is that it generates 10,000 horsepower (ARR ARR ARR!!!)

Hmm... that is a very different description than the one I quoted. That and Kingda Ka is about 50% longer.

Weird, I saw completely different stats for Xcelerator. Guess I read something wrong. Post retracted.

ETA: Ah, I see what happened, the site I was reading mentioned Top Thrill Dragster in the next sentence, those were the stats I saw.

There's no helix on Kingda Ka or Xcelerator - on Kingda Ka, you do a full twist as you're going back down the phallic symbol.

This video has a good demonstration of the Kingda Ka shake.

Keep in mind, that shake is also more painful because Kingda Ka Ka has over the shoulder restraints.

I'm only afraid of heights when I'm someplace high.

This weekend I found myself being a bit ill at ease checking out the penthouse suites in some of the Long Beach towers. I was distressed at observing how easy it would be to just leap over the rail, and more distressed that that thought entered my mind. When I fly, I always request the window seat, but don't make an effort to get an emergency exit row.

I miss cleaning the windows of Sky Tower...