Buildering (also known as edificeering, urban climbing, structuring, or stegophily) describes the act of climbing on the outside of buildings and other artificial structures. The word “buildering” is a portmanteau, combining the word building with the climbing term bouldering. If done without ropes or protection far off the ground, buildering may be dangerous. It is often practiced outside legal bounds, and is thus mostly undertaken at night-time.
– Straight from the Wikipedia
Extra PGH Warning:
Climbing is dangerous. Please re-read the disclaimer on the home page of PGH. The activities described in this story are also for the most part illegal as well. This story is not meant to promote or in any way endorse these activities. Not only can you get serious hurt or dead from buildering, you can also wind up in jail as you will see….
There is a great little book that I can highly recommend reading. It’s called The Night Climbers of Cambridge. Written by Whipplesnaith. It was published first in 1937 and has been republished twice, most recently in 2007. I actually bought my copy in Cambridge, where the majority of the story takes place. It describes what must have been one of the first instances of somewhat ‘organised’ buildering. That of course is the curious activity of climbing buildings using mostly rock climbing type techniques. Buildering for the most part really has a subversive and anti-establishment undertone to it, so it’s not for everyone. What I will be covering is buildering of a more subtle and sublime nature; I will not be discussing the antics of those who scale major buildings like skyscrapers and the like.
Probably my first attempts at buildering were when I was in the army. For a while I was stationed at a base that had an old brick hospital building. The walls had some simple architectural features that offered a continuous line of footholds and handholds around the entire perimeter of the building. I had read that Reinhold Messner had done such training, so if it was good enough for him then it was certainly good enough for me. Not very exciting stuff just endless traversing, which of course received a lot of confused stares and no small amount of heckling. At least I got no harassment from the authorities, and it was a great workout.
A number of years later I found myself in college, learning things. This place although it had mostly modern and rather uninteresting architecture had great features for buildering on. You had to be a bit more careful here because there were a lot more people around and I’m sure the administration took a dim view of such hijinks. There was a small group of us that did a fair bit of ‘climbing’ on campus; mostly between classes and over lunch. We never saw or heard of anyone else doing this stuff, so we claimed first ascents on everything we did. It’s too bad at the time that we didn’t document any of it; I guess we were just too busy having fun, and dodging the man. But in retrospect we could have published a neat little guidebook to the various problems. Someday I will get back there and see what I can remember. There is a good chance that construction and expansion may have eradicated some of our stuff. I recall one problem in particular that had a stout lie-back ending with a tricky highball roof crux where you wouldn’t want to blow the move or you would be in for trouble. It took a while to work the moves on that one out and longer to work up the nerve to go for it.
It got to be a great game and obvious distraction from the mundane world of math and engineering. We were always on the lookout for new and interesting opportunities. Many of which tested actual climbing skills such as hand and foot jams, lie-backs mantles, heel hooks, chimneys, off-widths, and face climbing to name a few.
I know some guys who did however end up on the wrong side of the law buildering. Obviously the names and details that follow will be creative but the general events depicted actually happened.
There was this one young fella I used to climb with a bit outdoors. He was pretty good actually; and really strong as well. One arm pull-up strong. One night after midnight (nothing good happens after midnight) he and his buddies were walking home from the pub. ‘Sam’ spies this beautiful fist crack between two buildings. It was a perfect splitter just waiting to be climbed. He did what any self-respecting builderer would do… he sunk in his mitts and his feet and started torqueing his way up. Unfortunately for Sam three things sort of conspired against him, other than maybe bad judgement in the first place. First of all, one of these two buildings that formed this ‘had to be climbed’ crack was a bank. Second, which he would not have known about, was that there was actually an attempted robbery on the very same establishment earlier in the day. And thirdly, which was the real kicker for sad Sam, was that there was a police cruiser patrolling the neighbourhood at the exact time he was halfway to the roof. Poor Sam. And poor Sam’s mom who had to come down to the station and bail him out.
The other story is even funnier; at least from my perspective. This cat was a pretty decent climber and kind of well-known in the community. The story as I heard it told to me was that one day he was coming home from some errand or another when he realized that he had somehow lost or misplaced his apartment keys. He had a hunch however that his balcony door was unlocked. It was on the third floor. It should be a simple matter of standing on the railing of the balcony on the first floor, reaching up to grab the second floor balcony, and by mantling and heel hooking get up to the second floor balcony. Repeat the process once more and he would be there. This worked really well, and quick as wink he was on his balcony. And you are now probably thinking that he found his door to be locked where he would indeed be in a bit of a pickle. But no, his door was open just as he suspected, and into his humble abode he went. You might also think that the story ends happily here but it does not.
You see, all the while he was making his skillful ascent some little old lady from an apartment across the street was observing him. Why? Because that’s often what little old ladies do. Convinced that she was seeing a classic second story man (in this case third) in action she called the fuzz. Some amount of time later ‘Bob’ hears a loud knock on his front door. He answers it to find two uniformed police officers. They wanted to know who he was and what he was doing. Not satisfied that he was telling the truth that it was his apartment, and how he had lost his keys, and the whole climbing caper, they wanted to come in and have a look around. This is when Bob refused their request to do so. The more that they insisted they needed to check things out, the more reluctant Bob became, which in turn of course fueled the officers suspicion even more. As you can imagine the police won out in the discussion of whether they would come in or not. Unluckily for Bob, the reason he was hesitant to let them in was that he had a minor but lush and lucrative growing operation going on in his apartment.
Busted! I think he ended up okay though, due to warrants and procedures, and probable cause and all of that legal stuff not being followed correctly.
Don’t go to bed with no price on your head
Don’t do it
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time
Keep your eye on the sparrow
When the going gets narrowDon’t roll the dice if you can’t pay the price
Don’t do it
Don’t run your feet down a dead-end street
Keep your eye on the sparrow
When the going gets narrow
Don’t do me dirt or you’re gonna get hurt
Don’t do it
Don’t run away till you hear what I say
Keep your eye on the sparrow
When the going gets narrow
Ain’t gonna fight with no thief in the night
Won’t do it
I’m gonna go where the cold wind don’t blow
Keep your eye on the sparrow
When the going gets narrow
– Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow (Baretta’s Theme)