Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video or slide show of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.
Today’s 90-Second Escape: Over the Edge
It happened so fast and in retrospect it needed to because if you had a spare moment to stop and think, “Hey, I’m about to go over the edge of an 11-story office building,” you might be prone to second thoughts. One minute we were checking in, the next we were being fitted for harness and helmet, the next we were taking an elevator 11 stories up, the next we were on the roof of an office building where you could see a long way in several directions, including down.
And the next I was standing on the edge of the roof; looking between my legs at the ground more than 100 feet below. My sweaty palms gripped the aluminum tripod that helped anchor me to the building. (And anchor me good: Minutes before, I’d checked and double-checked the nylon webbing system that secured the tripod with the rooftop air-conditioning system atop the Smoketree Towers in North Raleigh.)
Over The Edge is the latest extreme fundraising craze employed by nonprofits to raise money. I first heard of OTE when it came to Raleigh last year for a Special Olympics fundraiser. Pay $1,000 yourself — or raise a minimum of $1,000 to send someone else (a boss, your principal) over the edge — and you could find yourself dangling by a climbing rope on the side of the 32-story Wells Fargo Tower in downtown Raleigh. Over The Edge was back in town Saturday on behalf of the Occoneechee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and I was given the opportunity to take the slow plunge by event sponsor and Friend of GGNC, Great Outdoor Provision Co.
So, what’s it like standing 11 stories up on the edge of an office tower rooftop? Come along with me and my camera and find out.
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