John also shot the other photos and inspected the condition of the paint and guy saddle areas while he was there. The tower in the top photo is actually channel 19's tower, that's the same as 31's, but from the angle of the top of 31's tower.
I climbed towers when I was in college and made some money replacing bulbs in WJRD radio's towers that came in handy for a college student. I was scared the first time and had to cling at the top a while until the strength came back to my arms. After that, I had no problems, and always climbed my 50-60 foot ham towers to do antenna work. I also climbed the 31 new 1,000 foot tower in the early 80's, but only to about the 150 foot level, and that was plenty high enough for me. I took a few pictures and came back down. Climbing a full 1,000 feet requires very good conditioning, lack of fear of heights, and knowing how to pace yourself not to fully deplete your muscles, so you still have something left when it's time to lower yourself back down again. As you can see, the view from the TOP is really "breath-taking" in every sense of the word.
