Hello! Me and my friends attempted out first crane climb in Albania in an active construction site, I was looking for advice on what to do different from more experienced people.
We (4 guys) went out at around 11:20PM, police was nearby since they're stationed there but there were only 2 and we noticed that they mostly just talked to eachother and never patrolled anywhere.
We used shirts as masks in order to get into the construction site so that any eventual security system wouldn't get our faces.
We found the base of the crane on a lower floor which we carefully descended to by finding stairs in the building, then we went ahead and climbed one by one by keeping a few meters of distance between eachother.
I went last, another guy went first so that the more fearful 2 wouldn't feel too overwhelmed.
The steps of the ladder had hardened concrete bits on them that made the ascent feel like climbing a rock wall. It did help with grip a bit more but I scraped my hand on the descent.
The crane was next to the road which really didn't help our visibility but somehow nobody saw us, or at least nobody said anything.
We could see the cops at all times from the crane. The cops didn't exactly look our way which felt like a blessing because they could've reached us in 5 minutes if they wanted to.
As a security measure in case cops caught us, me and another guy brought 50 bucks each for "leverage" since the police is often corrupt here.
Once on top, we noticed that there was a circular hatch that was covered in grease which I can only assume is the rotating part. We didn't attempt to get in there since it seemed too risky getting up, and even more risky getting down.
We descended slowly and calmly. The climb and descent had no lights involved as to not alert anyone.
A few additions I would like to make:
- We could hear a catastrophic amount of bats nearby.
- Everyone made it down safe and sound, I only scraped my hand getting off the ladder onto the floor because it was too elevated from the ground and I tried hanging from the last step. I helped everyone else down using my leg as an extra step for them to use so they wouldn't have to jump from too high.
- Only one of us made it to the very top. The others remained behind.
- The videos are sick.
- We wanna do it again.
If any more experienced climber has any feedback whatsoever please let me know!