A climb into less thick air.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

MAYBE IT'S because ever since I saw that huge crane erected at the Autzen Stadium construction site, I harbored a haunting vision of going to the top of it.

Maybe it's because, deep inside, I'm still jealous of Everest-conquering Jon (`Into Thin Air') Krakauer, a Corvallis High classmate of mine who ran off with my ex-girlfriend in the winter of 1972.

Maybe it's because, in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, "you must do the thing you cannot do."

Whatever, on Friday, as ominous clouds shrouded the sacred shrine of Autzen, I attempted to become the first human being to climb the 180-foot hammerhead tower crane and play the Oregon fight song on a set of plastic duck lips.

The truth is, I'm not fond of heights, but I've learned that if I'm in a gondola or an elevator car I can manage.

I sought permission for the Autzen adventure months ago. When Wildish Construction's John Norton, the project administrator, gave me the thumbs up, I was thrilled. I was less thrilled when I discovered that there's no elevator to the operator's cab up top. There is, instead, a steel-runged ladder. And no hook-on safety device.

Gulp.

But something kept telling me to do it - and friends encouraged me.

"Hey, I hear there's a chance of lightning later in the week," one said. "Wouldn't that be a rush?"

I explained to another friend that because the tower was divided into nine sections, each with a grated landing, the farthest I could probably fall - unless going over the edge - would be 20 feet. "But if you bounced and rolled you could fall farther, right?" he said.

Seeking further assurance, I spoke with Ray McArthur, the "tower hand" who placed much of the structural steel beams for the new grandstands. "Eat light," he said. "You can get a little queasy up there."

He then proceeded to tell me what it was like being up top for the November windstorm that snapped some Willamette Valley trees as if they were Popsicle sticks.

"Now that was a ride," he said. "The ol' cab was really buckin' and snortin' that day. But the good thing was that my rigging was going with the wind, like a weather vane. If I'd of had it crossways to the wind, well, that'd be different."

Before he started climbing down that day, McArthur glanced at the wind gauge in his cab: It said 67 mph.

Double gulp.

THE HAMMERHEAD tower crane at Autzen Stadium is 180 feet high "at the hook" - construction talk for the top, where the giant hook comes down from that horizontal arm and trucks stuff around. The elevation at the base of the tower is 448.1 feet above sea level. Exactly.

What this means, I realized the night before the climb, was that if I made it to the top I would be at 628.1 feet, only 28,226.9 feet lower than Krakauer and his trifling Mount Everest conquest. (So it's not like he has a lock on thin air, OK.)

By the morning of the climb, though, I was wondering if most of that thin air was between my ears. In all honesty I worried about freezing up. Vomiting. Falling.

I stuffed a backpack with gear: water bottle, camera, cell phone (so I could pre-dial 91 and punch the final `1' on my way down) and, most importantly, the plastic duck lips.

For sentimental value, I also packed a family photo and pictures from my 2001 Civil War tailgate party, to honor those Duck fans who would be with me in spirit as I climbed.

I arrived at the site and met my hard-hatted Sherpa, Matt Huffman. I wanted to believe that he was a trained crane guide, certified by the National Association for the Ascension of Crazed Columnists. I wanted to believe that he had been up and down 1,200 times and had taken hundreds of neophytes like me safely to the top.

"Nope, only been up once myself," he said. "But it's a hoot."

The good news was that Huffman, 27, was built like those gigantic construction workers who trudge over the oil pipes in that Chevy pickup commercial; the bad news was that I was built like a middle-aged man whose doctor had told him to lay off the Big Macs.

"It sways pretty good up there when he picks up a load," said Huffman. "When it gets a little windy it's like a teeter-totter."

Yippee, I said to myself, mentally eating my fist.

I looked up at the yellow tower above me. The wind was light, a weak sun just starting to burn through thick overcast.

"Ready?" said Huffman with an air of confidence.

"Re - re - ready," I said with an air of resignation.

I put my gloved hand on a rung and stepped up. It was 12:22 p.m. Show time.

Tuesday: The climb.