Mayukh Saha
Mayukh Saha
February 3, 2023 Â·  4 min read

Free Climber Realises Crane Is Covered In Grease After Scaling 1,200ft Above Dubai

Free climbing is one of those adventure sports that has been growing in popularity over the last decade. While it sure looks exciting, the risk-to-reward ratio is quite disproportional. Recently, a free climber called Adam Lockwood, who also goes by the YouTube name Nuisance, managed to scale a crane that was set up at a height of 1280 feet in Dubai. Later, he realized that the crane was completely covered in grease- meaning there was a major risk to his life at any point during the climb. Nevertheless, the climber did complete the climb, and later shared this heart-stopping footage in July 2022- which is definitely not for those of the faint of heart. 

The free climbing clip on YouTube had been deceptively titled ‘Hanging off the tallest crane in Dubai after getting caught’, where Nuisance revealed that the climb had been stopped initially a couple of times by the workers inside the building. At the end of it though, he managed to sneak out and continue on the climb. “I didn’t want to walk up 77 floors in the 45 degree heat. I didn’t think anyone would be in the elevator. He starts shouting at me in Arabic. I used Google Translate to explain how I was working on site and forgot something (obviously not true but it’s always worth a try) so he sent me down the stairs, on my own.”

Free climber Nuisance hanging onto the greased crane.
Image Credits: Animal News Agency

Free climbing expert has a close call while climbing a 1200-foot crane in Dubai

The free climber continued, “He showed me the stairs, watched me walk down a floor and left. I changed to the opposite stairwell, and carried on going up, my blag worked.” As it turns out, this wasn’t the only worker who had stopped him. In fact, this free climbing expert had to take a detour and change stairwells around eight times over the course of two hours. After that, Lockwood mentioned, “When I reached the top I realized I had only brought one GoPro battery, and it was on 20%, meaning I could only film for a few minutes.” Lockwood had managed to film a few minutes, which is definitely quite harrowing. In one of the clips. The free climber was dangling from the structure on one hand. After that, he looped his legs through the bar and hung completely upside down. 

Later, Lockwood pointed towards the camera which was held in his mucky hands. Initially, he had considered the dirt to be nothing more than desert dust. But later he realize that the bars of the crane had been covered in grease. Luckily, the realization came to him while he was safely on the ground- and didn’t manage to freeze him while he was defying death 1200 feet in the air.

He then went on to admit that he would never repeat such a terrifying climb ever again in his life. “Wow, I’m not doing that again. On my life, I’m not doing that again.” Speaking about his stunt, the free climber said, “When I first looked at the footage, I was thinking to myself, this is it, this is the most incredible thing I’ve done.”

Lockwood Still Managed To Climb The Greased-Up Crane

The fact that free climbing is extremely dangerous wasn’t lost on Lockwood. He mentioned, “The fact I hung off the tallest crane in Dubai on the doorstep of the world’s tallest building is something special and I feel like it was definitely worth the risk and legal consequences if I was caught. I put a hard hat on to blend in whilst walking past 100 workers and slipped out the back gate without being noticed. Climbing up the jib, I quickly realized the whole crane was covered in grease that I couldn’t even see, at first I thought it was dust from the desert but checking my hands it was grease, feet and hands slipping on everything I touched. I had four close calls whilst climbing up and coming down I had a few close calls too.”

The view from the top of the crane
Image Credits: Animal News Agency

Despite the apparent danger that free climbing brings with itself, Lockwood is undeterred. “Hanging off things doesn’t feel like much, it feels surreal to be suspended that high with no safety, but like all my other hangs, my brain is blank, my heartbeat doesn’t go up, and it feels almost peaceful. It’s something I know I can do and that 99 per cent of the world can’t and never will do, so I feel obliged to use my ability and enjoy doing it in the process.

I love seeing things from height, I love having my body suspended hundreds of meters in the sky, I love the challenges of infiltrating secure places to achieve these goals and it’s something that has kept me alive since I started, and I don’t think I can give it up. I slept for the whole day when I got back to my accommodation because I was so tired.”

Sources

  1. Free climber didn’t realise crane had been covered in grease before scaling 1,200ft above Dubai.” LAD Bible. Claire Reid. January 24, 2023.