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sierraclub.org - sierra magazine - march/april 2013 - corporate climbers

Corporate Climbers

Trading granite walls for giant turbines, mountaineers cash in on their rope skills to keep America's wind farms humming

Text and photography by Andy Isaacson

Rope Partner was founded by Chris Bley, a recreational rock climber from Northern California. Bley told me he became fascinated with wind turbines as a child during family trips to the Sierra Nevada. On a climbing trip to Joshua Tree National Park in 1998, he befriended a couple of German climbers who did rope-access work for Europe's wind industry, which was at least five years ahead of ours. The next year, on a visit to Germany, Bley was shocked by the size of the modern turbines. "I hadn't ever seen turbines that large," he said. "It was pretty obvious they were going to be coming to the States."

With his German climbing buddies, Bley established Rope Partner in 2001, just as wind farm projects here began installing the taller, megawatt turbines. Immediately, the company was poised to fill a growing niche. Several firms that service the offshore oil industry eventually crossed over into wind, but today Rope Partner is the only company to specialize in wind turbines.

There are currently around 4,000 jobs nationally in wind turbine operations and maintenance—double the number from five years ago, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Crayton noted that although turbine maintenance has long attracted climbers, the recent economic downturn has driven others to the work. "It's one of those areas where there happens to be a lot of opportunity," he said.

Like Crayton, many who apply for such work believe in the ecological promise of wind power. Crayton grew up skiing, climbing, and rafting in the Colorado Rockies. He said he became an environmentalist mainly because of his love of outdoor recreation; until he got a job in the wind power industry, he was never much interested in conservation's political side. These days, his environmentalism has more layers.

"It feels great to be a part of something new that hopefully will improve our footprint on the earth," Crayton said. "Have I become more environmental, more political? Yes. Is it because a stroke of a government pen or a Senate vote can make a huge difference in the industry I'm in? Yes."

As they surveyed the blade in the sky above me, I could hear Crayton and Gaunt occasionally break into laughter. The temperature was a pleasant 65 degrees Fahrenheit: T-shirt weather. A herd of cattle grazed quietly around the base of a nearby turbine.

At home on the ropes, the two climbers reminded me of ski patrollers, whose intense and sometimes tedious work is balanced by the eventual reward of fresh-powder turns. Their actual work on the turbine, however, offers little in the way of adventure. Gaunt said that most field technicians have methods for maintaining climbing strength during the weeks they're on the job. "The last thing you want is to be a climber with this awesome job that allows you time off, and then you show up on a climbing trip out of shape," he said. Gaunt packs a pull-up bar and a fingerboard when he travels for work. Once, to satisfy his hankering during a gig in Abilene, Texas, he resorted to practicing after work on a backyard climbing wall belonging to a local kid. Many Rope Partner field techs live together, and they often organize climbing excursions—Thailand, Oaxaca—with their colleagues during the stormy off-season.

When the inspection was finished, Crayton made his way down to the tip of the blade, signaled to Gaunt, and pushed off. Cradled in his harness, he arced through the air, still tethered to the top of the tower but now free of the machine. He looked around, let out a loud "Whew!" and beamed like a child on a swing. Then he slowly lowered himself back to earth.