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Climbing, Beer and Photography
Rappelling off the Ninkasi grain silo
The setup
Earlier in the week I showed up at Ninkasi to ask them the ridiculous question of if they'd let me rappel off of their grain silo for an article photo. Originally the tight grasp of OSHA (Oregon Safety and Health Administration) forced the owners Jamie and Nikos to say no. I could tell they didn't want some schmuck prancing around on their grain silo, so I told them my rescue qualifications and shortly thereafter we shook hands and made plans for Friday.
One screw up and OSHA would be all over Ninkasi and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous about being the guy responsible for Eugene's favorite brewery being shut down.
I had to enlist the best of my rock climbing buddies to help me out, and amazingly enough, Matt Frick jumped on the chance to rappel off of the grain silo. While Matt fixed the rappel anchor, I tried to figure out what the hell I was doing with a light kit I had minimal experience with. Mike, our photo editor, threw out a bunch of setup options for me minutes before the shoot that left me lost. My trial and error mentality was put to the test and eventually all worked out, and Frick and I toasted to our success.