Wit Rappel: Respiratory Health holds Skyline plunge rappel fundraiser down 27 stories at Wit Htel

Update: Here's video of my rappel down The Wit. I had a camera on my helmet, with a view of what was happening behind me. This is unedited, unfortunately, and captures some of the preparations on the roof, so start watching at approximately 5:00 for the actual descent down the side of the building. And please excuse my ponytail.

Until this weekend, the crowning achievement on my extreme sports resume was bungee jumping - an experience I don't remember fondly. The bungee cord smacked me across the face on my first bounce, leaving me with a huge red scrape to remind me how unpleasant and insane it was to hurl myself from great heights with only a rubber band around my ankles to keep me from slamming into the ground.

That might have been the end of my thrill seeking. But for some reason, when the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago invited members of the media to rappel down the 27-story Wit hotel as part of its Skyline Plunge fundraiser, I immediately raised my hand.

It's hard to turn down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, especially one that delivers such street cred.

I was among a handful of reporters who rappelled 27 stories from the roof of the downtown Wit hotel Saturday afternoon, a day before some 80 Chicagoans did the same to raise money for lung health.

If that sounds terrifying, let me be the first to tell you: It is.

The terror crept in slowly, but began the moment I stepped into my harness. Though the people managing the rappel were consummate professionals - industrial rope experts with Over the Edge, a company that specializes in running rappels down city buildings for non-profits - I couldn't help but worry something wasn't properly latched. I must have asked the poor guys seven times to check my harness to make sure it was tight enough.

The weather added to my anxiety. Though it had stopped raining earlier Saturday, it was cold and blustery. I, brilliantly, wore cropped running pants, and as I shivered on the roof of the Wit during a training demonstration, one of the Over the Edge staffers told me I needed to put on more clothes - which I didn't have. So he lent me his wind pants. Off came the harness, then back on again hastily. I asked them to check it 19 more times.

It wasn't until I stood at the edge of the rooftop that the gravity of the situation set in. The overwhelming sounds of the city - the rumble of the El train, the car horns, the whipping wind - made me feel very small and exposed. I tried to concentrate as the instructor told me what to do in case of a jam, but his words hit my ears like Charlie Brown's teacher's: "whaa-whaa-whaa."

And then he told me to do the unthinkable: Step up backwards onto the roof's ledge, squat, and lean back. This is the critical and scariest part of the experience. It's all trust at that point, because you don't feel the rope's or the harness' resistance. And did I mention you're standing backwards on a roof ledge 27 stories high? All I recall from that moment is staring into the instructor's eyes as I leaned back until my body was parallel to the ground almost 400 feet below, my arm shaking as it held the taut rope. I thought the instructor was kidding when he told me to "wait there a moment" while he ran off to grab me a radio so we could communicate in case of emergency. He wasn't kidding.

I was over the edge. But it wasn't about to get any easier.

Rappelling involves three basic motions. Squeezing the rappel device with your left hand to lower yourself, allowing the rope to pass through our right hand, and walking backwards down the building. For some reason, I just couldn't get the walking part down. It may have been the wind, but I kept swinging away from the building, so I was doing a kind of air bicycle for much of the time. Soon I discovered I could hop down the building, and for a few minutes I was in a groove.

The lovely thing about doing this at the Wit was that the building is all windows, so I could see the city behind me reflected in the glass. (I could also see inside hotel rooms, and got a friendly wave from some housekeepers, but unfortunately didn't peep in on anything else noteworthy.)

Other people who had done similar rappels for charity fundraisers told me before I went that the best part is looking around while suspended in mid-air to see the buzz of city life around you. So I glanced around to take it in.

Big mistake. I didn't realize quite how scared of heights I was until I saw cars like ants below, and the world seemed to buckle around me. My harness started to rotate and I could feel myself swinging to the side, so I grabbed onto the building with my hands to stay facing forward. Starting to panic, my mission became to get down as quickly as possible. Screw walking or hopping; I started to zip down like the S.W.A.T. teams in the movies.

One thing they don't warn you about in training is how exhausting it is on your muscles to rappel. It was like holding a constant sit-up for 15 minutes, and my hand started to cramp as I squeezed the rappel device to zip me down. About half-way down, ambulance sirens started blaring from below. I wondered for a moment if they were for me.

"How was it?" someone shouted up to me as I finally neared the ground.

"It. Was. Horrible," I replied.

Many of the other people who rappelled Saturday and Sunday said they were thrilled with their experience, and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Not me. I was thrilled for it to be over, and thrilled that I didn't die.

Hats off to everyone who rappelled, especially those committed to the very worthy cause of lung health research and advocacy - and if you missed it this year, the Respiratory Health Association hopes to make this an annual fundraiser, organization president Joel Africk told me.

But this wannabe thrill seeker may have to hang up the bungee cord and the rappelling ropes for a while. Though I'm not ruling out a parachute.