I remember watching Fred Dibnah on the telly climbing up the outside of a high chimney stack. All he was using was the iron rungs set into the brickwork. About 100ft up he turns to the camera and says "Of course you have to be a bit careful with these cos they are over a hundred years old and a bit loose"
With that he pulls one out of the brickwork to illustrate his point.
Reading the thread reminded me of that documentary. Fred Dibnah was a legend, his workmanship and humility is infectious and the scene you describe where he climbs the ladder is just mind boggling.
Theres no H&S, no fuss or big show about what he is about to do - he arrives on site and just starts climbing with no nerves even near the top. He then gets to the top and begins work.
This is the first part but there are five others -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuSW9kOBADoAs for me, I inherited three nursing homes with my round and one was on a hill so the back was two storey but the front was three storey. I did it a couple of times and sold it!!!
The biggest I have seen anybody climb physically was when I was in Amsterdam - five storey on wooden ladder on a busy Saturday with shoppers and tourists walking past the ladder etc.
Madness!