Once upon a time, I watched a hybrid of the nonsense in
this video.
The tower was the same type, but I was up about 300', at the top of the powerhouse. On top of that was a structure that went up another 100' feet or so, then the steel tower sat on top of that.
The guy's ladder was only about 10' long, had hooks on its end, and hung at about a 45* angle from the wire that held the insulators. (Literally standing on a ladder hanging off a powered wire with nothing but 600' of air underneath him.)
He only had one other guy with him, that guy had the radio and he ran hand signals to the chopper.
He'd unhook one end of the string of insulators, a helicopter would swing in with a grappling hook, he'd slap it on the tied end of the insulator, cut it loose, swing all over, and wait for the helicopter to drop it off and bring him a new string of insulators to install
There were a million ways that guy could have died at any minute, and he was doing the job for about 30 bucks an hour plus benefits.
A buddy of mine changed the lightbulbs on masts like this one, but shorter. It was just a side job he did when he wasn't hustling. He got $700 to change bulbs on the top, $350 to change any set of 4 going up the sides, but that was a good 20 years ago.
All you guys could handle the height. 100' or 500' makes no difference. You get used to the height by lunchtime. It's the hanging over the edge that makes your butthole pucker a bit. After a bit you just get tired of being scared, because it wears you out, and you just get out there and do what it takes to feed the kids. It's no different than walking around the living room, except it smells bad, it's dirty, and it's really cold or really hot.
You really have to be in shape to climb. That's why you take the stairs all day every day. Once you can run up 14 flights of stairs, you can climb like a monkey.