Suboptimal result but without serious injury

The Inner Drive Technology World HQ weather station actually comprises four Netatmo components: an indoor base station, and outdoor station, a rain gauge, and an anemometer. The outdoor station lives in a white birdhouse in a shaded area on the east side of my house, the rain gauge is in a vertically-unobstructed corner of my west-side deck, and the indoor station is between the two so they're both comfortably within range. At the moment, the anemometer is on the floor of the west deck and doesn't get a lot of wind.

I have been waiting for a friend to stop by and hold a ladder so I could attach the anemometer to my standpipe on the roof. The roof comes down to about 2 m above a section of my upstairs walkway, so getting on the roof looked like it wouldn't be an issue.

Today, the friend stopped by, held the ladder while Cassie supervised, and watched as I easily got onto the roof. I quickly scampered on all fours up to the crest of the roof and saw that the zip ties I had in my backpack would be perfectly adequate for fixing the anemometer mount to the standpipe.

As I shifted my weight to stand up, I learned that my shoes did not provide nearly as much friction against the roof shingles as I had hoped—or, for that matter, as I needed.

Don't worry, I made it back to the ladder, but by sliding slowly down the roof the way I came up. I now have minor abrasions on both forearms, my right thigh, and the part of my belly that my shirt helpfully slid up to present to the asphalt-and-gravel tiles.

So if anyone in Chicago knows a handyman with appropriate footware, please send him my way. For now, WHQ will continue report really light and variable winds.

Glad you weren't hurt. Why didn't you ask me before trying to climb on a roof? If the pitch is greater than 15 degrees, it's unsafe to walk on shingles without (usually) nailing a board down for bracing. Not optimal, but not as likely to lead to "oh shit!" (splat). Shingles don't have enough roughness to provide significant friction. But y'know, don't ask a guy who built a barn from scratch 20 years ago or anything...

Well, I figured (a) I've walked on roofs before, though they had much less pitch to them; (b) I'm in pretty good shape; (c) roofers were just up there last month and seemed to have no trouble; and (d) you live 1200 km away. And I was hurt, just not seriously (no blood but lots of red, angry skin). I have never claimed to be an expert in anything other than software development.