Where We Won't Be

Wawa Stair Climb


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Published: Feb 20, 2008

Sun., Feb. 24, 9 a.m., $55 in advance, $75 day of climb, Mellon Bank Center, 1735 Market St., active.com

"Endurance climbing": Those two words alone are enough to strike fear into anyone's soul without even knowing what they refer to. But wait ... this isn't a Philly Rock Gym thing or a trip to the Poconos. This is rushing up flights of stairs — 54 stories worth in the Mellon Bank Center. Commence shrieking.

The 21st annual Wawa Stair Climb positions itself as an alternative to the mundane world of the charity 5K run. (Proceeds benefit the very worthy Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, but we'd rather send a check.) More accurately, it's like night and freaking day. This is 1,019 steps of a harsh, constant vertical ascent. For the extremely sadistic who want to see how many times they can scale the building in an hour, there's the aforementioned "endurance climb" option. Most alarming, and we can't even begin to guess how many fire codes this must be violating, most of the events are timed. Timed! We imagine the Mellon custodial staff will have their work cut out for them come Monday.