Background:
Unfortunately my love for skyscrapers began around the time the World Trade Center went down on September 11, 2001. What a horrible way to start this post? Right? Well this incident is relevant in a huge form. The following year, I had spent countless days and nights studying architecture on my own and fascinating myself with the tallest skyscrapers and towers in the world. These are days way before Dubai outdid the planet by many decades.
At the time and still to this day, the CN Tower in Toronto was and still is a free standing structure that fascinated me as well as other free standing structures of the world. Back then I didn’t know much about the neighbors to the north as I thought the tower was in Vancouver. And Vancouver was near New York. Excuse my poor geography knowledge back then. Many years had passed and my strong passion for skyscrapers had died down. When my urge for travel grew more and more, so did that old passion.
I could have explained my CN Tower experience in a short and brief paragraph. But unlike others, the history behind it is pretty emotional and in the end, inspirational. My trip to Toronto was primarily for the CN Tower, the tower I had dreamed of traveling to for 12 years. Add up my wanderlust, It turned into a full fledge backpacking trip. I could have easily fled to Japan or a European country but no, my focus was on my long desired passion of venturing up this magnificent tower.
What is the Edge Walk?
After my decision on traveling to Canada, I soon discovered a fairly new adventure the tower itself offered. That was a venture around the top and outside of the CN Tower which they do once every hour. This $200 ($US) adventure not only includes a 6 person max guided tour around the top, but unlimited access to the whole tower for 3 days, re-entry also. You also get a photo, “certificate” of completion, CD, and thumb drive of the files.
Photo from the CN Tower Edge Walk website
Preparation.
My walk was at 12pm that afternoon. I woke up at 7am in an fairly nervous yet highly anxious state. The Edge Walk has it’s own desk apart from the general entrance with clips of current and past tours. Ironically, they played the song Lady Gaga’s “On The Edge of Glory” numerous times while I pace nervously back and forth. A waiver is signed prior to going up, a last minute forced bathroom visit was made, and the six adventurers go into a room to fit into shoes and an orange jump suit made for the walk. Surprisingly, I was about 30 years of a difference in age in comparison to the older men and women I walked with, one may have been in her 40’s. After thorough and secured fitting of everything and storing personals in pockets, we all received claps from onlookers into an elevator build just for our level to the top where we made our walk.
Experience
At the top is a very small hall way that leads to our very last room with one other guide. She connected two heavy duty harnesses to our backs while eye balling the cameras outside where two other tours were. I aimed to be the first to walk out, and made that happen with joy. Finally, sliding doors opened up to the outside and the earth below opened up to us giving us the intense internal battle of gravity and depth perception in a matter of seconds. We were offered amazing views of downtown Toronto and Lake Ontario and beyond but with the benefits of outdoors and a look down at will with only a thick see through metal crate below us. We make several stops around the circle of the tower doing several activities: The lean back, the lean forward, the edge walk, and a photo taking session from the guide himself. All was ok up until I leaned back and let go. In words, the best way I could explain that feeling was just that I felt weightless and trustworthy of the straps holding me. The balance in my body shot all over the place in just a split second as I look straight into the sky at 1,800 ft above the ground.
Personally, I had no fear or phobia of any kind like some of the others did. In fact, I was comfortable and extremely happy I was there. I felt liberated despite the many years it took to be on top of the tower. I did continue on with my trip to Ottawa and to Montreal, but it was that very moment that not only made my trip but became a symbol in my life that I can conquer and achieve anything I want to with the right focus and hard work. So as I leaned forward with Toronto to my left, Lake Ontario to my right with arms wide open to the world in front of me.
