What's on your University "bucket list?" Securing a job, winning the Gusburger challenge and streaking the Lawn are only a few of the lofty goals some students at the University hope to accomplish before they graduate. For three third-year students, these goals were just not high enough. Before graduation day in May 2009, Engineering students "Michelangelo" and "Leonardo" and College student "Raphael," who requested these pseudonyms to preserve their anonymity, hope to have climbed every building at the University.
Starting as suite-mates during their first year at the University, the trio first scaled the water tower by Observatory Hill Dining Hall, a feat achieved by a number of other first-year students.
"It all started as innocent stargazing," Leonardo said. While the thrill of climbing ends for others after a trip up the water tower, the late-night climb for these three only increased their ambition not only to keep climbing, but to climb every building at the University.
For weekends after the first climb, the trio set out to climb a building "whenever the mood struck," Michelangelo said. All it took was for one of the climbers to ask the simple question: "You guys want to go climb some buildings?" and the other two were usually on board.
The next few climbs were accomplished with little other than a sense of direction and some common sense -- the climbers started out simply by going inside buildings and walking up the stairs.
"Sometimes it's really easy to climb buildings because the stairs go right up," Raphael said. When blocked by a door, they tried to unlock it, Michaelangelo said, adding "the first thing we do is always check if the door is unlocked, and surprisingly a lot of the times it is."
They soon realized ascending to the rooftop of every building at the University would not be as easy as climbing stairs and opening doors. It would take creativity, teamwork and even in some cases, a "ninja grapple hook," as Raphael called it.
"On buildings where the door isn't unlocked, there is always a creative way to get up there, but it takes a while to put the pieces together," Raphael said.
Clemons Library was the first building that forced the trio to put their creativity and grapple hook to work. Luckily, "Clemons is pretty short," Leonardo said, "so it was good practice with the grapple hook."
Launching the grapple hook over the top ledge of Clemons, they each climbed, one at a time, up the rope attached to the hook. While a seemingly straightforward ascent, mastering use of the grapple hook proved to be a challenge for the climbers.
"It's a pretty big grapple hook," Raphael said. "Batman makes it look so easy."
For Leonardo, the grapple hook became one his favorite parts of the climbing experience. "It's such a ninja-like thing," he said.
Once the climbers used the grapple hook to successfully climb to the roof of Clemons, however, they had no idea how to get down. "Our philosophy was we'll just get up there, and then we would have to figure out how to get down," Leonardo said.
Raphael noted this is what makes their adventures fun.
"It's like problem solving, and it's different every time," he said.
The trio eventually descended Clemons by using the grapple hook and rappelling down.
In addition to climbing Clemons with little prior planning or assurance of the climb's success, the trio approached scaling Alderman Library in a similar manner, deciding to lock themselves in the library overnight in order to give themselves ample time to figure out how to reach the roof.
Instead of carrying books and laptops, the trio entered Alderman, only minutes before closing, equipped with their grappling hook, 80 meters of rope, a pocket knife, a small flashlight, a harness and a carabineer. They stealthily made their way up to the elevator room while waiting for the library to shut down and their night of climbing to begin. Aside from scrambling through the stacks and running up and down the multiple staircases in the library looking for a door leading to the roof, the climbers took advantage of every opportunity they saw. Since they climbed Alderman when it was under construction, they even tried to turn on the "painting elevator," the lift that was used to paint the outside of the building, in order to hoist themselves up to the roof. They could not turn on the lift, however, and were forced to exhaust other possibilities.
"I think the best thing about us is that we are resourceful," Leonardo said.
The climbers said they will try anything and everything to get themselves to the roof of a building, and they realize sometimes that is what it takes.
To get to the roof of MR5, a medical research building at the University Medical Center, the trio did not start at ground level or on the first floor of a building but instead on a crane. After multiple failed attempts to get to the roof of MR5 from the ground up, Raphael recalled walking past the building one night and seeing a crane directly above the building. They climbed up the crane, walked out, tied a rope to the crane and rappelled down.
"It was about 70 feet to the roof," Leonardo said, "and that was pretty cool because we didn't even go from the bottom up, we came from the top down."
Aside from the thrill they get from climbing buildings and the satisfaction of being able to cross off one more building on their University map, the sights from the tops of buildings make the trio's climbs all the more rewarding.
"The view from Alderman is pretty cool because you can see people walking around and they can't see you," Raphael said.
Other buildings offer priceless views as well, they said. From the top of Gilmer Hall, the stairs look "like a cool M.C. Escher painting," Leonardo said.
Gilmer was an especially difficult climb because although there was an easy way up, it was physically demanding, Michelangelo said. While shimmying up the latticework of Gilmer was complicated enough, at the top of the latticework they had to reach around the top edge of the building and pull themselves up simply "hanging on by the tip of your fingers," Raphael said.
"Really, you're only restricted by your ideas and your physical strength," Michelangelo said. Yet not all of the three climbers work out on a regular basis, and only two of the three have minimal climbing experience.
"In fact, Michelango just sits around and eats pizza most of the time," Leonardo said.
With 40 buildings down, they have many to go and only one year left before graduation. Of those, John Paul Jones Arena and the Rotunda still remain unchecked on the map.
The trio do not know of anyone who has climbed the Rotunda, and they realize that climb will require much more prior planning then they are accustomed to -- their trusty grapple hook will not suffice for this climb.
Editor's Note: The Cavalier Daily does not condone any illegal activities undertaken by the students portrayed in this article.
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