The first few dozen steps go quickly.
Even inside the snug, windowless Duke Chapel tower stairwell, it’s easy to charge upward. I’m a runner. I work out. It’s just stairs.
But then they keep coming. There are 239 steep stairs, climbing the 210-foot tower in a tight spiral. There are fake-outs along the way: doors, such as the one to the carillon, reminding me that I’m not there yet. Then the handrail stops, but the vertical stairway continues. And continues.
What am I even doing?
But then I’m in the sun, with West Campus spread out below me. To my left (and far below), the Divinity School and Perkins Library. Beyond them, engineering and then medical buildings. I look forward, past a bustling Abele Quad, to downtown Durham. I look south and there’s Chapel Hill. In the southwestern distance, if you know where to look, are the ancient Cane Creek Mountains. Much closer, green spotlights on campus rooftops prepare to illuminate the chapel after nightfall for Earth Day.
It's April 22 – the next-to-last day of classes – and soon the first group of seniors will join us. This is the Chapel Climb, a tradition for those about to graduate. For a few minutes, though, it’s just me and another staff volunteer. We get our selfies out of the way, of course, but mainly we take in the view.
It’s not every day you climb Duke Chapel.
The seniors know it. It’s obvious as they, too, emerge into the light and gaze out over the campus they have spent four years navigating. They identify favorite class buildings or discuss the campus’s architectural phases. Some note flat rooftops and wonder to each other why these didn’t feature solar panels. “There’s East Campus!” one exclaims, pointing to the dome of Baldwin Auditorium, which rises from the tree canopy in the near distance.
“It’s so crazy to see Duke in its entirety,” says Rani Bleznak, a public policy major who climbed with a group of friends. “It’s a pretty surreal feeling to be able to see the place you’ve called home for four years from a totally new perspective and take it all in as we’re about to leave here.”
After graduation, Bleznak and best friend Lauren Steele, a political science major, are moving to New York City, where they have jobs and an apartment lined up. During their climb, though, Bleznak and Steele can spot Edens Quad, where the two met and made some of their favorite Duke memories. Steele looks south, out over Duke Forest and the Al Buehler Trail, before turning her eyes east to find the Chesterfield Building downtown.
“Our apartment building is right across from the Chesterfield,” Steele says. “That’s always been a landmark for us.”
By now it’s midday, overcast and quite pleasant at the top of the Chapel. Bleznak, Steele and their group look around, snap some shots, and turn to descend.
“It’s a pretty quick experience, but that’s kind of what makes it special – just savoring that quick moment,” Bleznak says. She’s talking about the Chapel Climb, of course, but she could just as easily be talking about her four years at Duke coming to a close.
And then, not long after, my own time at the Chapel’s top is over.
I take one last look. And then another last look. And then I pretend to make sure I haven’t left anything, but really I’m taking my third and final last look. And then I’m back in the stairwell, descending to ground level.
I take my time climbing down.
