Jasey Michelle's 365/366 Photo a Day Blog

Yesterday ranks pretty high on the coolness scale. You're gazing Southeast, overlooking downtown Des Moines from the top (41st floor) of 801 Grand! What's that you say? They don't allow any cameras in that building? Top floor access requires exclusive membership in the Embasy Club? Well, this was all about fulfilling a dream (of at least a few months, anyway ;) ) and being able to recognize the opportunity to make it happen.

Yesterday was the 801 Grand Power Climb, a fundraiser for the American Lung association. Almost 850 runners, grandmas, police officers and firemen signed up and raised money to allow them to climb the 1000 steps to the top of the tallest building in Iowa. When I first heard about the event a couple months ago, my first thought was to attempt the climb, but quickly realized it was unlikely they'd let me carry my camera equipment along with me. So instead, I contacted the event coordinator and Picture Iowa became the "official" photographer for the event!

Set the alarm for 4:30am, (but ended up just staying up all night anyway) to get there by 5:30 this morning. I even let Colin come along for the ride. ;) The climbers started at 7am, and we were setup in the stairwell on the 39th floor to capture all the crazy adrenalin rushed (or sluggish, about to die) climbers as they closed in on the finish line. I had two cameras going almost constantly (for nearly 5 hours), and Colin one, half a flight up. Between the two of us, we shot 4000 frames. Holy editing nightmare. ;)

All the event photos should be up at pictureiowa.com by mid-week.