Valhalla

I've been thinking a lot about the parallels of my step climbing obsession and the pilgrimages of world religions to shrines and holy sites around the world. It's a human need I believe to suffer for one's beliefs. To test the will, the heart, and faith by subjecting one's self to a challenge. It has certainly made me stronger not only physically but mentally and spiritually as well. I have grown a great deal of reverence for Pittsburgh's steps. After all, the whole reason they exist was to transport factory workers to and from work. The poorest of Pittsburgh would work 12 hour shifts then hike a sheer 400 foot cliff through thick smoke to get home, to see the end result of his suffering in the clear air above the factory shrouded in its own filth. To see his family safe and taken care of. There is no Valhalla like home.