I am not usually afraid of escalators. But lengthy and steep ones are another matter. I first freaked on an escalator at the Pompidou Center in Paris, the building that has its escalators encased in glass tubes on the exterior of the building. Where the escalator is high enough that you are even with the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, I started freaking out. By the time I was higher than the other rooftops, I was terrified. I wanted to sink to my knees and crawl up the last flight of escalators, but I made it. I then officially became afraid of some heights and specifically terrified of long open escalators.

This week I visited Washington D.C. for the first time. And I knew their subway system has a lot of escalators and that some of them were supposed to be steep. But when I got off the train at Dupont Circle and stood at the bottom of the station's escalator, I was surprised by how scary it looked. I rode up in complete terror and refused to look up or back at all or move any more than was absolutely necessary. That first ride took forever, which didn't help since I felt dizzy as it went on. I had visions of falling back and tumbling down the steps and imagined headlines about a tourist who died on the steep escalator before she could even go to the transportation conference that drew her to town.

I absolutely refused to ride that escalator down to the station. I found the elevators for my next couple of metro rides. I didn't ever want to have to ride that damn escalator again because it made me feel like I was going to die. At the very least, it felt like several minutes of screaming terror, and not in the good roller coaster kind of way.

Then I remembered that sf0 had the Fear Factor task.

...Could I do it? Was 25 points worth the terror? Or would it help me vaporize my fears?

I wanted to find out. So I rode up the Dupont Circle escalator again, this time with my camera set to video. (Apologies for the shakiness and weaving around. Even by my last ride, I had to focus more on riding the escalator than managing the camera, so the footage is a little woozy and chopped up.)

Emboldened by my second successful escalator trip up, I later rode down the Dupont escalator. Whoo hoo! That was actually not bad! I even walked down a few steps!

But I still had one more test during my trip: the Woodley Park station's escalator. The second deepest station in D.C.'s system (at 160 feet) was right by one of the hotels I had to visit for the conference I attended. Till then, I had just used the elevator to avoid the escalator (and, I might add, I was never the only able-bodied one seeking out the elevators). Could I brave that one?

I did! I didn't enjoy it, and I still am not at the point where I feel confident enough to walk up the escalator or turn around to look back. But next time I go back to D.C., I may be okay on their crazy escalators. Without luggage, anyway.

The video is a little over 7 minutes with some narration, a compilation of three of the escalator rides I took in the D.C. Metro (my second time up at Dupont, riding down at Dupont, and up Woodley Park). Some of it's dark, but so are the stations. And the video is long, just like the damn scary escalators.

Watch me on slow escalators in dim lighting on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIInVXKSMiA