This year marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. A crowd gathered at Canvas Stadium in remembrance of the lives lost that day for the annual Sept. 11 stair climb. The Northern Colorado 9/11 Memorial and Stair Climb is hosted by Poudre Fire Authority and Colorado State University.

To equate the 110 stories of the World Trade Center, community members circled Canvas Stadium twice, climbing 2,071 steps. The event was free and did not require registration.

In addition to the Poudre Fire Authority, members from other Fort Collins and Northern Colorado emergency services participated in the climb. Of the first responders at 9/11, the Urban Search & Rescue team from Colorado Task Force 1 deployed 62 Coloradans, including seven PFA firefighters, to assist with search and recovery in the debris of the collapsed World Trade Center towers, according to the PFA website.

The event opened to the public in 2024, making this year the third year the community climb has occurred in Canvas Stadium.

“Just the firefighters have been doing it since 2004, and this is our third year as a community event here at Canvas (Stadium),” said Tyson Barela, divisional chief of training at PFA. “We just had a lot of community members that were impacted by the events or knew somebody in New York or were there in New York themselves.”

The climb began at 6:15 p.m., and Choice City Pipes and Drums — a musical group made up of current and former first responders from Colorado’s Front Range — performed while attendees checked in.

Dan Lowell, a member of the group, said the group’s appearance was significant because the Choice City Pipes and Drums “has been a pretty big piece of firefighting culture.”

The opening ceremony commenced with the Honor Guard performing their routine, the singing of the national anthem and a helicopter flyover.

Honor guard member Patrick Pittman said the event “is for the brothers and sisters that we lost.”

After the anthem, there was a speech given to recognize what the day and memorial meant, as well as an overview of how the climb would play out. A video then played to memorialize the 25th year since the 9/11 attacks. The video included footage recorded by citizens of New York City on the day, adding to the authenticity and meaning behind the event.

The Choice City Pipes and Drums group began to play once again, and the climb began. Participants were allowed to begin the climb at different times over the span of 1.5 hours, with the last of climbers starting at 7:45 p.m.

One of the members of the the Choice and City Pipes and Drums group, Bryan Hanson, said he had a personal tie to the attacks and the event.

“I was part of Colorado Task Force 1,” Hanson said. “We were sent to ground zero eight days after the towers fell.”

The event was led by members of the CSU Army ROTC, and hundreds of first responders and community members followed in the memory of those who completed the climb first.

Participants rang a bell to signify their completion of the challenge.

“I’m here, alive and breathing — thankful for that,” said Ezetrick Wilson, a firefighter climbing in full gear. “So it’s the least I can do to show some type of support.”

Several other participants were also in full gear to understand how difficult it was for the first responders who took action.

“I feel like it makes it something special, something honorable,” Wilson said. “It just makes me feel good to be a part of it.”

In addition to the climb, everyone was given a badge with the name of a first responder who died during the 9/11 attacks. This was done to both encourage people to climb with a specific legacy in mind and to later look up their individual to understand those who were directly affected by the attacks.