An overnight memorial climb up 35 flights of Pinnacle Tower will mark 25 years since the September 11 attacks, with organizers opening registration to the public for an event that runs from 11:35 p.m. on September 10 through 8:46 a.m. on September 11 — the exact moment the first plane struck the World Trade Center's North Tower in 2001. The climb, held inside the Nashville Yards development in downtown Nashville, is being organized by the volunteer group Shepherd's Men and will remember nearly 3,000 people killed that day.
According to WZTV, participants will climb the tower's full 35 flights, a route that includes memorial displays, historic photographs, and personal stories honoring victims and first responders along the way. Before the climb begins, Shepherd's Men plans a 2.2-mile ruck march to Nashville Yards, and the group has organized a remembrance program afterward at Ascension Saint Thomas Landing. The event will also recognize military members and first responders whose lives and service were shaped in the years following the attacks, per the outlet's report.
Registration costs $91.10 and includes an event T-shirt, a commemorative challenge coin, and the opportunity to climb, WZTV reports. The last entry time is set for 8 a.m. on September 11, and no special training is required to participate, according to the event flyer cited by the station.
Why Pinnacle Tower's Height Matters
Pinnacle Tower stands 35 stories tall, and the climb's flight count is designed to match that height, making the route an architectural echo of the stairwell ascents emergency responders made inside the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, according to SA White Oil Company. That's a different structure than the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation's memorial climbs, which typically repeat stairwell loops so climbing waves can reach the full 110 stories representing the World Trade Center towers, with each of the 343 participants carrying the name and photograph of a fallen firefighter, per the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Nashville has hosted that traditional version since 2010 at the 31-story William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower, where 343 firefighters climb in full structural gear — a tribute to the FDNY firefighters killed on 9/11, and reportedly the first such national stair climb hosted outside Colorado, according to Pierce Manufacturing.
The September 11 attacks killed 2,977 civilians and responders in total, including 343 FDNY firefighters, 71 law enforcement officers, and 55 military personnel, per the same historical figures cited by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Pinnacle Tower itself is a 35-story, 1.5-million-square-foot office building within Nashville Yards, the roughly $1 billion, 19-acre development transforming a former downtown railyard, according to Clark Construction, which built the tower designed by Gresham Smith. The building is home to the highest occupiable office floor in Nashville.
Where the Money Goes
Every dollar raised through registration will support the SHARE Military Initiative at Shepherd Center, WZTV reports, a program that provides rehabilitation and care for veterans, active-duty service members, and first responders living with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. Established in 2008 at the Atlanta hospital, SHARE receives no direct federal funding, and treatment costs roughly $30,000 to $35,000 per participant — yet the program is provided entirely free to accepted clients through donor support, according to Shepherd's Men.
Shepherd's Men was co-founded in 2014 by Travis Ellis and Troy Campbell as a volunteer-led fundraising effort built specifically to support SHARE, and the organization has since raised more than $12.5 million in private donations for post-9/11 veterans and service members. The group's early awareness campaigns were partly inspired by federal research cited when it formed, which estimated an average of 22 U.S. veterans died by suicide each day — a figure that led participants in early runs to wear 22-pound flak jackets. Updated estimates now put that rate closer to 16 per day, but veteran suicide prevention remains a central goal behind the fundraising.
Shepherd Center, which opened in 1975, is a private, non-profit neurorehabilitation hospital that U.S. News & World Report ranks among the top rehabilitation facilities in the country, and it is one of the few nationwide with an on-site intensive care unit dedicated to complex brain and spinal cord injuries. In March 2021, the SHARE Military Initiative became a founding member of the Gary Sinise Foundation's Avalon Network, a national push to expand cognitive health care for veterans and first responders, according to Shepherd Center.
The overnight climb also arrives as Nashville Yards keeps expanding around it, with the 4,500-capacity Pinnacle music venue opening last year and the 50,000-square-foot Hooky entertainment complex planned to debut in the spring, according to CommercialSearch. It's a fast-growing backdrop for a night meant to slow down and remember — 25 years after the first plane struck at 8:46 a.m., an hour the climb itself is timed to end on.
