There are different kinds of elevations / heights to conquer. Some people can find climbing mountains easier that doing stair climbs in enclosed buildings or walking on tree tops hard or some may find every possible thing associated with elevation equally difficult or easy.
Growing up in Bombay, our home was on 4th floor and no lift, so there was no option other than climbing stairs. First reaction after learning about this kind of event was why it is a competitive type event ? Later to discover, for many people its a kind of sport over time to try and beat their earlier record or someone else's record and they really scale these in 4 /5 minutes its amazing. Not a bad thing just for fun and most of the times these events are meant for fundraising for something.
In USA those walkways are most of the time emergency exits and meant for something special hence they are open only during those cases or for some organized event of stair climbing
Those tall buildings with 60 / 70 floors or more, some thousand plus stairs and everyone lines up to tackle the challenge to climb them. Not easy for those with fear of heights, actually going inside enclosed buildings u can never see anything outside but still people who come with intention to conquer their fears freeze. Have seen that happening many times at many places. Its nice thing to raise funds for good cause if one likes doing it.
After climbing / scaling these kind of enclosed stair climbing events did recently Space needle climb ( later on did some other tower climbs too), its open, means one can see the views around as u climb high up, feel the wind, rain all weather conditions and also the elevators passing by you. Nice experience and happy could scale in not so bad time also a fundraising event for good cause.
Another higher climbing thing is Canopy walks, they come under adventure sport category, where you just walk on tree tops on rope bridges swinging around. On same lines zip lines, just crossing from one tree to another hanging on some rope crossing over rivers, valleys and what not. Fun things to explore.
