I'd scoped out the Drumpf Dauer about a dozen times before I seized opportunity.

It was probably about 7 p.m. on a weekday and the security fencing down to underground parking was ajar. There was a security guard in a yellow jacket sitting in the window fifteen meters away, and he looked up just as I passed through the gap, but no one came running after me and no alarms were sounded.

P1 was empty. None of the elevators would take me anywhere but the lobby, which is where I did not want to go. (There were notices posted for construction workers about who to text if you wanted to ride the elevator to the residential levels, but I did not take advantage of this service.) The two stairwells I tried also led me only to ground level.

I paused to study an emergency evacuation route map, and saw that there was another stairwell leading up to the mezzanine levels. I took that.

The third floor exit was locked, but the second floor was not.

I circled the floor, which was thickly carpeted like a hotel's conference center, but dirty and still under construction, then passed through a door where a guy was working on the flooring. He apologized for being in my way. I said, "No problem."

I walked past him -- to a dead end. I returned immediately, and entered the elevator beside him. I rode this up to the third floor.

I passed a couple of guys speaking Spanish over a vacuum. I said, "Hi," and entered a stairwell that took me all the way to the top.

The three penthouses are on floor 68, but each has an upper level (69) and a rooftop hot tub (70). From this level, also home to some mechanical stuff, you can climb a ladder to the flat central part of the roof. In fact, however, I was not quite 71 storeys up, since 13 and anything ending in a 4 were skipped in the numbering. Call it 64 storeys. The nearby Shangri-La looked to be about a floor higher.

(Posted on the balcony of one of the penthouses was a sign warning that going out there could expose you to falls of greater than ten feet (10'). So be sure to adhere to safety regulations.)

The view from the top was lovely, but obstructed by the surrounding lower roof, so that you could not see anything nearby or straight down. Which gave it a strange remote feeling, almost like being on a mountaintop.

It was raining lightly. The black trees of Stanley Park were indistinguishable from the black water of English Bay.

Coming back down, I was afraid that I would by now be locked inside, and would have to explain myself to security. But, going against my usual habit, I took a different stairwell down -- which let me out the front of the building on Georgia Street to freedom.