It's a tough week. There are pressing deadlines. There are gray skies, freezing rain, slushy snow. I need an escape, so decide to do something I haven't done since I left Palm Springs three months earlier.

I decide to get high.

It works. I may not be on top of the world, but I'm nearly 400 feet above the City of Steel's skyline. I've taken the Duquesne Incline up to Mount Washington. No wonder it's called Grandview Avenue.

The adventure begins the moment I step into the funicular, a rectangular meld of elevator and train car. Like any grand dame of a certain age (131 in May), she's showing her age: the door doesn't close properly, the original oil lamp (now electrified) is "bandaged" with white tape, the amber and clear window panes are in need of a cleaning, there are cobwebs here and there. Yet the hand-carved cherry paneled car reeks of quiet elegance, of coal mining memories, of a time so long ago when $47,000 was enough to build what became Pittsburgh's first incline, designed and built by noted engineer Samuel Diescher.

Each car holds 18 adults, but today, it's just me and the melodic click-clack of the upward chug. For nearly three minutes, I watch the city fade into panoramic view as the funicular makes its 6 mph ascent.

When I get to the Upper Station, I find myself in what the incline personnel call "a working museum." I call it a time capsule. Everywhere I look are photos documenting the history of the incline and the city. One photo from yesteryear shows Pittsburgh at noon -- the steel mills' smoke so thick it might as well have been taken at midnight. There are postcards of similar inclines. Hong Kong! Been there! Paris! Done that! Palm Springs! Well, of course.

Out comes Tom Reinheimer, a retired U.S. Steel employee who now works as the incline's office manager. He's marvelous with minutia ??? there are about 120 regular commuters; on a busy weekend nearly 5,000 people ride; the incline is a local and national landmark. Tom takes me on a tour of the hoisting equipment in operation. It's fascinating watching the thick steel-wire winding and unwinding, pulling the funicular to its destination. The system is regularly checked and cables replaced every six years, yet my inquiring mind stills want to know: What happens if a cable snaps? Will passengers plummet to their deaths? Tom smiles and points to a safety cable. And if that breaks? Another smile. "Then we are having a real bad day."

Even Bill Clinton (who visited in February 1994), Jennifer Beals (who filmed some of "Flashdance" here), Donnie Wahlberg (who shot the TV series "The Kill Point" here) didn't get so close to the inner workings. Neither did Bruce Willis, who came to town to film "Striking Distance" -- the actor, gift shop employee, Margaret, tells me, "didn't like our city. He told us to clean up our rivers."

I find the behind-the-scenes tour interesting, but it's the view -- the same one USA Weekend rated as "the second most beautiful view in America" -- that keeps me outside, braving the sunny, bitter cold. This is the Pittsburgh I have never seen. The bridges line up, the Monongahela meanders, the footprint of old Fort Duquesne stands out like an oddly shaped crime scene figure.

I fight the cold. I fight the wind. I fight the urge to go back inside. I'm on the observation deck and I'm here to observe. Getting high has never been so much fun. Or so breathtaking.

I think of Jennifer Beals and slowly begin to sing, "Oh, what a feeling ..."