The Summit Bid

Just love this...

At last we had a window of good weather...
In the middle of the night without saying a word, we put on out gear in the 

light of our head lamps. This is my favorite part of the climb. The night was black and soft as velvet with some stars shining through the clouds. It was like guardian angels watching over us. Underneath the black sky was me and seven men slowly making our way upward towards the summit. Alone on the the mountain, it's a slow grinding effort upwards. It's about saving energy to reach the summit and getting down again. The whole world is reduced to taking another step. Breathing is something that you take for granted until it becomes difficult. Functions like breathing, walking and sleeping we do autonomously and it is only when you are struggling to do the first two and yearning for the latter that you start to value the simpler perceived functions of our body. How different would your life be if even one of these things were taken away from you? My body was definitely starting to get tired but I knew it was not as tired as my brain thought it was. This is when the mental game takes over from the physical...

 Finally! I reached the peak! Half a year of preparation, countless trainings, hikes and climbs, and now I am here. I have overcome all the difficulties and reached the goal. I am happy and overwhelmed by the view here. You can see hundreds kilometers into the landscape around. You are aware there is no higher point on earth within a several thousand kilometer radius. It is chilly and windy. I am completely wasted. We are speechless, stunned with emotions. We don’t talk much. We take pictures and start with the descent. 

The descent turns out to be much more difficult than expected. I am moving extremely slowly, watching out not to slip out, but also due to the thin air and the increasing fatigue. Several hours in the very high altitude take their toll and weaken me considerably. Also the sun melts the glacier making the snow softer with every hour, so I sink with every step deeper and deeper. It takes more and more energy to move. Additionally my thigh muscles start to burn and my legs just hurt out of exhaustion. I can hardly stand. I need to take some breaks to sit down and just rest, especially on the traverse, all the time savouring the magnificent view. When I sit down, I fight against the overwhelming urge to fall asleep. I was told it can be very dangerous. Half an hour at that temperature and you are dead. Then, below the traverse it gets steep again and my knees also start to hurt. I try to slide down bit by bit, now that ice turned into snow, but it was and stays very dangerous.

Finally at around 4pm, after 14 hours of endless hustle I arrive at the camp, absolutely depleted. I was really, really happy on the peak. But when I finally reach the camp at 4.100 again I am the happiest women in the world, completely wasted and happy I accomplish this challenge.

You could ask: Why did you do it? What did it give you?

It was my 2nd big summit challenge. My first summit was Kilimanjaro, the first of the Seven Summits. Initially it was just an adventure, something cool to do, to dare something dangerous with not quite foreseeable outcome, something numerous people paid with their lives for. But then it took me to my limits. It let me experience and cross the limits of my body and my mind. I learned that a lot is possible if you prepare accordingly and if you join people who know how to do it.

Then I learned one big lesson: If you reach your limits, you can see further. There is a world beyond your limits. This world opens to you and becomes real for you. You widen the range of your possibilities. More things, new things become possible for you. And this is not just a question of a better self-confidence or bigger grit caused by previous success. No it is more real, more tangible. For example, prior to this expedition, climbing Mount Everest seemed something unreal to me. Yes, I could watch a documentary about people who are doing it or read a book about it. But it was a distant, fantastic world. These people were giants, black swans if you will. It wasn’t something I could realistically think of doing myself or even imagine myself doing it. I didn’t even have a clue how they did it.  Of course there is a lot of training and preparation necessary, maybe 1-2 years, but after all: if I want it, I can realistically do it. It has become a real option for me. Something I just can do. The range of my possibilities has widened in this field.

About the long term psychological effects of this challenge! I pushed myself beyond my then limits. My pain was part of my prize, part of my product... Everything started with the first step. I wanted to succeed bad enough as I wanted to breath.

What do you think about it? Did you have an experience in your life which triggered an avalanche of changes and made you want more and set yourself bigger and bigger challenges? Write me a comment about it!