This was the first ever blog I wrote, the story that started it all... the trip that made me start writing and also the adventure that convinced me to quit my job! I originally wrote this thinking only a few of my family and friends would read it but after posting on my instagram story I had hundreds of people reading it. I had an overwhelming amount of messages and comments from people saying they want to read more, instead of this fuelling me into creativity it paralysed me with the weight of everyone's expectations to share another story. When merging my substack to this website I considered re-writing this story to allow it to read a little smoother but decided against it. I think its important to acknowledge all versions of ourselves and this piece was such a catalyst for my life that instead of reading it and picking apart ways it could be written better I now read over it and feel proud of how far my writing has come.
So anyway, here is the story of the mountain that made me quit my job, the hardest climb of my life.
The trip started by flying into the world’s most dangerous airport; Lukla. I was fangirling watching all the planes land on the ridiculously short runway that abruptly ends with a gigantic mountain. You have one chance to land and that’s it. I remember seeing photos of Lukla during my pilot training, everyone was getting sweaty palms just looking at the photos! Now here it is in real life and it’s awesome.
Our group of 8 hiked for a few hours to the first tea house, the walk was quite easy but we were still getting used to the altitude, I noticed my heart rate was much higher than usual and I was getting out of breath when I usually wouldn’t. That night in the tea house we were moving a couch so we could all sit together to play cards, someone pushed the couch and it hit my foot pretty hard. I laughed it off until I saw blood seeping through my sock… I took my sock off to find that my big toe and second toenail had pulled away from the skin almost completely. This is not the kind of injury you want on day 1 of a trek. Little did I know this small injury would be the least of my worries. I bandaged it up and it slowly healed, luckily I didn’t end up losing my toenails.
I had a slight sore throat at this stage and in the coming days it progressively turned into a nasty cold. The cold air felt like razor blades every time I took a breath in and it was painful to swallow or talk, my buff became a permanent accessory to my face and I couldn’t breathe without it. I walked all day with it covering my nose and mouth and slept in it all night in a desperate attempt to soothe my sore throat. I started to get super congested and was constantly blowing my nose, it was hard enough to breathe with the altitude and now I can’t breathe through my nose! I was eating soups, drinking ginger and honey tea, going to bed early and drinking loads of water but nothing I did made me feel better. I started to get a temperature and the Panadol wasn’t helping it at all. I was so tired but only managed to sleep 3hrs because I was feeling so sick. I sat on the floor in the hallway of the tea house because I didn’t want to keep my roommate awake, I felt like crying, I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself. I was so frustrated that I was sick, why me, why now!
The next day was our easiest day of trekking yet, it was 3ish hours and only 300m of elevation gain… piece of cake! Or so I thought… this ended up being my hardest day of hiking EVER. I was so exhausted and my muscles felt weak from the lack of sleep and being so sick. I was extremely far behind the group and it was taking all of my energy to put one foot in front of the other. One of the guys waited back with me and he asked how I was feeling, I burst into tears. I sat on a rock and cried and said I’ve never felt so horrible and I’m too exhausted to walk. He took my hiking bag and carried it for me and put his headphones in my ears, he started playing my favourite song just by pure coincidence. I looked up whilst still sitting on the rock and the view was two picturesque mountains, with the sound of the Lumineers in my ears I started to cry again. Being in the Himalayas was everything I had been dreaming about for so many years and this is it, i’m finally here! I’m finally here and I’m sitting on a rock crying because i’m in so much pain.
I kept walking at a snail's pace and could barely muster a single word, I couldn’t even say thank you to the guy that was helping me, I didn’t even have the energy to talk. We finally arrived at the tea house and I immediately fell asleep sitting at the lunch table. I had been downplaying how horrible I felt and how bad my sickness was for a few days and now it was starting to show, I couldn’t hide it anymore I needed to ask for help. My condition rapidly deteriorated, my temperature got worse and I was shivering, I couldn’t keep any liquid or food down because I was vomiting. I couldn’t take any medicine to help because I would vomit it back up and was getting severely dehydrated which then made altitude sickness worse. At this point, I wasn’t allowed to leave the dining area and they had set up a pillow and blanket for me so I could be watched over. I felt like I was in my own world, I could hear people around me talking about me but couldn’t tune into what they were saying and could still barely talk because my throat was so sore and I had no energy. The next thing I knew everyone was helping to dress me in my summit gear (big gloves/ down pants/ big jacket/ beanie/ shoes) one of the boys was heating up hand warmers and then slid them into my gloves. I couldn’t even tie my shoelaces because I was so weak. A Nepalese porter picks me up and says he is going to carry me down the mountain to another village in hopes that being at a lower altitude will make me feel better. He was piggybacking me but I was too weak to hold on with my arms, we had to keep stopping because I was sliding off. He grabbed my Patagonia rain jacket and slung it around my bum and used the sleeves to hold me up. That jacket deserves a 10/10 review for durability because it took my whole body weight without ripping! It took around 2 hours for him to carry me down the mountain, we left at around 10 pm so it was pitch black with just the light from his head torch. I was looking up at the stars thinking they looked so beautiful and was also in disbelief thinking this would be the end of my trip. I was quite confident I would be helicoptered back to Kathmandu the following morning. It was a sad moment but I felt so horrible that I also didn’t care too much, I felt like maybe it wasn’t my destiny to be there or that this would end up being an absolute killer comeback story. We arrived and I ate 2 chocolate biscuits and drank some warm water, this was a massive win!
The next morning I woke up and miraculously felt so much better. I sat in bed and drank about a litre of warm water and reflected on the dramatic saga that went down the night before. I ate some honey on toast and took whatever pills were given to me, none of them were in English but I trusted the Nepalese guys were taking care of me. I then took an altitude sickness pill, they have some crazy side effects so taking them for the first time when you’re already at altitude is never advised! I was desperate so I took it anyway and luckily had no side effects, another massive win!
We sat together and decided there were two options moving forward, 1. I get a helicopter back to Kathmandu or 2. I try to walk back to where I was the night before to meet the rest of the group. During the whole dramatic event, I felt very safe and quite calm. I knew I had good insurance and that if a helicopter was necessary it would be easy to organise and would have some pretty cool views. The other option is just waiting at one of the tea houses while the group continues on and then meeting them again on their walk back which also would’ve been fine. Today was a scheduled rest day for the rest of the group which is incredibly lucky otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to catch up and would have been forced to helicopter back or wait a few days at the tea house. Obviously, I chose to try to walk back. I was scared because I knew how exhausting the walk was the day before and now I had to do it again! I took it incredibly slowly and managed to beat my previous time, this was a great sign. As I slowly walked towards the tea house I was greeted by the rest of the group, everyone gave me big hugs and were over the moon that I had miraculously come back from the dead and was not just speaking and standing upright, I had walked the whole way back! I ate some dahl baht, my first meal in almost 24hrs and then spent the rest of the day sleeping. It felt so good to finally be able to sleep and it’s just what my body needed.
On our schedule, we had another rest day booked in for just before the summit day but there was a really good weather window so the team decided to cancel the rest day and push for the summit straight away. This meant that the next morning I woke up and hiked to base camp. My stomach was still so exhausted from vomiting, I was sick of Nepalese food and the sanitary conditions were getting worse the higher we went. We hadn’t showered in a few days and there weren’t many places to wash your hands. I was struggling to eat but knew I needed the energy, even drinking water made my stomach feel sensitive. The hike to base camp was only about 400m elevation gain but at this point, you’re really starting to feel the altitude. The trail was fantastic and at sea level I would love to trail run on it but at altitude it was so hard. I was seriously doubting myself walking this section because I knew the summit day would be much much harder and that this was a walk in the park in comparison. I was taking lots of breaks and was far at the back of the group again, I very rarely run out of energy to the point where I NEED to stop and take a break but this day I was sitting on the rocks mustering up the energy to keep going. We arrived at base camp at around midday and spent the rest of the day doing some climbing/ ropes training. I was already quite confident in this because of my rock climbing experience so I did it quickly and then went to lie down in my tent. We had an early dinner and went to bed around 5 p.m. It was about -16 degrees so I slept in everything I would be wearing on the summit the next day and had a -30 degree sleeping bag. My feet were freezing and I really needed to pee but the thought of leaving the tent and going outside was enough for me to hold it in.
We got woken up at 11 pm for breakfast, it was so cold that barely anyone had slept at all. I was laying awake for hours negotiating with myself what my goal was and if I should even attempt to push for the summit. I was frustrated because I felt like months of training and days hiking to get there were wasted if I didn’t give it a go but I was also trying to be realistic after being carried to safety 48 hours before. I decided that I would just go with the group and listen to my body and if I feel like I can push for the summit then go for it but if I feel sick then I need to be honest with myself and turn back. I was content with attempting and any effort in my eyes was a win considering how sick I had been. I felt like I was being too hard on myself if I was disappointed that I didn’t make it to the summit. That wasn’t what this trip was about anymore, it was about embracing the moment, meeting new people, going out of my comfort zone and just giving things a go regardless of the outcome.
I woke up with surprisingly a lot of energy even though I barely slept and it was 11 pm. I went into the communal tent to eat breakfast and managed to stomach one boiled egg. I was annoyed at myself for not eating anything else but as hard as I tried I just couldn’t. I poured boiling water into my Camelbak and double-checked my bag. My bag felt like it weighed 3x as much as any other day, I was stressing seeing what I could cull to make it lighter but it was all necessary. I tossed up ditching my camera but decided I had to make it work. As we were all lining up to start walking I made a comment to one of the guides winging saying my bag felt so heavy and if there was anything I should take out. He smiled at me and said he was happy to carry my bag for a bit. I was getting a lot of sympathy and queen treatment because I was sick, I felt extremely grateful and didn’t hesitate to hand over my bag. It would’ve only weighed between 7-10kg but it felt like so much more with the altitude.
70% of the climb was scrambling over rocks and hiking but very steep and the last section was on the snow. The part where it turns from rock to snow is called crampon point as it’s when you put your crampons onto your boots to start the climbing section. We were all wearing our 6,000m boots which are similar to ski boots, very rigid and heavy with not much grip and super awkward to walk in. They are horrible. I felt super unstable but didn’t want to carry the weight of taking my hiking boots plus my mountaineering boots.
I quickly fell behind the group and the climbing guide said they needed to split the team into two groups, group 1 was everyone and group 2 was me. I had my own climbing guide and slowly group 1 got further and further away until all I could see was the small beam from my head torch and total abyss. My climbing guide would speed ahead and then stop and have a nap while I caught up. I wanted to cry, it wasn’t fun doing it all alone and it was scary scaling over rocks and climbing next to sheer drops all on my own with only the small beam from my head torch. At one point my guide said “Look down, you fall you die… don’t fall” and then hiked ahead of me. I chose to not look so I didn’t see the drop until the way back down when the sun was up. I was thinking why am I even doing this, this is so lonely, this isn’t even fun I’m just suffering for no reason. I chose to be here but self-motivating myself in the pitch black was hard. My water ended up freezing so I was extremely thirsty, I tried to eat a Snickers bar for some energy but that was completely frozen solid and I just about broke my tooth trying to take a bite out of it. Every now and then I could see the lights of group 1 way ahead of me, I was losing hope being so far behind and thought that even if I did make it to the summit it would be lame because I wouldn’t have anyone to share it with. In the novel ‘Into The Wild’ there is a quote that says “Happiness is only true when shared” and I really felt that in this moment. I can do this alone but I don’t want to, I want the comradery of the group, I want the banter to make me laugh and keep me going. The suffering I felt doing it alone was a weird experience, it was freezing cold, pitch black, sketchy, I was exhausted, sick and couldn’t breathe. It wouldn’t have mattered if I just turned back, after all, I was still super sick. I caught up to my guide just as the sun was rising, so at this point I had been alone for around 5-6 hours in the dark. He didn’t wake up when I got to him so I used this precious time to sit down and take a break. I instantly fell asleep, I was so exhausted and felt like I was starting to hallucinate. I would look at the rocks and think there were people sitting there also taking a break. I was wheezing from breathing so hard and I thought it was people calling out to me. I felt like I was going crazy. The guide woke up to see me sitting down and abruptly stood up and said no time for breaks because we were too far behind. You have to reach the summit by a certain time or you are forced to turn around because it gets too windy and is dangerous to be up there. I said to him “We are in this together, we will make it” and he said “Mmm” and I said “You believe in me right? I’m going to make it to the top?” And he said, “No you are too slow we will have to turn around.” This lit a fire in me, he doesn’t know me and he doesn’t know what I’m capable of. I decided I needed to get my mind in order, so I decided on a walking pattern to keep me going so I wasn’t taking too many breaks. I had my walking poles and it was silent so they made a clicking noise when I would hit them against the ground. My routine was click click step step click click step step breathe breathe. The two breaths were important and the noise of the poles was important too, I needed a rhythm and I needed something small and achievable. My reward was the two breaths and I knew that in order to get the reward I just needed the click of the walking poles and two easy steps. My routine was working and I was making good time. I saw the group ahead and they were much closer, they yelled out to me and waved their arms to motivate me to keep going.
I was gasping for air, it was like I had just sprinted for too long and needed my whole entire body moving like a wave to get enough oxygen in. But I was moving like a snail at my rhythm pace click click step step. The only thing stopping me from moving faster was that I was completely out of breath, my lungs were fatigued which felt weird, I’ve never used my lungs so hard that they are fatigued. I was frustrated that the only thing stopping me from catching up with the group was the fact I couldn’t breathe. I thought back to my freediving training and how your body often pretends that it needs oxygen when it doesn’t and my theory was that unless I start to see stars or feel like I’m going to pass out then I probably have enough oxygen to keep moving it’s just super uncomfortable being insanely out of breath. I thought this was one day of suffering and when I’m laying in my bed or sitting on the beach breathing fine I will wish that I pushed harder and just dealt with not being able to breathe. I’d come this far now I didn’t want to turn around, I knew I could make it and it would’ve been a waste to have to turn back.
A few weeks before leaving for the trip I had read about an endurance athlete (Jesse Itzler) whose coach increased his PB in distance running by just one simple thing and that was he made Jesse say “I can do it” the whole time he was running. I tried to ignore my incredibly loud breath and wheezing noises and focused on the click click step step whilst only allowing myself to say “I can do it.”
I was close to Crampon Point and saw a group sitting and getting their gear ready, it was my group!!!! I knew at this point that I would catch up, I pushed as hard as I could and got to crampon point just as everyone was clipping into the ropes to keep moving. My guide smiled at me and said I’m in the clear now and I can rest for a bit. I didn’t want to rest, I had finally caught up I didn’t want to get further behind!! I ate an energy gummy which I later realised had 200mg of caffeine in it (I don’t have any caffeine ever) and quickly put my harness and crampons on and kept moving. I felt like I had a second wind and was absolutely flying up the mountain. I felt so comfortable with the ropes and exposure, I was quick moving around and using my climbing gear so I caught up to the group quickly. Everyone was so happy to see me, the whole group was gassing me up saying they were so proud and happy that I made it. Everyone was In absolute shock. My spirits were so high, I knew I was going to make it and even better I knew we were all going to make it as a team. I completely relaxed and was able to enjoy the moment, the rushing was over. I got to take breaks with the group and appreciate the landscapes and I was having so much fun in the climbing section because I felt so comfortable. All of a sudden I wasn’t out of breath like before, my muscles were fine and I was just cruising. What is traditionally the hardest part of the whole climb, for me was the most enjoyable.
We all sat at the summit together, I was so happy to be a part of the group and I almost felt like I was dreaming because I didn’t believe that my body could go from being completely depleted and sick to standing on the summit! At this point I’ve still only eaten an energy gummy and a boiled egg with maybe 250ml of water. And previous days I was vomiting everything up so my body was running on empty. I felt like I had the biggest mental workout, physically it was whatever, I wouldn’t say it wasn’t hard but it definitely wasn’t my physical limit. Going into this trip I thought I would be pushing my physical limits, not my mental limits. It took us about 10.5 hours to reach the summit, I still don’t know how I caught up to the rest of the group and bless the guide that carried my bag because that made a massive difference. Also, bless him for not believing in me because him lighting that fire is what I needed to keep me going.
All 8 of us sat on the summit and soaked it in, some people were feeling a bit of altitude sickness and urgently wanted to leave the summit so it was pretty chaotic. One girl had pissed her pants during the rock climbing section so she was very keen on wanting to get down because she was freezing in wet pants! There was so much going on and I still had so much adrenaline that it didn’t sink in that we had accomplished this crazy thing.
We took our time getting back down and when we got to crampon point I was surprised by the Sherpa that had carried me the night I was sick. He had climbed up as far as you can go in hiking boots to surprise us. He brought a thermos of hot tea and best of all he had gone into my tent and grabbed my hiking boots!!! I could’ve cried I was so happy. The 6,000m boots are so hard to move around in and it would’ve been a difficult and dangerous descent. I was considering walking down wearing just my socks instead as the boots are just too big and rigid that you would easily slip. I had three pairs of socks on to keep my feet warm so there would’ve been enough padding and I didn’t care about getting my feet cut up or my socks ruined. So seeing my hiking boots absolutely made my day. The Sherpa that had carried me grabbed me and said “I knew you could do it! I knew you would do it” and gave me a big hug. He is the sweetest man on the planet and he was taking such good care of me, I felt so grateful. At this point, the sun had come out and my water wasn’t frozen anymore so I skulled my water and it felt like I was drinking from a fountain coming directly from heaven. After hours of heavy breathing and no water, I was looking at muddy puddles wanting to suck the water off the floor. I’ve never been so dehydrated and thirsty in my entire life, I was the happiest person in the world at that moment drinking my water and holding my hiking boots.
We slowly descended back down to base camp, everyone felt pretty depleted so there wasn’t much talking going on. I was buzzing, I had heaps of energy and was just so happy I’d made it and that I was feeling good again. It took us about another 7ish hours to get back down to base camp where we ate and fell asleep straight away. I didn’t get changed I slept in all my summit gear again, this night was much colder because I woke up and my sleeping bag was covered in a thin layer of frost. The next day we had to hike back to one of the nearby villages, it was about a 6-hour walk, we were all pretty exhausted and it was a lot on the knees to be going downhill for so long. But again, no one cared because we had made it! It took us another 3 days after that to walk back to the world’s most dangerous airport again.
