26th January, summit bid

Summit morning. Up that high, you can see the curvature of the earth, the horizon is not straight.

We step out, into our cramponned boots. We turn to the mountain. Lito goes in front. Jaime is already ahead, waiting. Headlights are not necessary, it is already light enough to see. But this is when your vision gets reduced, when it gets really thin; my entire world becomes the back of Lito's boots. I will stare at these, follow these, until I have my own rhythm, until I can get back into myself without getting lost. For now, I need these.

Lito starts a slow walk up. Slow is all that can be managed at this height. One step, breathe, one step, breathe. My heart is beating at what it normally would running on flat terrain at about 10.5- 11km per hour. We are advancing at perhaps 2km per hour.


Picture sent by Jak Man. Me behind the neoprene mask.

Step, breathe, step, breathe. Breathe in deep, force the air into the lungs. It's easy to feel dizzy here, it is important not to hold your breath. Lito breathes deeply too. I can see from the angle of his boots that he is turning around often to check on us. I don't meet his eye. I keep focused on his boots. Legs apart. This is no time to get a crampon stuck in the back of your other leg and fall.


View downwards from the first zigzags

The route zig zags up the steep mountain. It is very snowy this year. It makes it easier to go up, because the snow packs together the loose scree that normally would hinder our progress. I try to feel grateful for this. We'd been discussing this for the past 2 weeks, it does not happen often, and it is a good thing for us.

It has been an hour. I am still checking my lungs. Deep breaths. Clear in, clear out.


I am on the left, in orange, losing ground. Picture sent by Jak Man.



I am not cold, I can move all my fingers, all my toes. Excellent. A whip of wind shoves me aside. I get back upright.

Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind
Es ist der Vater, mit seinem Kind...

Have I ever told anyone that this is the poem that made me fall in love with German so many years ago?

Er halt den Knab wohl in der Arm
Er macht ihm sicher, er hält ihn warm.

Ihm or ihn? Darned German grammar! I have no dictionnary to check here. What was the next stanza again?

Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind... durch Nacht und Wind....

Lito has stopped, I nearly fall on top of him. Pausa, he announces. I nod, fully concentrated. These short breaks have to be useful. Drink, eat something energy-dense, get back up before you can get cold. I sit.


The first break stop, picture by Jak Man.

Lito is shaking me, nena, nena! You've fallen asleep! I bolt upright, shocked. My breath is raging, I moved too quickly, I gasp. I've fallen asleep?? Asleep? Here???? Where I could just not wake back up? It's about -10 plus the wind!! I get back up, I haven't drunk, I try to eat some power jelly beans, I feel like I've just been injected with adrenalin. It makes my nausea worse.

We start again. My feeling of panic abruptly leaves me, I feel like I am in a world of very dense fog. It is perfectly clear, I can see, up ahead, the part where we will be meeting with the sun. But I feel a bit far from it all, like I am watching from the outside. I frown. I know this is not good. I can't let myself become disconnected from my body, I have to stay here. I have to find the rhythm. The rhythm.

Step, breathe, step, breathe, step, breathe.... breathe... breathe... The rhythm eludes me. Step, Wer reitet, step so spät, step durch Nacht step und Wind... I let Jackman ahead of me; if I can't find my rhythm, I will be ruining his, it is best that I step back. Step...

I am on one knee. The wind is shaking me around, I struggle back to my two feet. How did I end up down on one knee? Was it the wind? It must have been. I can't have fallen asleep again. Not while walking. There is a bit more distance between Jackman, Lito, and me. I see Lito stopping, waiting for me to close the gap. Up ahead are the small figures of Jaime and Quique and his two clients. Ha! So they do exist! Move all my toes, move all my fingers, breathe, what is the next darned stanza? Oh Vater, oh Vater, und hörst du denn nicht? Was der Erlenkönig leise gespricht? Mein Sohn, dast ist ein Nebelstreif. No, that part comes later.

Two and a half hours, and no rhythm. My heart picks up. I am exhausting myself trying to find a rhythm. Not having one is exhausting itself. Like being adrift at sea, trying to get up on a piece of floating wood, knowing that once there you can drift yourself, you can rest, but you have to get on the piece of wood first, and you can't. I am exhausting myself trying to get up on this piece of wood. Whenever I stop, I can't get going again until at least 5 or 6 breaths later, so I try to keep the time between breaks as long as possible, 15 steps, 14, 12 steps, up up up, catch up to the sun, everything will be alright once you catch up to the sun.

It works for a bit. I am so starved for the sun, for the warmth, my toes and fingers are getting cold, are getting stiff, this is not normal, it's because I have no rhythm, the sun will fix it all up. I feel like I have another person in my head who wants to cry, but I just want the sun. I feel like I am in a dream, wanting to run but not managing, wanting to break through but being held back, invisible, soundless.

We get to the sun!! I am dizzy with relief! Another break. Lito studies me. I see this distantly. Ok, nena? Ok. Ok, Jackman? Ok. short break, back up, keep moving, it's cold. The zigzags are almost over, Lito is showing us. After that, it's the travesia. I look up, anguished. That part is where we will lose the sun. I will think about that when we get there. We will be walking for about 2 hours in the shade.

Step, breathe, step breathe. Everything is so quiet. The wind is raging, very far away, in another world...

I feel a hand grabbing hard on my arm. Ow! This feels realer than anything else today. I look up. Lito is holding me hard by the arm. And I am down. Again. I can see that if he were to let go, I would be sliding down the mountain. There's a long way to slide. I have enough feeling to feel slightly panicky about this. I understand that I am losing a battle. My mind understands this before I do. I sit back. Lito lets go, sits beside me.


(Photo by Jak Man; tents visible below, seemingly a leap away)

Nena, you fell asleep.

I say nothing.

Nena, you are walking with your eyes closed. I've been watching. You're wavering.

I am feeling bewildered.

Nena, did you see those people pass you just now?

I look up ahead. There is an entire group, about 8 to 10 people, just ahead of us. What? Those people passed us and I didn't notice? They must have passed us, there is only one way.

Nena, you have apuñamiento.

Ich bin höhekrank?

Did I just answer Lito in German? Must have been Goethe. Does that mean I am making no sense? He just told me I have altitude sickness. Making no sense is part of it. I am making perfect sense to myself. I am coherent. I can move all my toes and fingers. I can breathe deeply, I can switch to another poem, in another language, I am forgetting bits of this one anyway. My head is not hurting. It just feels stuffed.

Nena, many people are passing us, we are very slow.

Slow. That means I am not keeping up. I am holding them back. That means more than 8 hours to the summit. That means an even longer, more tiring day. More risk. More danger. I am thinking this but not understanding it.

Nena...

Lito is waiting for me to understand on my own.

In my mind, I travel to El Misty in Peru, a few months ago.

I was unprepared then. Was not properly equipped, not properly acclimtatized. I could not feel my toes anymore. I could feel my hands beging to stiffen. My head hurt so much I could not even tell what was around me. I wanted to cry, but that took too much effort. I was reciting Joe Simpson in my mind, I was remembering Jorge Semprum and how he declined verbs in his mind when he was being tortured, to get away from his body's pain.

It was the shock that did it. That I could inadvertenly mentally compare walking up a mountain, a much beloved activity, to being tortured. It wasn't supposed to feel that way. I had gone down then, at 4700m. Sad, but not once regretting.

Nena?

I was prepared now, though! I'd done everything I could.

Yes. You did everything you could. You kept your part of the bargain. But you don't decide. The mountain does. The decision is in her hands.

Can't I try a bit longer? I get up. Two steps. I look up. Two steps and I know it's over. Now I'm crying. I can feel the wetness behind my neoprene mask. Lito is hugging me. I look down to the camp. It's so insultingly near!!! We've been at it for hours and I feel I could jump down there!

Can you get down on your own? I nod yes. You go down, I'll be watching. I nod. I can't stop crying. I hug Jackman, who's been standing quietly aside through all of this.

Where are we?

At Independencia. Nearly 6300m.

Nearly 6300m. Less than 700m short. Surely I could keep going a bit longer?

This part is the tough one. You've been telling yourself you'll know when to stop. You'll know the difference between pushing on through hardship and pushing on through foolishness. One leads to triumph, the other to danger. It's no longer about mental strength now. It's no longer up to you. The decision was never yours.

The doctor's words in Plaza de Mulas: know when you've reached your own summit. It may not be the mountain's summit, but your own summit is the important one. Know when to come back down from your summit, and you'll come back safe. Know, and you'll come back. He'd held my gaze after saying this. Driving the words in. Now they resonated. Know when you've reached your summit.

I am still crying. How annoying. I can't make myself stop. That means my nose is stuffed, but I can't blow it, because if I remove my mask to do so, the rest of my wet face will freeze.

One last hug. Take many pictures, Jackman.

I turn, and start to step down....




I quit before reaching those big boulders.