The Uphill Battle

The next morning, we awoke early. We ate a ‘hearty’ and typically in the wilderness breakfast. We started walking and it felt like we never stopped. Firstly, it was across some very light snow and we reached two river crossings, they were very shallow and I didn’t even need to take my boots off for the first, team spirit was at all-time high.

Little did we know what we faced ahead.

Day Two of our trek is going to be split across two blog posts, this one firstly, ‘The Uphill Battle’ and day two will be concluded with ‘Reunited with the team on the lava fields’.

So we’d managed two small river crossings relatively unscathed so far into Day Two and were on a slight incline, spirits were still good and we were all nattering and excitedly trekking along, then suddenly we realised… there was no way around the steep incline ahead. We were going to be climbing it. I will never forget the mixture of total fear from heights and the incredible happiness from the scenery around me on this first steep incline of the day.

Step by step we were all digging our walking poles deep into the ground, using strength from our arms to help guide us up to the top. I was experiencing waves of fear due to the height and slight disorientation. I was already falling behind the pack, Abi and a few other members of the team hung back with me to talk and coach me through the fear. Finally I beat my way through it and made it to the top, my legs shaking like jelly and tears streaming down my face. I was not only crying from fear of the height, I was petrified of what laid ahead. I knew we had several more inclines. This one was well before we reached the snow, and I never expected to react with a disorientated feeling of fear when confronting these heights. The small group of us who had fallen behind had a quick hot drink from a flask to build my sugar levels, a mouth full of jelly babies and then carried on powering through with our one guide who had been separated off in order to try to catch the rest of the group up.

We never caught them up. In fact, we fell more and more out of sight of them. We radioed on and told them to keep going, we’d started to reach the freezing temperatures up on the mountain tops, and it’d be freezing and terribly uncomfortable for the rest of the team to stop walking and wait around, the whole time losing motivation for the very long walk that was waiting for us. The iciness really kicked in around the top of the next incline, once we reached this peak we had to walk over some thin and icy passages of rock and start the repeated declines followed by incline to make it across the mountain range. This would have been much more pleasant if it wasn’t for the gripping fear and the overbearing smell of natural sulphate. We started to reach the areas of naturally boiling streams of water which we had to walk around, and natural springs were surrounding the scenery. Snow levels were getting more severe, however it was only snowing slightly at this point. I wish I had appreciated that more, knowing what was to come.

We reached the top of a peak, and across the canyon ahead at the top of another peak was the hut we had to reach, and our closest toilet. I was bursting but so sure I was going to make it across.

The snow was thick, the snow was getting stronger as it fell, the floor was difficult to walk on and I was struggling. Suddenly I had a stabbing pain in my hip and abdomen from where I slipped on the glacial area earlier in the trek. The other group had radioed through to us at the beginning of us tackling this canyon to inform us that they needed to move on from the hut, we were so close but I saw them heading off.

 I was honestly worried they’d be disappointed I’d fallen behind but I was struggling with extreme fatigue from my condition. I had no idea how I was going to tackle the next 15km I had to trek. I had only achieve 13km at this point when we reached the hut! After a quick toilet break I crunched into an apple and some Swiss Miss hot chocolate and rested up for a short moment. I tried to rest my aching hip and build the energy to get back out on the track. I knew it was unlikely I would ever catch the rest of the group now, but I just needed to make sure I made it back to camp. I couldn’t let down every single person who had supported my cause. I popped the trek boots back on, wrapped up warm and headed back out, into the dreaded snowstorms. I set my sights on the first marker of the trek route and headed off.