Scaling the Mountain (*Or insert fancier title here)

Drat! I wish i had managed a smile…

It’s been more than ten months since I stood on the summit of Africa’s second highest mountain, Mt Kenya. I can hardly believe so much time has gone by. It seems like just the other day when I went for my first hike ever. Well, if I’m being honest, Jan 10^th 2015 would really be considered just the other day to hiking aficionados. That was the day I ventured up Mt Suswa. And boy, that was one hell of a hike! That was also the day I decided that I would go all the way to Point Lenana.

Now, as a disclaimer, I realise I should have penned this blog a long while ago, but this devil called procrastination is REAL! So because I neglected to journal my experiences on the various hikes, including the big one, and deferred the writing of this blog article until nine months after the fact, my memory has faded substantially. That said, this post shall focus on the lessons I learnt on the mountain. I shall endeavour to be as shallow and undetailed (my spell checker seems to think that I just made up this word. I am offended!) as possible in my descriptions of the mountain. You know, on account of poor memory. Instead, I shall fill this blog with a myriad of sweet-sounding grammatically-correct sentences that will create the impression of a well written piece.

Where it all begun

April 4^th 2015, the day we began our ascent of Mt Kenya. I had dreamt of this day for months and I was utterly terrified that the journey had begun. Standing at the gate of the Mount Kenya National Park & Reserve, getting ready to go forth and scale this beautiful peak, after so many months of preparation, both physical and psychological, failing to summit the mountain was a very real fear.

Fear of failure has plagued mountaineers since way before George Mallory first attempted to scale Mt. Chomolungma, better known as Everest. What if I got altitude sickness and couldn’t summit? What if I broke a leg, or my bad knee dislocated, or I fell and hurt my bum and couldn’t complete the hike? So many fears, most of them unfounded. I remember my biggest prayer was to keep the dreaded muscle pull at bay. I am one of the lucky few people who have never experienced the pain of a muscle pull, a boil or a nose bleed. And I plan to stay that way, God help me.

George Mallory (left) and Andrew Irvine preparing their assault on Mt Everest

So, even though I have only done six hikes in the ten months since I started hiking, I’ve gathered some lessons along the way.

This is what all littering signs should say!

1. What goes up must come down (except pee)

This is by far my favourite mountain quote. Credits for this go to Duncan Kiema, mountaineer and adventurer extraordinaire and founder of Xtrym Adventures & Safaris. That’s his mantra and he says this at the beginning of every hike. He has a healthy respect for nature and for the mountains and hills that he climbs, and littering is not an option when you’re hiking with Xtrym. Your plastic bottles, sandwich wrappers, juice boxes and paperbags must go back into your back pack.

Oh, he also always feels the need to remind people that high heels, sandals, skirts and umbrellas are not proper hiking gear. Evidently, he has met his fair share of funny people on the mountains.

Now how does one get up there?

2. When you ascend, you must descend

This also works the other way around.

Climbing a steep part of a mountain can be one of the most daunting, depressing and regrettable moments of one’s life. This is usually when I stop, ask myself what the hell I’m doing there, what life choices led me to that moment where I decided that climbing a hill was a good idea. I give myself pep talks, tell myself that this pain I’m putting myself through is not necessary, and convince myself that I must never climb another hill, ever.

But the good thing is that after a hard climb, it can only get better. In my experience, when you go up, you will almost certainly go back down. Or if you’re lucky, the trail will flatten.

Unfortunately, when you find yourself going downhill at the beginning of any hike, please do not pull out your pink pompoms in celebration yet. It invariably follows that the lower you descend at the beginning of a hike, the higher you will ascend. And that’s a real bitch, I tell you!

Fancy, eh?

3. Sip don’t drink

Water is the most essential thing while you’re hiking. If you have nothing else, water will sustain you. It’ll help you maintain a favourable core temperature so you won’t get too hot and too exhausted. It’ll keep you hydrated as you sweat and pee.

And those fancy water bottles and camelbaks are always a great conversation-starter. Many a romance have begun on the mountain because one asked the other “Say, where did you get that cool bottle?” to which the other responded, “Some place in Ngara. I can take you there.”

Finally at the Mt Suswa summit!

4. 5 short breaths, 1 deep breath

This is a particularly helpful technique I learnt when climbing Mt Suswa, the mountain that broke my hiking virginity. It really helped me when I was running short of breath and when I thought that my chest couldn’t take it anymore. Of course I hadn’t done any kind of cardio work out to prepare for that hike and so very soon after we started the hike, my chest was burning. So I found that mastering my breathing was a most useful skill.

Since then, I have used it on every hike I’ve been on, and especially on summit night on Mt Kenya where the air is a whole lot thinner.

 

Hooray!

5. When you can do nothing else, just smile and dance… and sing karaoke

Picture this. While climbing a particularly steep stretch of hill, where thoughts of quitting altogether and heading back down to the bus come at you faster than you can say “dance”, a petite, noisy young woman stands at the top of that hill cheering you on, singing and dancing like a maniac. You wonder what has gotten into her, and most importantly, where the hell she is getting all that energy to croak so badly.

That girl singing and dancing was me while scaling the treacherous Kijabe Hill. I was so extremely exhausted after climbing that first hill, that all I could do not to give up was to sing and dance.

Apparently my love for loud horrible singing is evident everywhere I go. After a long day hiking from Old Moses camp to Shipton’s Camp, I settled on to Serah Kimundu’s top decker bed and belted out, in my horrible deep, hoarse voice, “A Total Eclipse of the Heart” aided by Duncan’s laptop and speaker. I will forever be grateful to #TeamXtrym for not kicking me out of the expedition altogether for all the horrible noise I made that evening.

I have many such examples of when singing came in handy for me. The basic lesson here is that on the mountain, things get tough. You fall, cramp, pee and crap in thorny bushes, get really hot and thirsty then freeze half to death, feel at once brave and scared, and are altogether uncertain about a lot of things. But if you take all these to heart, you’ll never overcome anything in life. So just enjoy the ride and if it gets too hard, simply sing and dance your way through it.

Lenana in the background. So proud I made it to the top and back!

6. You’re stronger than you think

Before I started mountain climbing, I always thought of my inner strength in the abstract. And I didn’t think much of my physical strength because I am pretty small for my age. I used to think of my abilities as ordinary at best. I didn’t think I stood out in a crowd and almost never had any good conversation starters when I attended industry parties.

Then I started hiking and I discovered a whole new Liz that I had never met. This new Liz was confident and sexy, sure footed, strong and independent, emotionally mature (something in the mountain air clears your mind and makes you a deep thinker… and no, it is not the weed) and was great at starting conversations with strangers.

Hiking improved my motor coordination, and even though I still cannot multitask to save my life, it made me a bit more aware of my surroundings. And made stronger my resolve to finish whatever I start, (which is why I’m finally writing this piece. It’s taken me an eternity to get to this paragraph…haha).

There are myriad more lessons that the mountain can teach you. Maybe I’ll write them down in a new blog post after I keep my appointment with Point Lenana again this Easter.

 

• Uncategorized