Beyond perceived abilities

A lot of people have asked me what got you started and why mountain climbing. It goes back to June 2006, when I did my first trek up Mount Rinjani, Indonesia; a beautiful mountain with an active volcano right in the middle of a lake at 2000m above sea level. A 3-day trek, the trip was an impromptu decision by two adventure loving friends who had no clue about trekking on a mountain. I for one could barely run 2kms at a stretch but my friend, Avneesh can be considered fit. We were dropped off at the starting point on a jeep and off we went with our guide and our backpacks. Our trekking equipment included a pair of jeans (jeans are a big NO for trekking), a couple of t-shirts, a pair of socks, a disposable camera and 2 bottles of water (yes - water and camera, that was our idea of being prepared).

Two hours of walking and I was starting to feel what a bad idea this was, but I wasn't going to give up so easily. I was a proud person and didn't want to show my tiredness in front of a 'stranger' guide and my 'fit' friend. An hour later we reached the lunch camp and I thought, phew! that was it for the day. Little did I know that we were far from our half-way point. During lunch, we met three Singaporeans on the same trek. They seemed better equipped than us and asked how we prepared for this trek. They had been running and staircase climbing while we just came from a cocktail and a tan from the beaches of Bali. It hit me then, oh my! we were in trouble.

We began again and within an hour I started to fall back. Every step seemed extremely hard to take, while many individuals, much older and much younger than me, zoomed past me. Avneesh often took breaks, waited for me and encouraged me to keep going. With barely any mobile signal and no jeep to take us back, I had little choice. After 5 more hours of what felt like eternity, I finally saw our overnight camp and a beautiful view of the volcanic lake on the other side of the ridge. We were at 2800 meters, my highest. Unfortunately, we enjoyed the view for about 15 minutes when the sun went down and the wind storm hit.

I was surprised by how cold it got. We wore everything we brought with us on top of our clothes and rolled up in our tent. We refused to step out for dinner and gobbled up the noodles that came to our tent within 30 seconds. The storm was so bad that we had to use stones to keep our big shoes from flying. At about 3am, a knock on our tent. Our guide wanted to know if we were still up for the summit. He said it was quite windy and risky but he would take us if we wanted to. Avneesh didn't hesitate for a second to say NO. I the 'mighty brave' one said, of course, I came here for the summit and I shall try. I lasted about 10 seconds outside the tent until I froze still. It took me another 15 minutes to warm myself up. The pain from the previous day shot up with every shiver. I had never suffered this much before and I just wanted to get the hell out, cursing myself at this stupid idea.

The sun came up and so did the warmth. As I got up, I could barely stand with the muscle pain on my legs. I thought I can't move, impossible. My guide gives me a stick for support and says let's go, we have no choice. We trek down to this beautiful lake, very very slowly of course, camp there overnight and I had my highest and possibly the coldest swim of my life. It was certainly a better day. The following day we had the opportunity to trek up to a hot spring, possibly the highlight of our trip at that point. Once we knew we were on our way down to leave, we literally ran out of that mountain reaching earlier than planned. I for one was glad to be out. The adventure certainly didn't stop there as we found out that the entire island had run out of fuel (petrol/diesel) and no transport could take us back. Not to mention, the continuing storm, heavy rains, fallen trees blocking the road and overturned trucks, but that story can wait :)

In those three days, I wanted nothing more but to get out of that mountain. A week later however, I realized, I had walked for over 20 hours in three days. I would have never thought that was humanely possible by me, but I did. A self-realization and an unfinished chapter...