A Single Step
"All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small. Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step". Lao Tzu
I was told to expect the heaviest loads I have ever experienced and unfortunately I wasn't disappointed. . After my original 80 lbs added food, camp gear, and my new best friend my CMC (clean mountain can) that is full of white gas going up and then gets filled with human waste to be taken off the mountain. I didn't weigh the load but it feels very heavy well over 100 lbs. We started not steep but 6 miles in soft snow and foggy white day. Roped in two teams of 5 and 4, the trail looks safe but below the snow the glacier is full of crevasses the rules are at least 3 people on a rope. We start early while things are still frozen. Even at 20 degrees with the weight and the uphill It is easy to overheat. You have to bring layers off and on depending on if the sun is in or out, windy or still, the pace fast or slow, and how steep the pitch is. When you stop you quickly get a puffy parka on to keep from getting hypothermia. Excited to get started I push and get to camp 1 and build camp to get ready for another long day tomorrow. Drinking and eating to aid in my recovery.
The altitude is 7,800 ft. Not really a factor the first night getting used to sleeping on the ground, regulating my temp in 0 degrees, exploding my bag in the tent and getting everything packed back for the next climb. As many times as I have done this there is always an adjustment period. I also share a tent with a friend from two previous expeditions in the Andes, Roi from Israel, he is the best tent mate and glad to have him, not sure he would say the same.
Today we climb up to 10,500 and cache a load that includes upper mountain gear and our extra food. We will bury it and return down the mountain and sleep in our same tent. The next day we pack our tents bags and the rest of the camp gear and climb to 11 camp passing the cache we just buried and returning the next day to recover the cache. This is also the last leg with snowshoes. We cache them and our lighter and smelly underlayers and move to crampons up Ski Hill from here up. We carry empty packs downhill except for the sled we used to drag the loads to the cache. It sticks up like a sail catching the wind but downhill and light feels good. Going downhill puts pressure on different parts of your feet and you are constantly taping and padding hotspots. We will repeat this caching at 13,500 and again at 16,200.
Lesson to grandkid:
A single step; Lao Tzu talked about the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Be a doer not a dreamer take that single step let the journey begin.
