Day 2

August 1, 2016

Cat Naps

I wake up to find a porter placing water at the foot of my tent. It's warm and I use it to brush my teeth. My group is stirring out of their tents and we make our way to breakfast. Our food tent shields us from the bitter cold. We fight over the hot chocolate. It is strange having a personal chef on the mountain, yet I still wouldn’t consider this glamping. Our guide, Michael, explains our route and what to wear. “Shorts and t-shirt should be fine.” Um, what? It is freezing! I stand outside my tent watching a giant raven with a white ring imprinted around its neck steal all my cookies that I had angrily left outside my tent last night after it burst open and spilled all over the clothes in my duffle bag. I imagine the bird swooping down and snatching up my body and flying me to the summit of the mountain. I mean, it could happen considering I share the same body type with a pubescent boy and it is a fairly large bird.

I am feeling surprisingly lively considering my lack of sleep and health. As the sun rises higher in the sky, the temperature sky rockets, and I realize shorts and a t-shirt isn’t such a bad idea.

I really thought day two would be easier, but I was so wrong. It was long, grueling, and I had a fever for most of it. It was more scrambling than day one and the altitude we were climbing was pretty shocking. Every time I thought we had reached the top of the plateau, there was more. My head felt like it was going to pop. I hoped it was due to sinus pressure and not altitude. I popped coffee flavored candy called Coffitos into my mouth to distract myself.

We encountered a lot of people. It was comforting knowing all of these random people from all over the world were attempting the same feat as me. I found myself falling behind my group, making my guide Rashidi fall back with me. I even hit my head on a rock at one point and I swear he rolled his eyes, although I have a tendency to think people are annoyed with me if I am not succeeding. Still, Rashidi pushed me to keep going and would help me through tough spots. When I made it to our group’s breaking point, my group and lead guide cheered me on for making it. I was dead last. Was I really that far behind? God dammit, get it together Taylor.

My favorite part of this day was when we took a thirty minute break and I fell asleep in the sun like a cat. I wanted to give up, I really did, but that nap was everything I needed to keep going. Day two made me realize the importance of naps and to never take a nap for granted.

We reach Shira Camp in time for lunch. We have reached 12,500 ft, which is the highest I have ever climbed in my life. At dinner, I sat there like a zombie, but I sure as hell wasn’t cold like one considering I probably had a fever of 102. I ate what I could and tried to make human conversation, but as I said, I was a zombie. I stuck hand warmers in random places on my body so that I could break the fever. My neck, my bra, my pants. I lay down immediately after dinner. I remember that today is my mother’s birthday and I fall asleep yearning for her.

Day Three

August 2, 2016

Fuck You Ray Lewis

By today, I have accepted that this is my life now. I will never leave this mountain and I will spend the rest of my days climbing it. I am reminded of the Myth of Sisyphus, the tale of a man named Sisyphus doomed to roll a rock up and down a hill for all eternity. I am Sisyphus at this point. An existential hero who has accepted her fate... which I assumed would be altitude sickness and death.

I start taking more notice of my group. Is anyone else feeling as insane as I am? I realize we haven’t really been talking as much, even though we spend every waking moment together. Talking takes up too much oxygen. I spend half the time telling myself not to vomit and the other half to keep pushing on. I have never felt more human, fragile yet somehow continously persevering. I admire my fellow hikers, keeping positive and putting one foot in front of the other. We may not be communicating much, but we all share this deeply rooted connection and goal that can’t be put into words, just steps.

Our uphill trek is taking us to Lava Tower towards Barranco Camp. The terrain at this point is desolate and the ground resembles volcanic ash. The temperature drops slightly. We joke that Lava Tower is going to resemble Mordor. Everyone in the group then gets assigned a Lord of the Rings character. I am Golem, obviously. Upon reaching Lava Tower, I climb up on a bottom shelf of the tower and eat my lunch. This is the first time I have felt hungry since the beginning of my ascent. I then proceed to pass out in a deep sleep regardless of the windchill and the fact that I am slowly sliding down the shelf of the rock. It comes to my attention that since I have made it to this point, I have made it farther than Ray Lewis (the NFL player/probably murderer) when he attempted to climb Kilimanjaro. For some reason this gives me a bout of motivation and I can’t wait to tell my dad. Some of us shout “Fuck you Ray Lewis!” into the desolate canyon and it echoes back at us.

Real footage of me on day 3 looking windburned and fabulous.

When we arrive at camp, we have tea waiting for us in our glamorous green dinner tent. I feel alive enough to talk with my group. We all are developing a dry cough and it sounds more like a hospital than a tea party. Every time Daniel (the porter in charge of serving the food and tea) enters the tent, we all yell with excitement, "DANNY!!". My tent mates and I take a quick nap before leaving to hike for another hour to reach 16,000 ft for acclimatization. Going up just to come back down was a concept that really irked me, but it is a crucial part of the process. I feel a headache forming once we finish the hike at the top of a giant rock that I can’t remember the name of. We have a photo shoot and listen to music. I wish someone would play Drake's "Views" as I gaze at the side of the summit of the mountain. I find myself feeling less crazy and taking more stock in the other people around me. This endeavor is a personal one, but the people around you are what keep you going and make the experience one of worth and rememberance. Like that guy from "Into the Wild" said, happiness is only real when shared.