The Tiger, the Wolf and the Mountain

I returned to my home today circa 5 pm after an absence of about 72 hours, in a rented car driven by a young Australian whose existence I had no knowledge of until two days ago.

It was, I believe, a direct result of severe mental aberrations, brought on by the onset of numerous application forms for various scholarships. In fact, as far as I know, very little could ever induce me to go voluntarily for physical exertion, far away from the comforts of home.

But all it actually took was a couple of phone calls from Wolf and I had rashly agreed to go to climb Mt. K. What is more, only the two of us were climbing, not counting the guide.

I’m still wondering how I managed to convince myself to go.

Anyway, I’ll arrange my thoughts in chronological order, so as to avoid confusing myself when I read this in future.

Tuesday morning, about 11 am: I arrived at Wolf’s house, bearing a haversack stuffed with various articles of warm clothing and other mountain-climbing gear suggested by my brother (who has climbed Mt. K twice), plus a large plastic bag filled with instant noodles, digestive biscuits, and Russian chocolates. Wolf had packed two medium-sized bags full of clothes, clothes, and more clothes.

His mom sent us to the bus depot, found us a bus to the National Park, paid for our fares, and sent us off with plenty of good, sound advice that I paid not a bit of attention to.

Upon arrival (around two), we got a cheap little room as far as possible from all human contact, moved in, cooked some instant noodles and ate them, and went hiking on a few of the trails available throughout the place.

We went on the Cavity trail first, and found it to be of little or no challenge to Wolf. (He’s fit, and was bounding up and down the dirt path with endless energy. I’m not fit, and was wheezing for breath after the first two steps.) So I allowed myself to be persuaded once again into attempting the BT trail, upon which the two of us got lost, thanks mostly to the faulty map that the reception had given us.

Dinner was at a cheap little restaurant across the road from the Park; the Park’s own restaurants turned out to be quite ruinous to our budget.

While returning to our little ‘home’, we found the night sky to be very starry indeed; a sight that one rarely ever gets in good old KK. I admit that the sight of thousands of stars in the sky all around me was quite awe-inspiring, and Wolf apparently felt the same; when we got back, we simply lay down on our backs on the asphalt and admired the scene. It was a pity that Wolf’s camera couldn’t capture the sight.

When we finally decided to go to bed, we were interrupted by a distraught white female, excitedly chattering about her boyfriend having been bitten by a ‘centerpiece’. I was wondering just what kind of decorations had been going on when I deciphered her accent; he had suffered a centipede bite. (It turned out to be non-fatal.)

Wednesday morning, roughly 6.19 am: We woke up, washed up, and were quite excited about the prospect of climbing 3092.2 meters upward and 8.5 kilometers forward to the summit. Breakfast was at the same little restaurant as the day before. Wolf found that the hiking of the day before had somewhat over-strained his left knee, which he thought would cause him pain during the descent.

We checked out of the room, stuffed our extra luggage (mostly comprising laundry and instant noodles) into a couple of (FOC) safe deposit boxes, and went to meet our guide. He was about 5 feet tall and will be called Pit.

There’s not much to be said for the rest of this day, apart from that we began climbing at eight and finished at eleven. The day’s climbing was mostly characterized by Pit and Wolf climbing up thirty or so steps with the agility of mountain goats, while I stared helplessly at them. When I attempted to do the same, I only managed about ten steps before running out of breath, energy, and motivation. Fortunately both Wolf and I had rented walking sticks (3 bucks!) which helped take some weight off my fatty thighs.

Oh, and one anecdote: I’m sure I must’ve looked quite piteous, especially as I attracted quite a lot of sympathetic comments from other climbers who were coming down the mountain and crossed my path. I would like to have seen my face at that time!

We got to Flat Eight at one, had lunch there, and realized just how inflated the prices of tourist spots are. Every meal there cost us ten bucks apiece! We also got a room, which eventually was shared with the aforementioned Australian, a German, and what I think was a Chinese.

We tried to get a little sleep before dinner but were thwarted by the noise generated by the gaggle of giggling white females next door; so we had to make do with covering our faces in the blankets and trying unsuccessfully to block out the noise.

We slept at eight; partly from exhaustion, and partly because we knew that the next day would be difficult.

Thursday morning, circa 1.45 am: We woke up, went down for an exorbitantly pricey breakfast, and began our final assault on the summit. By this time my money had run out and I was depending on Wolf to cover all my expenses.

We put on all the clean clothing we still had, pulled on head gear (Wolf had a Russian faux fur cap, and I had a terrorist-style mask), and we set out.

The night was bitterly cold, pitch-dark, and apparently full of unseen rocks just waiting for a chance to give someone a sprain. The flashlights of about thirty other climbers helped, as well as the sticks, but I almost sprained my ankles several times anyway.

We arrived at the summit one hour before sunrise, sat there with chattering teeth (as in shivering, not as in conversing), and waited.

And we waited, and we waited. We watched the long line of flashlights below us gradually wend their way up to us (we were by now quite crowded), and still we waited. Finally, just as it seemed that the sun had finally burnt itself out and would never rise again, it defied all thoughts of apocalypse and rose.

The views were spectacular, awesome, beautiful, majestic…everything one could think a view of the sunrise from a mountaintop could be. And just to show how high we were, I was actually looking down on the cloud layer, which was at least fifty meters below my foot.

I think I sat there, just drinking in the sheer beauty of it all, for about half-an-hour. (Before that I had been admiring the stars and wondering if I would see a shooting star,) I was eventually brought back to reality and the sordidness of daily living when I realized that I had to descend. And that’s when Wolf’s knee gave out on him, thus proving his prophecy right.

So today turned out something like yesterday, but in reverse; I went on ahead, every now and then looking back to make sure that Wolf was still fine. For added stability, I let him have my stick.

So he came down the mountain, slowly and painfully, attracting as much public sympathy as I had the previous day, and pretty much moaning to himself about being a future Paralympic contender. I tried to distract him a bit, but failed miserably. I’m not a very sunny person at the best of times, and when I’m tired I can get rather irritable.

And to cut a long, tedious, boring story short, we both arrived at the Park at 2, blistered on the feet, cramped in the calves, tired in the thighs, worried as to the wallet, and pretty much (to use a colloquial phrase) beat.

We settled all our remaining business, purchased some water (our water had finished somewhere between the third and second kilometers), and found to our delight that the Australian was going our way and willing to take on a couple of passengers. Of course there was a nominal fee; I and Wolf kept him entertained all the way back to KK with a debate on Asian/ Australian culture, the benefits of Communism, and a discussion of Phonetics and Accounting. (The Australian is a managerial accountant.)

So now I’m back in my house, typing in the comfort of home, with a horrific headache that I think originated from my forcing of myself to go on. You know: like when the body absolutely refuses to go on, but you push yourself forward through sheer willpower; something that I was doing for hours and hours yesterday. I was so spent by the time I got to the summit that I was chanting ‘Ipso scientia potestas est’. That’s Latin for ‘Knowledge is power’, but I was only repeating it to keep my mind off my bodily woes.

So that’s it; my narrative of the Climb to Mt. Killer, or what Wolf called an Endless Series of Unfortunate Events.

And now for a little list of regrets.

1. I wish I’d brought more money. It’s horrible to need something and not be able to get it.
2. I wish I’d brought less food. The weight was killing me, and I didn’t eat even half of what I brought up.
3. I wish I’d worked out since the beginning of secondary school. You have no idea what it’s like to know that if it weren’t for you, the other climbers would be having the time of their life instead of always being slowed down by you.
4. I wish I’d kept my eyes more open to the beauty around me (if only I’d had the brains to see it) and more closed to my own pitiful pains.
5. I wish I’d thought before going, and that I’d been more prepared.