Step by step

“Step by step and you will get there.”

Words we often hear as a child and even now, as adults. When we were learning how to walk, our parents or if there was any adult looking, they would be on standby or on guard, waiting to catch us in case we fall. Each of us started our lives by taking those baby steps.

When we walk, we have a target route or a destination to go to or a goal to achieve. Each step that we take, gets us to where we want to go to. If we do not take those steps, we would stay put at where we are.

When climbing a hill or a mountain, step by step takes an almost a literal sense. Every step forward brings us closer to the peak or to wherever it is that we are hoping to get to but whether or not we reach there, takes a little more than just step by step. It takes courage, discipline, perseverance, patience and motivation. It takes stamina too, lots of it.

I once climbed a mountain with a group of friends. We were divided into groups of five and there were about twenty of us. We made it a point to remind each group that nobody was ahead of anybody and that we were as fast as our slowest member, that was to say that we do not leave anyone behind.

The climb was divided into two main parts. The first part started from morning until late afternoon through the forest trail while the second part of the climb started at two in the morning until sunrise through the rocks of the mountain.

The earlier part of the climb was fairly easy. It started at around nine in the morning and it was quite a relaxing walk and hike inside the forest trail, passing by little rivers and man made bridges.

Then it came to a point that it was climbing steps, going upwards toward the mountain. The steps were of different height, some higher than another and it came to a point that it started to be quite a difficult climb because the air was thinning but still manageable.

We took our time, trekking slowly and rested whenever any of us felt like they needed to take a breather. We would stop to have some snack to regain our energy and we enjoyed the scenery as we climbed up.

Although tiring, it was fun in many ways. Birds could be heard chirping, crickets making its crickety sounds and sometimes, it was only silence except for the sounds of our footsteps. We could see how the plants changed from green thick forests to pine trees as we went up further.

After a six-hour climb, we reached our first pit stop, which was a rest and lodging house. It was just a simple lodging area managed by the locals there. The weather was nice and cooling as breeze caught up to us towards the end of the climb.

We stayed there for the rest of the day, enjoying the beautiful view there and mentally tried to prepare for our next climb up to the peak at two in the morning the next day. We were pretty much in the middle of the clouds and they were so close that we could almost touch them if only we could fly. The rest of the groups arrived almost the same time.

We had our lunch and dinner, slept for a bit and a quick supper before moving out for the next part of the climb in pitch darkness, apart from our headlamps and a cold weather. It was much harder than expected because the air was really thin.

During the first half hour towards the peak, there were still man-made wooden stairs made out of the roots of the trees there, that we stepped on to climb but in no time, it came to the rocks and boulders where only a rope guided us along the way up. We had a local guide for each group and they made sure each of us was climbing safely.

But after an hour, some of us started to become dizzy as Oxygen level was low. We huffed and puffed more with each step of the way and for myself, I had to stop to catch my breath every few steps. It was really hard to breathe up there and it took a lot of effort just to walk a few steps. Plus, we were in our full winter climbing gear because it was so cold up there.

We pushed and motivated each other to keep walking and not give up. Quite frankly, some of us had wanted to give up, lie down on the rocks and stop walking.

Step by step and we’ll get there but it was so hard. But we pushed on and forward. We kept going. Some of the those who had much better stamina and resilience managed to go up and down within two hours. My team had been climbing for four hours and we were almost there. We wanted to catch the sunrise but we missed it by half an hour.

But the moment we reached the peak, the feeling was amazing. It didn’t matter that we missed the sunrise. The view up there was breathtaking and spectacular. No words could describe the joy we had, after going through the challenging climb. Step by step, we got there.

But after that, we realized that we had to go down. Step by step, we would get there too and we did.