Kiss your comfort zone goodbye !
If You Want to Climb a Mountain - Kiss Your Comfort Zone Goodbye
 
By Phillip Melchior 
 
There it all was. Little mounds of gear, spread out on the floor. First aid
kit. Thermal ‘long-johns”, several different weights of wool and synthetic
shirts and jackets. Everything in the list the guide company had sent me to
ensure external physical comfort in my bid to climb Mt Aspiring - New Zealand’s
second highest mountain and the “Matterhorn of the South.”
 
Nick Cradock, the man I was paying to minimize my stupidity and maximize my
chances of getting up and down in one piece, was demonstrating the ruthlessness
you should expect from a professional guide.
 
 
 About thirty per cent of everything on the floor, went into the “not
 wanted on climb” pile. There was no room for fripperies. If you could
 exist for five days with one pair of knickers, then two pairs was a
 luxury. Yes, I could hang on to the toothbrush if I really felt strongly
 about it.
 
 There was nothing in the pile labelled “comfort zone”. In retrospect, I
 realized that if there had been, it would have been picked up, examined
 with a quiet smirk, and tossed into the discard pile.
 I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but pretty well the moment I
 stepped out the door, my comfort zone was definitely being kissed goodbye.
 In the next 24 hours, I was going to feel the sort of fear I had never
 felt before.

 
Climbing Mt Aspiring had been a 10-year ambition. On a clear day, it dominated
the view from my home in Wanaka, and I had come to regard it as a sort of rite
of passage into my mid-fifties – the middle-aged version of playing “chicken”.
 
Six months previously I had walked into the Wanaka office of Mt Aspiring Guides
and expressed an interest, insuring against rejection by saying “of course, at
53, I might be a bit old to be starting something like this”. It was not until
I had left, with enthusiastic encouragement ringing in my ears, that I realised
my question had been a bit like going into an upmarket menswear store, trying on
the most expensive suit on the rack, and asking “do I look too old for this?”
What’s the sales-assistant going to say? “This is ridiculous for a man of your
age, look in the zimmer-frame rack.” Give me a break, they’re going to say “Sir,
looks fantastic” and save the laughter until you’ve paid the bill. So there I
was. Financially and mentally committed to going somewhere I had never been
before, with six months to get ready for it.
 
Half a year later, extraneous gear discarded by Nick, 10 kilos of unrequired
body-fat discarded by a combination of training and giving up good things like
wine, fish and chips, chocolate and cheese – I’m getting out of a helicopter on
the edge of the Bonar Glacier which girds the eastern rump of Mt Aspiring.
 
There we are. Draped in climbing exotica – a harness that goes round the waist
and between the legs, crampons, steel karabiner clips, ice axes, rope, snow
stakes. The sort of kit that gives you a sense of professional security without
realizing the implications.
 
Ahead is the mountain. A snow-clad spike rising from the white smoothness of the
glacier. Big, but non-threatening, its steepness disguised by distance. On the
lower reaches of its north-west ridge, the red dot of the hut in which we will
stay the night. “We’ll leave get up at 0300 for a 0400 kick-off”, says Nick.
“Get a good rest”.
 
Ho-ho. I sleep like the proverbial baby from 10 to midnight, and lie in my
sleeping bag, fighting the inevitable distended bladder and, in my mind,
climbing the ridge to the distant peak. When the wrist-watch alarm goes “beep
beep” at 0300, I’m already wide-awake and getting dressed.
 
After porridge and gear checks, we’re out the door at a little after 0400.
Dressed to the nines in gore-tex and pure merino, plastic boots and steel
crampons, torches strapped to our heads like Welsh miners, stepping out across
the glacier, gradually climbing the contours to the bottom of The Ramp.
 
 The Ramp. All I know about it is that it’s a quicker way to the top than
 simply following the ridge from the hut, and that every hut within
 kilometres of Mt Aspiring has a notice that says 
 
 As dawn begins to make its presence felt, we stop at the foot of The Ramp.
 Checking crampon straps, checking ropes. “Wait here – don’t move. Wait
 till I call”, says Nick, as he begins to climb what now looks like a near
 vertical cliff.
 Minutes later I get the call and set out on the first “pitch”.
 
 
Kick – crampon toe-points into the hard snow. Smack – ice axe dug in. Crunch -
next foot hard into the snow a half a meter above the first. The pattern
repeats, and as the first glimmers of visibility come with the dawn, I look down
between my legs and realize how steep the slope is; how far I would fall if
something went wrong; and most of all, how scared I am.
 
Immediately, my heart begins to race and my breath shortens. The concentration
is immense. Don’t even think about the view. Certainly don’t think about taking
photos. Think only about kicking the crampons in, securing each upward step with
the ice-axe, getting to the security of the top of the rope, where Nick has you
tied down. Pitch after pitch – as the fear declines, so does the strength. Each
time you look up, the top becomes illusory, The Ramp face just seems to go on
and on.
 
Finally, you heave yourself up onto the flattish surface of the Col. With the
wind buffeting, Nick leads the way to a spot on the far side of the ridge. It
requires digging a seat in the snow and roping yourself to an ice-axe dug in to
the hilt, but at least it’s out of the wind. After weeks of doing without, I can
swallow the chocolate - but the cheese and salami brings on waves of nausea.
 
Closely roped, we move on up the ridge. Fifty steps, and pause. Fifty steps, and
pause. When I drink from the tube clipped to my pack strap, I feel nauseous. Is
it fatigue? Is it altitude? Is it fear? Who cares. All I know is that I must
continue to put one foot in front of the other, and that each plant of the
cramponed-boot must be secure and firm. “Climbing is all about confronting
pain”, says Nick in a “didn’t you know that when you signed up” tone.
 
Nick calls a break. So suddenly, I bang my forehead on the back of his pack. 
Breathing heavily, I realise that the surrounding view is superb, that the
buffeting, balance-threatening wind has stopped, and that, joy of joy, that
looks like the summit just up the last stretch of ridge.
 
Nick confirms what otherwise might have been a mirage. “About half an hour to
the top”, he says. Fear, altitude, fatigue – whatever. They disappear. It’s
probably the easiest 30 minutes of the trip.
 
Suddenly we’re there, and it’s a real summit. A tiny, flat top, sloping away on
either side, and with a top-of-the-world view in every direction, not a cloud to
be seen and not a breath of wind. To hell with climbing being all about pain,
right now, it’s all about the exhilaration of realizing your ambition.
 

The mandatory “I’m on top” photos (later I wonder why I looked so fresh), and we
head down.
 
All the books tell you that going down is the dangerous bit. Your brain tells
you you’ve done the hard yards, when you haven’t. The snow is softer and less
secure. And worst of all, for the first time you can see - with alarming clarity
- just how far there is to fall.
 
Imagine taking an ordinary flight of stairs, making it 30 per cent steeper,
laying a plank down it, and walking down the plank with your feet sloped
forwards, the weight on your toes. Then imagine that the plank goes straight
down for a couple of kilometers before the next flat bit. The pulse rate zooms
back to 150, and I try and obey to the letter Nick’s “make every footfall count”
instruction.
 
Slowly, the Bonar Glacier gets closer. Slowly, the experience gained with each
downward step brings confidence. When it comes time to go backwards down The
Ramp, stretched tight at the end of a rope, the confidence of believing your
guide and your equipment are both wholly secure, becomes positively
exhilarating.
 
A couple of hours of wading through deep and rapidly softening snow, and we’re
back at the hut – just about 11 hours after we set out. Time to relax. Time to
lie on a rock and soak in the soothing warmth. Time to begin the mental healing
process of obliterating the extremities of fear and exhaustion, and burnishing
the good bits of the tale you have to tell.
 
 Would I do it again? Don’t be stupid!
 
 Well … ask me again in a couple of months!