Last week I did something incredibly stupid: I climbed a mountain while sick.
It’s just a head cold, I thought, I hate canceling plans so we should just go. I should have canceled the damn plans.
When Solen and I climbed Wedgemount last year, we clocked in at an astonishing 2.5h ascend. That, being my first real hike ever, whilst wearing Jordan Air Forces (certainly not a hiking shoe), gave me this inflated idea that I can climb whatever, whenever.
But this year has been a spotty health year for me. Between the hormonal issues and getting Covid twice before spring even hit, I’m not in the best place in terms of vitality and resilience. Last week while temperatures were climbing and people were out enjoying summer, I got a cold.
And for some reason, I thought a cold was localized to one’s head and throat. I forgot that when you contract any kind of infectious disease, it’s a whole body ordeal. That became evident within the first 20 minutes of the hike where I got dizzy and light headed, and felt like I needed to barf every 5 steps.
The smart thing would have been to turn around, the stubborn thing was to hork down some energy chew and keep going. I went with the latter despite Solen and Qatar both saying it’s quite all right if we turn back.
I suppose it was some kind of miracle we even made it up to the peak. Our time was almost double that of the last trip. I was sweating and huffing but Qatar went all the way up in a hoodie yet remained sweat free somehow simply because she didn’t like sunscreen.
It was nice up there, with an icy lake that’s a color that looks AI generated. We basked in the sun and Solen went for a 20 second swim. The water was cold, mind you, there were still floating bits of glacier just off in the distance.
I love alpine terrain. I love the stupid little pink flowers atop the mountain, and I love this lake. The price I paid for it was an extended bout of illness that took me out for two more days after this excursion. Do I feel more fit? Not at the present moment. I’m still coughing up remnants of phlegm sporadically. No matter how much I’m willing my body to comply, it doesn’t seem to want to budge.
But despite this having been the plague year thus far, I do want to climb more mountains, touch surreal lakes and get healthy. But first, I have to learn a hard lesson — canceling plans is OK.