A Near-Death Experience Taught Me 3 Valuable Lessons
Climbing a mountain in bad weather isn’t the best idea
Last year, two friends and I set out on a road trip to climb the highest point in each European country. It was a crazy trip and one that was full of ups and downs.
While I didn’t climb all of the high points, my friend Adam did and managed to set a world record in the process. However, the trip very nearly finished before it even started when we encountered bad weather on the first mountain in Ireland.
The warning signs were there in the morning when it started raining heavily. Then we got lost trying to find the car park for the start of the climb. Carrauntoohil, the mountain in question, isn’t the easiest place to find even with GPS!
These setbacks meant that by the time we got to the car park, it was already midday. Not the ideal time to start a climb up a mountain and get back before dark in April. Looking back, we should have called it off and gone the next day, but we decided to go for it.
This idea wasn’t our brightest.
The first few hours of the climb were sedate, with the hike taking you along a gravel path for about an hour and a half. After that, things started to get a bit more challenging. We reached a section of the climb known as the Devil’s Ladder.
This is a steep scramble straight up to the top of the ridge on some unstable rocks. It was the most challenging part of the climb, but it wasn’t difficult. The challenges involved putting your feet in the right place and navigating the snow that became more frequent the higher you got up.
The snow was an indication of what we were in store for.
Looking back from the Devil’s Ladder.
Once we had navigated the ladder, we were on the ridge, and the climb to the summit was a thirty-minute slog through a lot of snow. By this time, it was close to 3 pm, and we could see that the sky to our left had a lot of ominously dark clouds.
After what felt like an eternity, we reached the summit. We were welcomed by the biggest cross that I have ever seen. It towered above us and made me wonder how they had managed to haul it up the mountain to the summit.
As we were attempting to break a world record, we needed to document our trip to the summit. That required photographic and video evidence, as well as GPS tracking, which was recorded by a device we had bought a few days before.
It was during this process that we noticed the weather start to turn. From the calm that had preceded us when we got to the top, a blizzard had taken its place. A few minutes before, we could see the path back down; now, we were lucky to see a few meters in front of us. We were in the middle of a whiteout.
This was a big problem as the summit is atop a steep ridge. If we walked down and took the wrong path, we could easily walk off the side of the ridge and fall to certain death. The other option of staying at the summit until the weather was passed wasn’t much better.
It was freezing. The lack of movement would cause hypothermia to set in, and if things didn’t improve, we could freeze to death atop the summit. We were caught between a rock and a hard place.
The irony was that we spent a weekend in Scotland on a mountaineering course before we started this trip. The situation we found ourselves in was something that our instructor had warned us about. Despite taking his warnings seriously, he had ended up in the same scenario.
All of us were clear that we had to get down the mountain somehow, but this was difficult when we could barely see in front of us. Thankfully, the GPS device we had bought in Dublin saved our skins. We could use it to navigate our way down the slope and identify the waymarkers that marked the trail down.
We bought the device to track our hikes up and down the mountains, none of us thought we’d be using it to save our lives and get us out of a sticky situation. It even had an SOS button which, when things were looking especially bleak, I suggested we press. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, but I don’t think I’d be here today without that device.
The summit was visible before the weather, took a turn for the worse.
Once we got back down the ridge and started descending the Devil’s Ladder, we realized how lucky we were. Looking up, all you could see were black clouds; the summit wasn’t visible, nor was the majority of the mountain.
It wasn’t the best start to our trip, but it taught us the need to plan better and start your climbs as early as you can. The experience also taught me a few valuable lessons about life that I won’t forget in a hurry.
Learn from your mistakes
We knew it wasn’t the best idea to hike up the mountain at midday. However, we thought it was a risk worth taking. After all, Carauntoohill is only 1,038.6 meters (3,407 feet 6 inches) high. We thought we’d be up and down without any problems.
Well, we were wrong. Not getting up early was a big mistake, which compounded as the day went on. Thankfully, we avoided disaster and made it back down to tell the tale.
We all make mistakes. It’s a given. As no human is perfect, failure is a certainty. What’s important is not avoiding mistakes or failure but how you react when you make them. Do you ignore what happened, or do you heed the lessons?
Failure is a dirty word, but it shouldn’t be. It’s how we learn, how we grow, how we improve. Without failures and mistakes, we wouldn’t have the feedback to become better and improve. Instead of trying to avoid mistakes, we should embrace them.
We learned the lessons of this climb and applied them to future ones. Some climbs had their hiccups, but none of them went as bad as this one. Sometimes, failure is the greatest teacher.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
I don’t remember where I first heard this phrase, but it’s a truth of life. If you don’t prepare, you’re doomed to fail. We had put some preparation in, but it was minimal.
If you had an important exam you were going to sit in a month, you have two choices. You could either spend that month studying so you’re prepared for what comes, or you could leave it until the last minute and the spend the week before panicking about whether you’ll pass or not.
Nine times out of ten, the person who prioritized their studies would come away with better grades than those who left things until the last minute.
No matter what you do in life, your chances of success are increased if you prepare beforehand. Very few of us can get through life without planning ahead.
Whether it’s an exam, an important speech, or a seemingly easy climb up a mountain, if you don’t prepare, you’re making life harder than it needs to be. The time spent preparing may feel tedious and boring, but it’s worth it when the preparation pays off, and things go smoothly.
Keep a clear head
The immediate feeling when we reached the summit was one of relief. I was just glad we had got to the top after a long slog. I was looking forward to getting back down, eating a decent meal, and having a shower.
Those thoughts changed about 60 seconds later when a blizzard whipped in, and we couldn’t see anything but white in front of us. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I don’t remember fearing for my life before, except for when I’ve had panic attacks, but this felt more visceral, more real. I knew my life was in danger.
In scenarios such as this, it’s natural to panic. The problem is, panicking doesn’t help solve the problem. Sometimes, it makes it worse. Keeping a clear head in such situations, and life, in general, is important.
We can rush into decisions, act on impulse, or become overwhelmed by fear. While these emotions have their uses, they can be detrimental if you rely on them too much. The ability to think clearly is one that’s underrated.
Whenever you’re faced with difficult choices and over comfortable situations, it’s important to ground yourself. To identify the best way out of trouble and how to get there. This will resolve the situation quicker than relying on raw emotions, which can often cloud your judgment.
We were all worried at the top, but we ran through the scenarios and worked out the best course of action. Your brain is the most powerful tool you possess. If you can keep a cool head when things get tough, you’ll find you can thrive in almost any situation.
PS: If you liked this, please consider heading over to Medium and give it 50 claps! You can do that here. Thanks!