That being said, I have been keeping this blog (mostly) up to date since January, so I shall give it my best.
I'm not sure I really knew what I was signing up for when Katie convinced me to do this. It was perhaps a little naive, having had no real trekking experience before, and no real fitness to speak of. But I believe the wording in the literature said that it was 'tough' but do-able if you had a healthy lifestyle and trained regularly for 3 months beforehand. And I figured, well, I can do that right? If I train for 9 months then surely I'd be fine, no stress.
I don't think I'm alone from our group of 16 in thinking that the trek was harder than any of us had imagined. I'm fairly sure that they brushed over just how difficult the terrain would be at points, and when it said 'some bouldering', I certainly underestimated what that would mean. I wrote pages and pages of notes in my book during the trip, but I will try to keep the reciting of events to a minimum.
The first day was pretty much fine. All uphill, obviously, but we started at a reasonable hour after a good breakfast at the hotel and a 2 hour drive to the starting point. The sun was shining, it was warm but not unbearable and we were all feeling positive about the days ahead.
I think I only really had one period of 'I can't do this' on that first day, which was my own fault for slacking on keeping myself going with food I think. I started to feel very low on energy and the refuge was still a long way in the distance. But that didn't last, and with Katie singing 'just keep swimming' at me, and the refuge eventually on the horizon, I gave myself a mental talking to and pulled it together.
I don't think I'm alone from our group of 16 in thinking that the trek was harder than any of us had imagined. I'm fairly sure that they brushed over just how difficult the terrain would be at points, and when it said 'some bouldering', I certainly underestimated what that would mean. I wrote pages and pages of notes in my book during the trip, but I will try to keep the reciting of events to a minimum.
The first day was pretty much fine. All uphill, obviously, but we started at a reasonable hour after a good breakfast at the hotel and a 2 hour drive to the starting point. The sun was shining, it was warm but not unbearable and we were all feeling positive about the days ahead.
I think I only really had one period of 'I can't do this' on that first day, which was my own fault for slacking on keeping myself going with food I think. I started to feel very low on energy and the refuge was still a long way in the distance. But that didn't last, and with Katie singing 'just keep swimming' at me, and the refuge eventually on the horizon, I gave myself a mental talking to and pulled it together.
After a decent dinner and an early night (seriously, we all went to bed at like, 9pm), I was ready to face the big challenge of the summit on day two, even if it meant a terrifyingly early 5am wake-up call.
I'm not sure I can quite find the words to explain day two. Most of us woke feeling nervous I think, and breakfast was difficult for us to stomach at such an early hour. We soon heard that two of our group, Aileen and Kirsteen, would not be coming with us due to altitude sickness and they would be leaving within the next couple of hours to get back to the village where they could hopefully recover.
Katie casually mentioned that she didn't feel so great. She spoke to our guide and medic, Gwynn, but she seemed pretty determined that she would be coming to the summit. As I was about to get booted up, I went to check on her and found her in tears. She was not in a good way, she had fainted, and she was in no state to climb a mountain.
Feelings at this point are hard to describe. I've gotten to know Katie pretty well over the last nine months, there is nothing quite like needing to raise £3100 and then climb a mountain with a person to bring you together. I'm not sure about Katie, but I hadn't really contemplated one of us not being there at the summit, and the thought of having to face the whole ordeal without my buddy was almost unbearable. Seeing her upset broke my heart, and as I left her to go get ready for the climb, I was a bit of an emotional wreck myself.
With Katie at the front of my thoughts, and the cover of my 'bible', 'keep calm and carry on', on my mind, I knew I had no choice but to do exactly that. I was not prepared for what we were to face for the next almost six hours. It was constant and unrelenting; boulders to climb over and negotiate, scree to avoid slipping on. I wasn't sure about taking them initially, but without the walking poles, I would have been lost. The higher we got, the colder it became. After a couple of hours, to my horror, I discovered that my water had frozen. (Credit for photos to Neelam and King Louie, from whom these photos are 'borrowed')
There was only one way to get through it. Focussing on putting one foot in front of the other, taking it in tiny small chunks and not thinking about the bigger picture. My heart sank at one point when someone told me that we weren't even halfway; progress was incredibly slow in those first few hours and if I ever had any doubts about my ability to reach the summit, this was when it really took hold. I called upon some of the messages from my book, one in particular, which reminded me why I was doing this and inspired me to keep going.
Eventually, just before midday, we spotted our destination through the mist and knew that within half an hour, we would be there. That gave me the boost I needed and I powered onwards, barely feeling the cold anymore at all. And then, suddenly, there it was. We'd done it. There were no views to speak of because the weather was so appalling, but we were at the top of Toubkal, no doubt about it, and it felt almost surreal. Hugs were exchanged, photos were taken (with credit to again Neelam and King Louie, from whom most of these photos were 'borrowed'):
You may notice that I look a little... blue. I have to say that I didn't actually realise just how cold I was in the end, I just seemed to stop feeling it. I was shocked when I got a good look at the photograph, which was only after pretty much the first words out of my girlfriends mouth when I eventually got to speak to her were... "you were blue!!"
Once the photos were taken and we had gathered ourselves, there was only one thing to be done. Start the descent. I won't bore you with all the details of this bit, but what I will tell you is that going down a mountain is so much harder than climbing up one. I had clearly used up the largest part of my energy getting to the summit, and as we started to walk back down I realised that my legs really didn't want to hold me up anymore. Let's just say I fell at least a dozen times. Ski slopes of scree are not my specialty, especially when my legs have decided "nope, done enough work today I'm having no more of this" and given in. I needed the support of our guides and a lovely member of our group, Kate, to make it to the refuge in one piece.
I believe that by the time we got back to the refuge we had been on the go for almost 10 hours, and the remaining part of the day was spent eating and trying to rest up for the final descent on day three.
You would think that day three would have been the easy one, but for me this wasn't the case. In one of my dozen or so falls the previous day, I had twisted my knee and it was giving me a little 'jip'. It was a long 5/6 hour walk back down that mountain and a lot of it was torture and I just kept on walking. The flat, smooth bits of the path were fine, but as you can probably imagine, when walking down a mountain those types of paths are few and far between! As I put more and more strain on my knee, it got progressively more and more painful and it was incredibly frustrating for me as I tried and pretty much failed to keep up with the majority of the group. As on the previous day, I wouldn't have got through it without the support of our wonderful guides and other members of the group who would frequently check up on me, or stop to help me step down from particularly large or tricky boulders.
Finally, finally, finally we reached the village that marked our (almost) finish line, where we stopped for lunch. It was at this point that Katie once again emerged from the guest house she had been put up in with two of the other girls, and my God was she ever a sight for sore eyes. I pretty much launched myself at her for hugs and immediately felt better for being back with my buddy. After lunch and a catch up, we walked the final half hour or so to the bus, and returned exhausted to Marrakech.
I'm not sure I can quite find the words to explain day two. Most of us woke feeling nervous I think, and breakfast was difficult for us to stomach at such an early hour. We soon heard that two of our group, Aileen and Kirsteen, would not be coming with us due to altitude sickness and they would be leaving within the next couple of hours to get back to the village where they could hopefully recover.
Katie casually mentioned that she didn't feel so great. She spoke to our guide and medic, Gwynn, but she seemed pretty determined that she would be coming to the summit. As I was about to get booted up, I went to check on her and found her in tears. She was not in a good way, she had fainted, and she was in no state to climb a mountain.
Feelings at this point are hard to describe. I've gotten to know Katie pretty well over the last nine months, there is nothing quite like needing to raise £3100 and then climb a mountain with a person to bring you together. I'm not sure about Katie, but I hadn't really contemplated one of us not being there at the summit, and the thought of having to face the whole ordeal without my buddy was almost unbearable. Seeing her upset broke my heart, and as I left her to go get ready for the climb, I was a bit of an emotional wreck myself.
With Katie at the front of my thoughts, and the cover of my 'bible', 'keep calm and carry on', on my mind, I knew I had no choice but to do exactly that. I was not prepared for what we were to face for the next almost six hours. It was constant and unrelenting; boulders to climb over and negotiate, scree to avoid slipping on. I wasn't sure about taking them initially, but without the walking poles, I would have been lost. The higher we got, the colder it became. After a couple of hours, to my horror, I discovered that my water had frozen. (Credit for photos to Neelam and King Louie, from whom these photos are 'borrowed')
There was only one way to get through it. Focussing on putting one foot in front of the other, taking it in tiny small chunks and not thinking about the bigger picture. My heart sank at one point when someone told me that we weren't even halfway; progress was incredibly slow in those first few hours and if I ever had any doubts about my ability to reach the summit, this was when it really took hold. I called upon some of the messages from my book, one in particular, which reminded me why I was doing this and inspired me to keep going.
Eventually, just before midday, we spotted our destination through the mist and knew that within half an hour, we would be there. That gave me the boost I needed and I powered onwards, barely feeling the cold anymore at all. And then, suddenly, there it was. We'd done it. There were no views to speak of because the weather was so appalling, but we were at the top of Toubkal, no doubt about it, and it felt almost surreal. Hugs were exchanged, photos were taken (with credit to again Neelam and King Louie, from whom most of these photos were 'borrowed'):
(that's me in the distance there)
(you can just see me at the back there)
You may notice that I look a little... blue. I have to say that I didn't actually realise just how cold I was in the end, I just seemed to stop feeling it. I was shocked when I got a good look at the photograph, which was only after pretty much the first words out of my girlfriends mouth when I eventually got to speak to her were... "you were blue!!"
Once the photos were taken and we had gathered ourselves, there was only one thing to be done. Start the descent. I won't bore you with all the details of this bit, but what I will tell you is that going down a mountain is so much harder than climbing up one. I had clearly used up the largest part of my energy getting to the summit, and as we started to walk back down I realised that my legs really didn't want to hold me up anymore. Let's just say I fell at least a dozen times. Ski slopes of scree are not my specialty, especially when my legs have decided "nope, done enough work today I'm having no more of this" and given in. I needed the support of our guides and a lovely member of our group, Kate, to make it to the refuge in one piece.
I believe that by the time we got back to the refuge we had been on the go for almost 10 hours, and the remaining part of the day was spent eating and trying to rest up for the final descent on day three.
You would think that day three would have been the easy one, but for me this wasn't the case. In one of my dozen or so falls the previous day, I had twisted my knee and it was giving me a little 'jip'. It was a long 5/6 hour walk back down that mountain and a lot of it was torture and I just kept on walking. The flat, smooth bits of the path were fine, but as you can probably imagine, when walking down a mountain those types of paths are few and far between! As I put more and more strain on my knee, it got progressively more and more painful and it was incredibly frustrating for me as I tried and pretty much failed to keep up with the majority of the group. As on the previous day, I wouldn't have got through it without the support of our wonderful guides and other members of the group who would frequently check up on me, or stop to help me step down from particularly large or tricky boulders.
The group we were with were amazing, and to be honest they probably deserve a blog post all of their own. But instead, I will share with you this group photo:
Even as I sit here now and recap, it does not seem real, though I'm sure it will sink in eventually. It was, without doubt, one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I definitely think we underestimated how tough it would be; we were perhaps a little naive. But we did it, and I couldn't be more proud of us.
Even as I sit here now and recap, it does not seem real, though I'm sure it will sink in eventually. It was, without doubt, one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I definitely think we underestimated how tough it would be; we were perhaps a little naive. But we did it, and I couldn't be more proud of us.
Currently, our fundraising total stands at a pretty magnificent £4710, though I have a bunch of people who wrote on our sponsor form who haven't paid up yet, so I'm hoping that we'll add a good wee amount to that yet. When you take into account Gift Aid (of which I think we raised approximately £800), then we're looking at a grand total of well over £5000 which is more than Katie and I could have ever dreamed of.
So it is done. Our amazing adventure is over and not much remains to be said other than thank you. To every single one of you. Without you we could never have raised as much money as we have for the James Hopkins Trust and we just can't thank you enough. Not only have you been incredibly generous financially, but you have indulged us in our many random and ridiculous fundraising endeavours, you have read countless entries of my blog and put up with post after post on Facebook asking you to give us money.
You are all my heroes. Thank you.
And that almost brings an end to this blog. Now our challenge is complete, there is really nothing more to be said. I have perhaps one final entry planned, and that will be that.
For now, this is half of the two blondes, signing off.
You are all my heroes. Thank you.
And that almost brings an end to this blog. Now our challenge is complete, there is really nothing more to be said. I have perhaps one final entry planned, and that will be that.
For now, this is half of the two blondes, signing off.
