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When I closed the jeep door at the entrance of the Annapurna range, I never thought about my feet carrying me the remaining 4130 meters to base camp. I awakened full of positivity, having met a group of Spanish walkers and their inspirational guide, we decided to depart on the challenge together. After hours of constant climbing, the epic reality of what I’d started was dawning on me like our 6am wake up call. Then it came. The winds blew around me until the skies unleashed a relentless storm. We continued to press on until we had to seek asylum from the bitter cold that had infected our bodies like a disease. I prayed that the conditions would calm before my blistered ankles carried me onto the penultimate day of our ascent. It didn’t take long for the heavens to open once more as we creeped further through the beautiful range towards the 10th highest (and deadliest) peak in the world. The heaters under our lunch table blinked to a miserable death and a thundering crash from outside sprung us to our feet simultaneously. Our guides gave each other a look of familiar terror, landslide. The bridge that we had crossed minutes before was swept away effortlessly and my mind raced to dark places. Soon the question arose among the group, do we continue towards base camp or turn back and say goodbye to reaching our summit forever? Despite the enormous risk I was determined to beat this mountain. I heard it before I could see it. The rapid raged its way through our path and any form of crossing had been carried away by the deep and deadly water. Before I could process what we were about to do, our guides were entering the suicidal river. They built a crossing by strategically moving boulders into place but the jump between the rocks was still huge and I tried to avert any thoughts of slipping into the frozen cascade. One by one trekkers five reached safe ground and it was my turn. The leaps of faith I made were completely powered by adrenaline and trust in my guide. The death rate of Annapurna is 35% in comparison to Everest’s 3%. The decision I made that day could have cost me my life but I was soon rewarded with something that made every pain staking footstep worth it. For the first time since leaving civilisation, the clouds revealed the soaring summit of Annapurna 1, standing at 8,091 metres. Uncontrollable sobs of joy escaped me. Annapurna drove me to the edge but it gave me a reason to never stop chasing my wild dreams around this beautiful globe.