Breathless

by Michael Besley (Australia)

I didn't expect to find Malaysia

Exhausted. Five steps forward, rest again. Drink water. Stare at my boots. Continue on. Underestimation is a wildly dangerous practice. Whilst, at times, it leads to pleasant surprises and unexpected discoveries, it can also bring with it sore muscles and bruised ego. I know my physical limitations and where they lie. For years I worked in the outdoors, leading groups into the Australian wilderness for days at a time, reaching the other side unscathed and rapturous for the experience. Discovering my physical limitations and embracing them is not foreign to me. At 2 o’clock on a cool Malaysian morning, I gingerly walked out the door of my Laban Rata guesthouse. I was ready to start my ascent of the highest peak in Borneo, Mount Kinabalu. I joined the queue. Hundreds of other climbers were making the same journey. In the brief moments that I took to look up, I could see a procession of lights- the headlamps of other hikers ahead of me as they snaked their way toward the 4095-metre summit. An eerily beautiful trail marker, revealing where your path would lead. It was the kind of scene that if you attempted to capture it in a photograph, it would do it no justice, no matter how valiantly you tried. The climbers around me seemed fitter, more focused. Their pace deliberate, their breathing assured. In comparison, I laboured. An elderly Japanese fellow trudged along nearby. We had become accidental hiking partners of sorts. I would overtake, leaving him in my slow, heaving wake and he would return the favour whenever I paused to catch my breath- usually as I grasped at nearby rocks, urging my body to find the energy stores it so desperately needed. Except he wouldn’t stop. He never stopped. He strode ever forward. One paced. Determined. Smarter. Still in darkness, the climb requires you to follow a rope up what feels like an endless slab of rock, full of false summits and limited oxygen supply. I followed the rope highway blindly upwards. The higher I got, the deeper I breathed, searching for the oxygen that would help propel me up the rockface. In the gloom, people were already starting to descend back past me, having summited in the dim of early morning. I was both jealous and awestruck of these super humans, yet I questioned the point of summiting a mountain without being able to behold the view. I assumed it would be like taking a joy flight blindfolded or smelling plastic flowers. Onwards I trudged. Step by step. My legs felt unbearably heavy, lactic acid building up to bursting point in my muscles. Rest stops became more frequent, my breathing deeper still. My Japanese companion overtook me one last time. I watched as he shuffled away, getting more and more distant, putting an unassailable gap between himself and me. Never looking back, only moving forward. One paced. Determined. Smarter. I knew I would never see him again. I had reached my limit. I walked to the highest point I could manage and sat. I could see the summit and my fellow hikers reaching its peak. I imagined the elderly Japanese man being there with a feeling of satisfaction that I would never know, a smile of contentment on his face. Turning, I looked out over the valley below. It would be warmer down there, the wind not as strong. On the horizon the sun was beginning to poke its head out, greeting us for the day. The bright light danced off the clouds, putting on an early morning show that everyone of us had climbed up to witness. My disappointment disappeared, melting away down the mountainside. I stopped thinking of it as failure and more as accomplishment. The physical toll and the mental strain on my body was surpassed in an instant as I felt the first bursts of light hit my face. I revelled in the moment as long as I dared before turning my back, smile on my face and returned to the rope. Now, descent.