Mercy on the Mountain

by Kylie Dal Bello (Australia)

A leap into the unknown Nepal

‘We’re nearly there!’ Hannah cried. I looked up at the final stretch where she stood, hunched over her trekking poles. Six hours earlier we had been complete strangers, bonding over the same extreme breathing issues at high altitude. Now we were about to reach one of the highest mountain passes in the world together, Thorong La. I heaved my body forward, willing my mind to concentrate on the crunching snow beneath my boots, anything to take the attention off my breathlessness. ’We did it!’ I cried, as we took our final steps. I stopped to soak in the breathtaking sea of white. To the left a tiny tea shop welcomed in weary trekkers. Straight ahead the congratulations sign I'd seen in so many pictures, stood draped in hundreds of Tibetan prayer flags. Hannah and I looked at each other, smiled and ran to collapse beneath it. Nothing could touch this feeling. ‘I know we just got here but I think we should start heading down soon’ I said. ‘Me too’ Hannah replied. ‘Let’s get a quick photo and get out of here’. We both knew the danger of being on the mountain too late. The area was known for avalanches and bad weather. We snapped our victory shot, grabbed our packs and began the slow descent into the unknown. ‘It’s nice to finally be going downhill’ Hannah said. ‘It really is’ I replied. Adrenaline was still coursing through me, but I knew I had to focus if we were to make it safely to the next village 1,600 metres below. An hour into the descent, cold drops started to hit my face. I looked up and my heart sank. Dark clouds were sweeping across the sky and the drops were falling thicker and faster. The well-trodden track we had been following was beginning to disappear under a fresh blanket of snow. ‘How are we supposed to know which way to go now? Aren’t there meant to be signs?’ I asked, my eyes scanning frantically for a colour other than white. ‘See that black pole sticking up out of the snow? I think that’s a marker’ Hannah replied. I followed her towards it, noticing another one a bit further along, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. Were we out here all alone? No people, no signal, no checkpoint, no shelter. What if one of us got hurt? What if we got lost? Would we die of hypothermia? Suddenly Hannah slipped and fell hard into a sloshy puddle of snow, snapping me immediately out of my spiralling thoughts. As I went to help her, I noticed the fall had also broken one of her trekking poles. We both looked up at the harrowing challenge in front of us; a narrow, icy ledge that If we were to continue on, had to be traversed. I watched silently as she gathered her composure and started to shuffle sideways along it, leaning rigidly over her remaining pole the whole way. I followed closely behind, fighting myself not to look down and thankful for every step that got us closer to the other side. Some unexplainable part of me trusted that we were going to be ok, and for the next four hours we trekked silently through a blinding snowstorm. It felt like a lucid dream, as if we were moving in slow motion, one deliberate step at a time. As soon as we came across the first bit of rocky ground, the snow slowed then stopped. I dropped to my knees and let my head touch the ground, overwhelmingly grateful to be alive.  That night as I lay in bed staring into the darkness, for the first time I wasn’t afraid of it. I marvelled at its contrast to my blindingly white day. My thoughts shifted to Hannah, to how she’d led me through the most exhilarating and terrifying day of my life, how perfect the timing had been for us even to have met. Something nudged me to pick up my phone to find out what her name meant.   Hannah (Hebrew origin) meaning favour, mercy, grace of God. I smiled as I drifted off to sleep.