Lemosho Track - Last day!

The last day. Today was an emotional day, after waking for the best sleep of most people’s lives, we ate breakfast together and shared stories of the day before, mostly starting with how bloody long and hard the climb was! From there we had a celebration with the team, again with more songs, speeches, massive thanks to both us and from us to the team and it was the perfect way to end the trip before we began the last hike. The sun was splitting the sky and for the first time in days we were warm enough to enjoy it.
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The last 10km today was a tough one as well. The terrain was actually not nearly as bad as usual, but everyone’s knees were goosed from the day before and the ground was slippery making us walk even slower. I have never been happier than when after 3.5 hours we arrived at the gate and knew it was home time. 

The hike...afterthought. I was so goddam nervous to do this hike, so nervous. I trained hard, I refused point blank to fail as after a few years ago when I hiked mount Taranaki with Leo and nearly gave up, cried a lot and just hated every second. This time round I refused to let this happen.

I was still nervous as f. It's crazy that over the 7 days as much as you are surrounded by people all the time, how much free time you have inside your own head. That's why I say this hike is mentally challenging. As you climb there are long periods of time where you feel pretty alone and as much as the team surrounding you are so supportive, you still have your doubts every so often.

I found my struggle to stay positive pretty challenging. I found my anxiety heightened in parts, mostly when we first woke up as I was nervous about how the day would go and the most nervous, I got was each day measuring my vitals. I knew they would be fine, I felt fine and we all laughed about as it would go round the table, "haha, your about to die" , "haha, time to turn around" , "dead in 20" , it was actually hilarious but each and every time the monitor attached to my finger I would start to sweat and the feeling of doubt, dread and sickness returned. It sounds crazy right? But if you have any sort of anxiety then you will totally relate to being singled out if something went wrong. Overall, I find this hike actually helped. It taught me resilience, resistance and self-belief. The overwhelming feeling of sheer pride in the last hour to reach the summit was a way to kick at least some of my anxiety and the sentence "you can do this" never left my brain.

Overall, this was by far one of the best experiences of my life. I have tried to be as honest as possible throughout as it was bloody difficult. The struggle was real, and this hike is not for the faint hearted. You must be mentally strong and at least at some level of fitness to do this hike for sure, but overall, it’s the team and company you are with that helps the most. I couldn’t have done this without Leo, truly, each day he was there to make sure I was ok and vice versa. The other team members were just the best of people and together we supported each other up the mountain. Lastly, I have to say thank you so much to the team at Monkey adventures as without them, this would have stayed a dream of ours, yet they made it a reality.

Is this challenge for you? Please message me with any questions you have! 
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ONE TEAM, ONE DREAM!