The Unlikely Mountaineer

Building Fitness from the Ground Up

The rock shifted under my boot.

It was May 2024. I was suspended on my first ever abseil, halfway down a cliff in the Southern Alps, somewhere between the Ball Glacier and Caroline Hut. I was exhausted from the previous day's hike up to the hut and already sore in places I didn't know could hurt. As I felt the rock move, my whole body froze up (even if I wasn't technically standing on it). My mind split in two: one voice screaming in panic, the other whispering logically: I'm safe, the rope will hold, the anchors are secured, everything is good... Logic was losing ground by the second.