Mount Doom

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Volcan Tajamulco. Central America's highest point. 4219 metres. When we went to sign up for the trek, they asked if we had been in Xela for at least two days. The answer, at the time, was no, and our guides exchanged a look. I knew they were asking about altitude sickness, so I reassured them I didn´t think it would be a problem. After all, we had been in Xela at 2000m or so for a day and a half, and the trek wouldn't leave for another day and a half, so I figured we were good. How tough could it be, if they were willing to take anybody who asked up the mountain?
Over the next 36 hours, I thought about it some more. It occurred to me that in 1990, when I trekked in the Himalayas, the highest point I reached was around 4000m. At that altitude, walking up a slight slope could only be achieved at a snail's pace. And back then I had climbed gradually over the course of five days from 2000m to 4000m. The plan here was to take a bus from Xela to about the 3000m mark, and then climb to about 4000m in 5 hours or so, set up our tents, and climb the last 200m in time for sunset.
Still, three years ago I had climbed a 1400 metre volcano, starting from a couple hundred metres, in a couple hours and with no problems. So this should be fine, right?
Our day started this morning at 4:45 in the morning with a cup of coffee before jumping in the back of a pick-up truck for a pitch black ride to the bus terminal. Then on to a chicken bus for a one hour ride to San Marcos, where we stopped for lunch, followed by another hour-long bus ride straight up, engine wheezing, to the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, but apparently at 3000m. 15 minutes to slather on sunscreen (I had learned my lesson) and have a smoke (I was about to learn my lesson) before shouldering our packs and setting off.
We had been warned the first fifteen minutes were tough (this was true), the toughest of the hike (this was a bald-faced lie). Sure enough in no time my breathing was at full gasp. You need to understand, this is normal for me. My whole life, any kind of cardio exercise has involved an immediate spike in heart-rate, breathing becoming rapidly heavier until I am completely filling and emptying my lungs up to twice per second. A gentle jog at sea-level will get me to that point in about 20 minutes. This walk got me there in 5.
My fellow trekkers, I saw, were beginning to look at me with dismay. The face of one, at least, said clearly, "Buddy, you ain't gonna make it." Vanessa, fortunately, was familiar with my exercise patterns and wasn't worried. But certainly, at the end of 15 minutes and perhaps 100m further up, at our first pause, my thighs were aching, my tee shirt was soaked through, and I was glad that "the worst was behind us."
The next three hours passed in a progressively deteriorating state of wretchedness that I find difficult to describe adequately. To say that I was unhappy fails completely to capture the experience.
At first, we stopped about every half hour for around ten minutes. Never arriving first, but far from last, at each rest I threw my pack to the ground and then had to wait perhaps three minutes for my breathing to slow to the point where I could replace the half litre or so of water that I had lost to sweat. By this time (perhaps noon), the sun had mercifully been obscured by the clouds we were walking through, but the damp wind on my soaked t-shirt had me well chilled by the end of each ten-minute break. Then, as the last of the stragglers came in, we set off again. Each time I set off with the first, the better to allow myself to drop back slowly until the next break.
Although there was never any doubt in my mind that I would, eventually, reach the top (I am stubborn about such things, unfortunately), the psychological effect of constantly asking myself why I wanted to do this was taxing. It wasn't like any of us could chat as we walked, or even take in the view. Every bit of concentration was required to convince your muscles to contract in the appropriate sequence for the next step, to consider carefully the placement of your feet, occasionally to glance ahead a few tens of yards to torure yourself with the anticipation of what was coming up. By the end of the second hour or so, those muscles were beginning seriously to rebel, intimating that if you didn't have the sense to stop this self-torture they would just have to take matters into their own hands.
Sometime around when we should normally have stopped for lunch, our guides, in their infinite wisdom, decided that as we were only about 45 minutes from our campsite we should just proceed and have our lunch there.
Those forty-five minutes, defying imagination, contrived to be worse than any that had preceded them. It was no longer possible to walk at a steady pace. Each of us would look ahead up the path to the place, ten yards away, where we would next pause to catch our breath. Inevitably, we would only get about half way there before the folly of our optimism became clear, and we would stop, hunched under our loads, panting for ten or fifteen seconds before carrying reluctantly on. By the end, the last three hundred metres or so, we could take only one step every two or three seconds, with a longer pause every five or so steps.
I should mention, as well, that the path was by no means steep. Steep would have been a blessing, providing psychological justification for moving so slow. No, it was more like a gentle hill, mocking you for your utter inability to string more than three brisk paces together.
Those last few hundred meters (fifteen minutes or so, if you can believe it) I had a pretty good headache going. My steps were wobbly, and every muscle from my lower back to my toes was preparing to throw in the towel. I clearly had the basic symptoms of altitude sickness (headache, dizziness, faintness - I was only missing the nausea), although I don't see much difference symptomatically between altitude sickness and the normal results of extreme overexertion.
Arriving at the campsite, I threw off my back, nearly fell over, slowly lay down on my back and tried very hard not to move a muscle. The slightest movement seemed to sharpen the pain in my head, and any effort to stand up or - god forbid - walk produced the distinct sensation that I might fall over. So, I lay on my back and went over the various decisions, the forks in the road, that had led here, trying to remember why it had seemed like a good idea.
We had ascended in about four hours, instead of the five to six that it was suggested it should take.
After about an hour of lying on my back, it occurred to me that having suffered to get here I'd better make the most of it. We had tents to put up, lunch to eat, and then - although I was trying not to think of it - another two hundred meters to ascend (without packs, thank god) to reach the summit in time for sunset.
All too quickly, the tents were up and it was time to set out for the easternmost of the two peaks. While I seriously considered not bothering (I've seen plenty of sunsets, what difference that this one is on top of a volcano?), our guide pointed out that one solution to altitude sickness is to climb higher for a little bit before coming back down for the night (the other, better one, is to just go down, but this option wasn't available except for extreme cases). So, climbing again then.
Although we had rested a good hour and a half, it took less than a minute to for my muscles to rediscover there refined state of distress. I gather it took perhaps 45 minutes to reach the peak. I really couldn't tell you, I was in some kind of timeless hell. The landscape was utterly barren, the light grey and dim. One step followed another, my head hung low, and I unable to look up beyond the next footfall. I felt, perhaps, like Frodo ascending the slopes of Mount Doom, no longer aware of where I was going or why, only aware of the next crucifying step. The need to take that step, pushing me forward, existed in my mind stripped of any rational justification.
As I said, I don't really know how long this went on, but at some point I found myself sitting on a rock at the top of this rock pile, facing west into the face of the setting sun. For a moment, it even looked as though the clouds, only fifty to a hundred yards away, were going to blow clear and give us a view all the way down to the horizon. But this was just cruel teasing, and in the end the sun merely faded into a dull orange haze.
We've tottered down now. I will admit that the walk down was significantly more pleasant. And there is a roaring fire and dinner to be eaten and marshmellows to be roasted. But I remain in the wraith-world, unwarmed by the fire, unable to enjoy any of the pleasures on offer. My headache and indeed my full body-ache, the dizziness when I move, the haze separating me from all sensation, leave me hunched and staring dull-eyed at the ground until, at last, it is time to seek the oblivion of sleep.

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