Susanna's Musings

You know what the hardest part of climbing a mountain is? It’s going back down.

Oh, sure, climbing up the mountain will take up most of your stamina and all, but you forget to factor in that once you go back down the mountain, gravity is pushing you down and sometimes you don’t factor in the emotional turmoil.

Yep, I was crying all the way back down. And it was more of a mental than physical journey.

This was back in August of 2019 in Stavanger, Norway. The mountain was called Kjerag and it was famous for a giant rock that was seemingly glued between two ledges.

And it had just rained moments ago, but it didn’t stop the daring hikers to put two feet on the rock and declared themselves “King of Hill.”

Thankfully, no one ever slipped or fell from that rock and I have to hand it down to most of the German-speaking hikers and a bit of my dad who ventured onto that rock.

Anyway back to the crying bit, haha.

Yep, after visiting the famous ledge with my family, I felt this emotional surge running down all over me internally and the only way to unleash it was to cry it all out. Then I had this physical and emotional rush – like a runner’s high except it was more of a hiker’s hike – I plowed through the slopes, the terrains, the streams, and the pastures just to get back to the base.

The sun was going to set in an hour. Surprisingly I was only one of my family to be in the lead. I think my marathon-runner, older brother Jay was just taking this mountain at a leisurely pace, like a walk in the park. I wish I had that attitude and stamina.

I trained for about three months. When I mean training, I just did Jillian Michael’s DVDs and I walked outside on whatever hills were nearby.

Sometime maybe ten years ago or so, at St. Kitts, I did hike with my family and I was so out of shape. It was just a 2.5 uphill hike yet I had major cramps and I lagged behind my caravan of four siblings. Well, not this time in the hike. I gave it my all.

And I did reach the fjord as I ploughed through the rain. (I’ll expand more on this for another time.) But, going downhill was steep and uncertain.

Thankfully, though, I had made it to the finish line.