Mountain climbing part 5

I have always been a believer when it comes toventuring into one
of New Zealands spectacular forest parks, to never do it alone
and especially if a mountain accent is involved! The support of
other members of your team and potential skills and know they can
offer will ensure your experiance is a safe and rewarding one and
the times during the climb when you do have to push through the
mental and physical barriers, a load shared is a load halfed, as
the saying goes! You will find as you climb, a thought cross your
mind, this is crazy, my body is sore and achy, it's cold and
possibly raining or even snowing, I could be in a number of more
enjoyable places and the thoughts start flowing thick and fast if
you are not careful and the urge to stop and rest starts creeping
in more and more and the team must really at this stage and
encourage each other to stay focused on the goal and resist the
urges of resting to often and mainttan a steady but achieveable
pace for all members of the party! Keeping the momentum up is
vital to the success of the journey, resting to often allows your
body to loose much needed body temperature and often in stopping
people can dive into energy rations required for the remainder of
the mountain accent and decent andthere is not a lot more energy
gained for an individual and more energy is used inresuming
progress again and the body digestingwhat has been pumped into
it! Keeping a good steady pace and stopping on aset pattern of
time for a couple of minutes and then moving on will be a winning
combination! I remeber reading a story about a mountain climber
and this guy decided to do it alone and he had all the gear he
needed and he had experience in mountain climbing with teams in
the past. Well this guy got to the point on the mountain I have
just written about and the voices in his head started to talk to
him and say, Rest more often and he gradually succumbed to them
and slowly but surely he rested to often and finally his body
temperature had dropped so much, he didn't have the energy to
rise and he was in serious trouble and hypothermia started
setting . Another party climbing the same mountain came across
him huddled under a rock outcrop and they did all they could to
try and raise his body temperature and plan a decent from the
mountain, but he was to far gone and theleader of the party had
to make a decision to leave him and make him as comby as possible
or put at risk members of his own team! That man lost his life on
the mountain and it was due to going it alone, he needed more
than just motivation and determination, he needed support and
encouragement of others to make the journey a success! There is a
line in a song that says; "No man is an island", we are designed
to connect with others and they help urge us on when we would
possibly listern to the voice that says, Take it easy, rest, it's
a hard journey and slowly but surely that trap door opens wider
and wider andwithout the support of fellow travellers to urge you
on, that trap will get you and the story will end prematurely!
Keep the goal your focus, keep the pace steady and achievable
andalways climb as a team!