The Mountain Doesn't Care If You Keep Up
I've hiked twice in my life. The first time was 25 years ago at Mt. Longonot. The second time was this week at Mt. Kenya. Same country. Same body. Completely different person.
The first hike started with a flyer.
I saw it at university. Hike and picnic at Mt. Longonot. I told my boyfriend and I was very excited. I thought it would be a nice thing we could do together. A walk. Maybe a picnic. Something light.
Unfortunately, he went and told everyone. And suddenly the whole class was in on it.
The next few days I noticed people going out in the mornings to run. I genuinely wondered what the hullabaloo was about. We were just going for a walk. But they were training like it was a marathon. I was deeply disillusioned by what the word "hike" apparently meant.
The day of the hike, I showed up looking cute in piggy tails for my hair , jeans, sneakers ,and a small orange bag full of potato chips , popcorn,cookies and Dextrosal — a glucose packet for kids
Everyone else had backpacks. Real food. Gear. They showed up ready. It was, looking back, quite funny.
We were divided into groups and each group was assigned a leader. Unfortunately for me, our leader was a Maasai who had spent his whole life trekking mountains. He chose the most challenging route. While other groups followed the path around the base and then began their climb, we started tackling hill after hill straight toward the mountain.
what followed was the longest day of my life. It rained. It was sunny. It was windy. The mountain had sections that were almost perpendicular to the ground and people were physically pushing me up. My boyfriend left me early on and I could see him with my orange bag ahead at hill twenty when we hadn't even started the mountain properly. He just kept getting smaller.
At some point I fainted. I had visions of being airlifted by helicopter. Then I woke up and I was still in exactly the same spot. The bus had already moved to the other side of the mountain. There was no going back.
I remember thinking: I would die a virgin. How could I have paid for this.
I ended up with the last guide, the one assigned to people with muscle pulls and breathing problems. And me. If we were not stopping for the muscle pull person, it was for me. It was so ridiculous it became funny.
My boyfriend was long gone. Meanwhile i was borrowing food and water ,but I made myself a quiet promise: if I made it out of this alive, I was breaking up with him. (I did.)
And somehow, I still reached the top. Looking like a homeless person. At 8pm. The first person had arrived at 4pm.
It was the best moment.
Going down, I was much faster. I always notice this about myself. Once I am over the hill, I pick up speed. The pressure lifts and something in me loosens.
We got to the bus to find people angry at us for how long we had taken. I felt humiliated. Like I had failed, even though I had finished.
I carried that experience in my body for 23 years as: I don't keep up. I underestimate things. I suffer through things I wasn't prepared for.
Then I found myself organizing a retreat at Mt. Kenya.
In my mind, my connection to the mountain was always going to be felt in the deeper, quieter parts of the retreat. Not the hike. The hike felt like a footnote. A small walk in nature. A bit of fresh air before the real work began.
Apparently everyone else had come specifically to hike. Not a small walk. A real hike. I hadn't considered that as the main event.
It started dawning on me in the car. Participants kept talking about the altitude. The gear. The difficulty. And I, the person who had organized this entire retreat, didn't even have the shoes.
Lord.
That night, Longonot came back. Same feeling in my chest. Same voice:
I'm not ready. I don't have the right things. I might embarrass myself again.
I told the team I would do very little. That I wasn't prepared. I was already managing their expectations and shrinking before the day had even begun.
But something moved differently in me that night.
There were internal voices telling me to just quit. To let them go. *Why are you keeping them waiting? Just go. You organized this, that's enough.*
But another part of me said: *Let me give myself the best shot. After all, I organized this. I am paying for this. I deserve to actually be here.*
I can be very resourceful when I commit. At 5am I was calling local shops. The first sent me offline. I went to the supermarket at 7am and they didn't have what I needed. I could feel the pressure of my team waiting, of time running out, of the old story repeating.
And then I found a shop that rushed to open. A woman who had everything: shoes, poles, rain jacket, gloves, trousers, all in my size. And she was leasing them. She was so kind about it. No fuss. Just: here is what you need.
It felt like the universe meeting me halfway. Like the mountain saying: *you asked. here.*
I didn't wait to feel ready. I just stopped waiting.
And then I started exactly the way I always do.
Fast. Trying to perform, trying to set the pace, trying to keep up. Already panting within the first few minutes, the same body doing the same thing it did on Longonot 25 years ago, as if nothing had changed at all.
*Climbing mountains doesn't require hurrying.*
My guide. And my team. All of them saying the same thing.
That stopped me.
Not just the guide, but my own team. Experienced hikers who had climbed different mountains, some even the Himalayas. Guides who had walked Mt. Kenya before and could see exactly what I was doing to myself. They weren't being kind. They weren't being competitive. They were being accurate.
I slowed down. Not as a strategy. As permission.
Permission to just be me. To be slow without it meaning something. To not be the fastest, or keep up, or prove anything, and for that to simply be okay.
I stopped looking ahead to see who was further. I started walking with my breath.
Step. Breath. Step. Breath.
And suddenly, my body caught up to me.
At some point I told the others to go ahead.
Not from defeat. From clarity. We each had a guide. Everyone was supported. I didn't need to prove anything by keeping up with people who had come prepared for something I hadn't.
My guide and I found our pace. We would stop to eat. Continue. Stop to look. Stop to hug trees. Continue. I noticed where I was instead of how far I had left. I looked at the steps I was taking and the greenery surrounding me rather than the peak.
I just kept moving.
I didn't reach the peak.
Almost to Makinda camp, near one of the viewpoints. Turned back at 2pm. Not because I failed, but because I was choosing my limit, not collapsing into it.
I felt very proud of myself. Not because I had kept up. But because I had stayed. I had enjoyed the journey. I had removed the urgency to perform and just been present on the mountain, which in the end was the deeper connection I had come for anyway.
Looking back, it wasn't just the hike that went differently. It was how I moved inside difficulty.
Before, I had willpower. And willpower collapsed when the mountain didn't care about my effort. This time I had something else: the right tools, people who knew the terrain, and permission, finally, to move at my own pace.
That was the real shift. Not that I became stronger. But that I stopped abandoning myself and started supporting myself. With others, not against them.
Before: pushing through, keeping up, not stopping.
Now: pacing, adjusting, staying.
Looking at both versions of me, what I love is this: I have always been the curious,adventurous and sometimes naive person who shows up.
Even when I was the slowest. Even when I was muddy. Even when people were annoyed. Even when the journey took longer than anyone expected. I still finished.
Mt. Kenya didn't create a new person. It revealed that the younger version of me simply needed guidance, tools, and permission to move at her pace.
The mountain didn't change my nature. It corrected the interpretation of it.
I didn't conquer the mountain.
I just stopped trying to keep up with it.
I turned 42 last week. This hike was my birthday treat to myself.
They say life begins at 40. I think I finally understand why. Not because you become more. But because you stop fighting yourself so hard. You surrender — not to the mountain, not to other people's pace — but to who you actually are.
Turns out she was worth the wait.
And that is just the beggining of the great adventure - meeting yourself in the mountains, with humbleness, with aw, with respect. So greatefull for the walk together 🙏🏻🙏🏽🙏🏿