I received this email from my good friend John Pigott. I am not sure if it’s the accomplishment itself or the fact that he had the courage to consider something like this that I find more inspiring. I enjoyed reading the note so much, that I knew others would as well. So I asked him if I could post it on my blog. Without further ado, here is John’s email…
Friends
I wanted to tell you about something I just did, it may appear to be a bit boastful, but it was an accomplishment I wanted to share with those who have known and helped me over the past few years.
Ten years ago I had to clean up my act after the heart attack, coming up on the decade post that incident, I knew I needed a reason to get back in shape. Plus the cancer scare last year suggested once again, something need to change in my lifestyle.
I wasn’t the only person wanting to change, so a bunch of friends in Ottawa challenge ourselves that over the period of a year we were going make those lifestyle changes together.
One of the ways was the Mt Washington Challenge. We engaged a group from Montreal, Esprit de Corps, who run these “boot camp like” programs to lead us on this adventure.
On Monday and Tuesday, I experienced a challenge like no other I’ve taken on.
The training for this challenge accomplished the orginal goal and put me in better physical shape than I have been in years but it was the experience of pushing to levels, I never thought possible is the lasting gift. And those levels could never been accomplished if it hadn’t been for the team I was with on the journey.
This team, 11 friends and 4 guides climbed from the base to the top Mount Adams (5774 ft) and then across New Hampshire’s Presidential Range, climbing Mount Jefferson (5714 ft), Mount Clay and the Mount Washington (6288ft) before hiking out to the base of the Cog Railway below the Monroe summit.
In the 31 hrs we climbed over 10,000 vertical ft and descended over 9,000 ft finishing at the base of the Cog Railway just before sunset on Tuesday. In the process hiked 27 miles in some spectacular scenery.
Started on Monday noon, climbed 4200 ft to the tree line on Mt Adams, stayed over night in an unheated shelter, thermometer inside showed 25F, got up at 4:45am in order to pack and leave by 6am, so as to maximize daylight.
We were very lucky with the weather, Mount Washington has some of the worst weather in the US, it was sunny and we could see for over 100 miles and the winds were very light. The two days before the winds at the summit were 100kms+
The purpose of the trip was to challenge us; physically and mentally. Take us beyond where we though our limits were. It did that and then some. Throughout most of the trip I felt as if I was way passed the red line on my body’s tachometer. The mental challenge was to look ahead and see the last summit in the distance and know there was hours more of physical torture ahead. Yet, as with any other challenge in life, you break it down to small steps and take it one step at a time
The climbs were steeper than I expected and the backpack added another 50+ lbs (we had to carry 2 days worth of water). The pain on my face tells a bit of the story. The real lesson was there was no way out but through, you can’t turn back, you have to finish the trip to get off the mountain.
Although we had trained since November, done some practiced climbs at Tremblant, this wasn’t for the faint of heart or without some risk (in hindsight more than I would have liked).
Through out the challenge it was a team effort, none of could or would have accomplished it alone. The power of an aligned team is amazing!
Reaching the summit was the physical challenge,
Going down was the mental one; it wasn’t easy and required concentration which is hard after a lot of hours on the mountain.
And we finished just as the sun set and I have never been so exhausted mentally and physically in my life.
It was exhilarating, grueling, and taught me I can go well beyond my own self imposed limits.
Asked if I would do it again? Not this challenge but I will find another one a bit less risky and I will never forget the experience.
And, the real gift from this experience was doing it as a team.
I’ve set two more challenges for myself this spring; in May to finish my tenth 10K road race in Ottawa and in June finish a 2 day 200KM “Ride for the Cure” between Toronto and Niagara Falls. I expect them to be a bit easier than this one.
John
PS
To see a video of the climb go to http://vimeo.com/10957647
And the agony of the training climb; http://vimeo.com/10538492
January 1st, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Nice post. Will visit again.