Top 10 Expedition Lows

May 10, 2011

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Some of my favourite expedition memories are from the lowest points. Here is a list written with the rosy glow of hindsight:

Sleeping bolt upright on a 9-inch platform cut into a 45-degree snow slope at 5,000m in the Tian Shan (pictured)
The roar of an encroaching sheet of rain whilst camped in a non-waterproof tent on a flood plain on the Musandam Peninsula
Falling waist deep into a crevasse unroped in the French Alps
Sat defeated on the curb at Ladbroke Grove with only 6 miles remaining of a 200 mile running challenge without the will to take another step
Spending several cold, futile hours trying to hitch-hike outside Heathrow only to end up sleeping in a bush outside a kid’s playground having given up
Dangling from a rope attached to my friend Thom several feet above me on steep ice with several hundred feet’s drop beneath me
Willing my bike at 4mph to the nearest town inside the Norwegian Arctic Circle with a fever (then having my stove conk out and my shoes stolen)
Waking up with a searing pain in my eyes having stupidly gone sans sunglasses on a Bolivian glacier
Returning from a climb to the car where I expected my friends to be and realising that their absence meant they were stuck out on a ledge overnight with no camping gear
Desperate for water 60 miles into a 90 mile cycle loop of Masirah Island in the Omani heat on Christmas Day (then losing our tent)
Pedalling through Chester town centre at midnight on a Friday in high-vis cycling gear and waterproofs after a 110-mile day
Sawing in half a boiled sweet as the only remaining sustenance on the final day of a five day trek into the Kyrgyz mountains
Discovering only wreckage where a base camp was supposed to be, having just sawn in half our only remaining edible item, five days’ walk from the nearest person

OK, so that’s a few more than ten and four of them all come from the same trip.

What are your expedition lows?

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Comments

6 responses to “Top 10 Expedition Lows”

Korpijaakko

May 10, 2011

I can recall but only one real low moment. That one was in the beginning of second week of hiking in Lapland. I had done a week of nice hiking with friends who left back South and I was to continue hiking for another week. I was hiking up from Signaldalen in great scenery and with weather even better than the scenery – but didn’t find it inspiring or interesting at all. Not a tiniest bit. After a lunch break I hiked back down to the valley and drove back home in the South. I still regret that decision.

The other lows, well, they aren’t really lows. More like experiences and learning. =)

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Alan Curr

May 10, 2011

You have hit upon one of my favourite topics here. I love expedition misery because it is unquestionably what you look back on fondly afterwards. I particularly like number five!

My own was about a decade ago when doing a challenge called “Jailbreak” – six of us in teams of two had to get as far away from (and back to) Trafalgar Square as possible in 72 hours with nothing but £100 and our passports. I ended up sleeping on a bench at Liege Train Station in Belgium using an (empty) water bottle as a pillow. I awoke at about 3am with a tramp urinating onto the tracks about three feet away and I had never been more miserable.

Laughing about it back in a bar on the Sunday night in central London (wiith all teams having blown the budget and thus being disqualified) made me realise that I wanted to spent my life doing that sort of nonsense!

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Korpijaakko

May 11, 2011

“Some of my favourite expedition memories are from the lowest points.”
“I love expedition misery because it is unquestionably what you look back on fondly afterwards.”

Tim & Alan, you are both British, right? Then I might understand the comments, otherwise I’m not sure. No offense, but instead of lows I try to concentrate on highs, achievements and the simple life in general. Though some may see simple as miserable?

I’d rather go with the classic: “Adventure is just bad planning.” ;)

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Tim Moss

May 12, 2011

Thanks Korpijaako, I am indeed British and you’re not the first to pick up on our nation’s predilection for discomfort.

I wouldn’t claim to necessarily enjoy these things at the time and certainly wouldn’t aim to get myself into that sort of situation deliberately but when I look back over years of expeditions, the difficult times stand out at least as much as the those times when everything goes perfectly.

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Korpijaakko

May 12, 2011

Thanks for the explanation, Tim! I agree, that hard times are at least as easy to remember than the high points. And the best part is, that you can learn from yoru on and others mistakes and misery.

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Alan Curr

May 19, 2011

Indeed, I’m British too Korpijaakko and certainly I never plan to incorpate any misery on my trips, but I think it’s just part of the ride and overcoming those difficulties are incredibly satisfying.

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