Mountains of Madness
One of the beautiful things about New Zealand is that there are so few people.
That’s also one of the dangerous things about it.
In 2016 I took a student for a “walk”. There was a tremendously scenic place. The idea was to work on some of his goals overlooking the mountains and valleys.
After about an hour of inner-work we saw some hikers come by and slide down a kind of gravel
hill. It looked fun so we decided to do the same. Big mistake.
Nobody told us there was no way back up to my car until 14 hours later. Even stranger: Aimilar had already happened to me before and I hadn’t learned my lesson from the first time. Things tend to repeat until we learn the lesson.
The gravel hill was fantastic fun, even though it left our clothes in a chalky white substance that wouldn’t easily wash away.
“Let’s slide again!” I said.
“Agreed!” my student said.
The gravel hill was steep (that’s what made it fun) and it slid. No matter how hard we tried, we could not get back up. Exhausted from trying, we sat for a while, until more hikers came by.
“How do we get back up there? My car is parked there”
“You don’t.
You hike down the mountains and hope someone can give you a ride back up”.
But I didn’t see a hiking trail.
The hikers explained which way we’re to walk if we wanted to reach the trail on the other side of the mountain. Then they went on their way. “You should reach the trail in about 4 hours. And then it’s another 3 hours on the trail”.
My seminar-plan for the day had just fallen apart. “Let’s make the best of it” I said, sounding unconvinced.
We had no water, no food, no protection from the sunlight, no jacket, no flashlight –
things we didn’t need right now but that we would very much need later.
We had both left our phones in the car (not that there was any reception out here). We both wore sneakers. After this day, they’d be trash torn to shreds.
Unequipped and unprepared, we hiked through
glacial valleys,
ancient solidified lava,
alpine passes,
crater lakes,
steaming vents,
geothermal hazards
and thick subtropical forests.
After 4 hours we stopped, tired, thirsty and hungry. Our t-shirts hung over our heads to protect from the searing, unrelenting sun. It was only 58 F (15 Celsius) but without clouds after a few hours it feels like being burned.
I had already given up coaching after 2 hours – survival was our only care now.
Just one day earlier I had told this student that I think “people are too pampered nowadays” (a common theme of mine), but right here and now my greatest wish was to be pampered.
5 hours in and we weren’t finding the hiking trail. Nor had we seen any other people since those hikers. We were lost.
Getting lost in New Zealand is dangerous because of low population density. It’s not like elsewhere where you come across houses, cars and people anywhere you go. New Zealand has one of the highest rates of permanently missing people. And because I had chosen to come here on a whim, other people did not know where we were either.
7 hours into the walk I offered: “If we want to find the trail, we need to walk around the whole mountain. Sooner or later we must cross paths with a trail”.
At 9 hours of walking, my feet ached like never before. It was starting to get dark and the temperature had dropped to around 45 (7 Celsius). A sense of doom and apathy tried to engulf me, but I knew that apathy equals death in a situation like this. We had to keep our spirits high if we wanted to have any chance of getting out of here.
“There’s no way you can do another 3 hours when and if you ever find the trail” the wind was whispering into my left ear.
“Shut up!” I said out loud.
“Huh?” my student said.
“Not you. Talking to my mind”.
My mind, whining: “I can’t. I can’t put pressure on these muscles anymore. I have to put them on other parts of the foot. I just can’t. I want to die”.
“Shut up. I am returning to my car tonight. I am returning to the Hotel soon. All is well. I am well. He is well. We got this. Just a little extracurricular sports, nothing more. My feet renew with every step I take”.
I began verbalizing the internal conflict (yes, just like I teach in my book “The Reality Creation Technique”). It made the difference between death and survival.
In pain there is no thought, no appreciation, no care in the world other than getting to a place beyond the suffering.
Me and my student had stopped talking to each other at the 7 hour mark. When you’re in pain, you lose the pretense of small talk so that you can preserve energy. But at the 9 hour mark, he refused to go on.
“I can’t walk anymore. I’m going to stay here. You go ahead”
“Are you crazy? I’m not going ahead. We need to stay together if we’re going to survive”.
“Whatever. I’m not walking. I’ll sleep here”
“Sleep where? How? It’s like 45 Degrees”.
There were rocks. He found his rock, I found mine. I kept moving my upper body because I was cold. I was lying there, in the dark, for 15 minutes when I couldn’t take it any longer. My legs and feet were pulsating with pain. The student felt the same. We got up, and like 90 year olds, started limping on.
“There’s no trail up here. We need to descend. It’ll also be warmer if we go down”.
A wind had come up and we were coughing, sniffing and sneezing.
Around what I guess was the 10 hour mark, we finally came across a trail. We found it on our descent. And half an hour later we also found a sign that said we had 4 hours of walking to get to a parking place. It was dark, but there was enough moonlight to read the sign.
The trail took us down pathways for hours and hours.
We’d walk a path for a while, then a flight of stairs, then path, then stairs, on and on.
11 hours in and it was completely dark as we entered a thick subtropical forest.
The sound of the forest at night is amazing, even with all the pain. It’s also scary.
There was a sense of “people not belonging there” at night. The forest has eyes and they were watching us intruders.
We took frequent breaks now because our legs and feet were weak and throbbing. At the time I had no regular
sports routine and was out of shape (but even if I had been in shape – who walks all day
and night nonstop?).
12 hours in, we were pursued by something in the woods. A figure. An animal? I don’t know, it was too dark to see. We barely saw the stairs and pathway. We screamed and ran. Even though we had been complaining that we can’t go on any longer, the instant
this creepy thing was pursuing us, we could suddenly run again. We ran and screamed, screamed and ran for what seemed like fifteen minutes. It was my hope that our insane behavior would ward it off.
My most remarkable memory from this day was the fact that my mind was saying “you can’t walk anymore”, but the moment survival was at stake, I could run like crazy. Most of the mind’s limitations are not real limitations.
We knew it was pursuing us because we heard it rustle through the bushes and sticks, right beside us for some time. After a long time running, we were panting, out of breathe, crazed with fear. “You’ll never forget this coaching” I remarked. We both laughed hysterically into the night.
At 13 hours in we had gone back to a slow walk and breaks. We knew from signs that we had about one more hour to go. To a house? A shop? A hotel? A train station? No – to a car parking space. There is no guarantee anyone’s there at midnight. At least not the kind of people you’d like to meet there.
Sure enough, we found it deserted. There were restroom stalls and more importantly:
A water dispenser!
We knew to drink slowly, a few sips first, because we were dehydrated. Sat on a bench while our legs throbbed. I didn’t feel my feet anymore at all – they were numb. It was as if I didn’t have feet. Then a few more sips of water.
Intuition is a beautiful thing. Nobody taught us how to behave when dehydrated and we’d never received any instruction on it. But we both knew exactly what to do.
We each sat on our own bench, a table between us, frequently changing body position because of the pain. Sometimes we dozed off. It wasn’t long before sunrise.
I have never experienced such a welcome sunrise.
Each pore of my skin craved every ray of light. The first time I am experiencing sun as nourishment. I had been in a bleak mindset, but optimism was returning to me, infused by the sun. We could have walked on to find the main road and hitchhike. But we heard no cars. And my feet gave away when I tried to walk. I was temporarily walk-disabled.
It took several hours before hikers arrived at the parking spot. Through them we got picked up by a taxi and taken to our Hotels. I cancelled the seminar for the day and we agreed to continue the next day.
Getting out of the taxi was hilarious. I stood there, moving slow as a 120 year old. A Hotel staffer got me a cane which I used to get to my room. There was a Jacuzzi in that room. A jacuzzi only really becomes awesome after you’ve been really been deprived of comfort.
In retrospect I’m glad it all happened. Much is learned outside of one’s cozy comfort-chair.
