A Near-Death Experience Taught Me 3 Valuable Lessons
Climbing a mountain in bad weather isn’t the best idea
Last year, two friends and I set out on a road trip to climb the highest point in each European country. It was a crazy trip and one that was full of ups and downs.
While I didn’t climb all of the high points, my friend Adam did and managed to set a world record in the process. However, the trip very nearly finished before it even started when we encountered bad weather on the first mountain in Ireland.
The warning signs were there in the morning when it started raining heavily. Then we got lost trying to find the car park for the start of the climb. Carrauntoohil, the mountain in question, isn’t the easiest place to find even with GPS!
These setbacks meant that by the time we got to the car park, it was already midday. Not the ideal time to start a climb up a mountain and get back before dark in April. Looking back, we should have called it off and gone the next day, but we decided to go for it.
This idea wasn’t our brightest.
The first few hours of the climb were sedate, with the hike taking you along a gravel path for about an hour and a half. After that, things started to get a bit more challenging. We reached a section of the climb…
