The worst dehydration ever
Except for tremendous amount of energy spent and an absolutely victorius feeling you get when reaching the top, Mont Blanc gave me something which I never thought would happen in that kind of a setting. And within the conditions where „water“ is accessible everywhere.
Literally, everywhere around you. But here’s the catch.
For the sake of clarification, packing tea instead of water is a widely regarded practice when tackling summits above 4000 meters. The sole reason is that tea remains warm in the canister. Sure, water does too, but who on Earth’s gonna drink hot water? And if the liquids are not warm enough or placed in an isolated canister, your throat will get cold in no time and will get you in serious trouble.
I’ve made a big mistake. Not knowing how strenuous will it be, I underrated the amount of tea packed in my backpack. I only had 1,5 liters. Let’s not forget it takes around 7 hours to the summit from the last mountain hut through the rigorous Italian route.
Needless is to say our bodies use water in order to sustain the activity and maintain the system in homeostasis. Activity causes sweating, a process of cooling down. Either you’re performing on +30 or -15, the main frame does not change. I know it sounds weird, but even at altitudes of 4000 plus meters where it’s 10 below 0, your body keeps releasing sweat through thick layers of your clothes. Incredible. Moreover, caloric expenditure is huge in those conditions. Since energy (calories) breakdown results in heat production, the body keeps cooling down all the time using A LOT of liquid. If you are not replenishing with water, you are dehydrating rapidly.
It was manageable all the way to the summit. After we started to descent, I figured I have none of the tea left. My co-climbers didn’t have any either.
I was starting to feel so dehydrated on the way down. There’s still some 4 hours to get to the Gonella hut. Ahhhh, you gotta be kidding me. COME ON.
All the trechareous parts, the ridge, the extremely narrow passages, icy slopes, rocky and sharp edges that we had to get through on the way down seemed even worse while coming down since the daylight actually made visible all the nasty falls and threats around us. And I was exhausted as hell already. And damn, I had nothing to treat this extreme thirst.
I started eating snow at one point because I figured „well, the snow is nothing but solid, icy shaped water“. My ass. It only made things worse. The condition even exacerbated. Man, I don’t know how and why, but snow ain’t water as I imagined. Not even close.
Hours go by, I’m pushing through as hard as ever, we are slowly approaching to heaven. Last 15 minutes, last of all and I will be drowning in all kinds of liquids when I get to that Gonella bar.
And there we are. Thank goodness. I’m tossing all my gear around relentlessly, not even registering what’s and where’s, I don’t care. I literally sprinted inside and ordered 1,5 liters of water and a Fanta. Sipped all of it, WOW. Never ever imagined a Fanta could be so delicious. Life is beautiful again.
Sometimes, the things we take for granted the most are the ones that we desire the most. Times of despair. Basics.
See you in the next blog. All of all, now or never. Imperative.