Annapura. K2. Mount Everest. Denali. Matterhorn. Mont Blanc. Mount Kilimanjaro. All of these are among the world’s hardest mountains to climb. Ask anyone who has climbed a mountain and they will attest to the fact that it is not easy. A quick Google search of “toughest mountains to climb” will come up with story after story of the most treacherous slopes on some of the world’s tallest, scariest mountains. It will tell you the death tolls on each of the mountains, and the percentage of people who have actually made it to the summit. What these lists don’t tell you is how life-changing climbing a mountain can be.

The mountain in our mind

            An article on Greatist, a website dedicated to helping people find a balance of being happy and being healthy, made it clear why climbing a mountain can be life-changing. In her article “I Climbed Kilimanjaro and All I Got Was a Life-Changing Experience,” Nicola Korzenko reflects on the things she learned along the way to the summit of that famous mountain in Tanzania. Her reflections have titles such as these: “Be Deliberate — The Route You Choose Matters”; “A Little Research (Probably) Never Killed Anyone”; “Slow and Steady Wins the Race”; “Listen to Your Body”; “Oh Man, the Earth Is Kind of Amazing”; “The Mountain Is in Your Mind.”

                The last one, “The Mountain Is in Your Mind,” may be the most interesting of all her reflections. Korzenko writes about how summiting the “mountain in the head” is the hardest part of climbing, and how too often it stands in the way of being able to physically climb to the top of the mountain. She explains how the last 10 hours before summiting the mountain are brutal as you only sleep for a few hours and climb to the summit and back down in one day.

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