The Great Wall’ker

No easy way of writing this.

On Friday the fifth of March I set off walking the Great Wall after spending yet another day weather bound in the tent due to snow. Things were going well. I knew I was a little low on food and liquids and was on the lookout  for a village with people which I knew I would find when I entered the next valley, if not before.

After walking about 7 kilometres, I stood in front of the final ascent before entering the valley. Behind me in the distance, I could see a small village, but no people. It was hidden in a valley, which is the reason I had not seen it before. I didn’t want to backtrack just to find out that there were no people there

I was at a little less than 1700 meters above sea level.  It was about -10C, and almost no wind. I sat down to eat, drink and rest knowing it would do me good before the final ascent.

I rose, packed all the equipment, and started on the climb. It was fairly steep and long. The newly fallen snow didn’t help either. As I walked, I noticed that the walking stick handles had become very cold after the break, but I thought I would warm them up again as soon as I got warm.

As I got further up, the wind got stronger. After a while it was making my face very cold. I had to start taking rests increasingly often. It felt like my energy had disappeared as I was standing there. At this point I was getting pretty close to the top. I thought if I could get over it, the wind would probably get weaker as I descended.

My condition then started to deteriorate very quickly. I started walking with shorter paces, couldn’t follow a straight line and noticed I was losing the feeling in my fingers. The rest of my body was also losing heat due to all the pauses, exposed in the wind. What was worse was that I was starting to lose my ability to reason properly.

Soon I felt like I had to throw up, and soon after, as though I had bad diarrhea. Then came the worst part - I noticed I was losing consciousness. I had to drop quickly down to my knees in order not to pass out. I stood up again, but just ten meters further on, I had to kneel down so as not to lose consciousness.

I then realized what was happening and knew the only way to manage was to set up the tent.

Luckily there was a little area big enough to set up the tent only 3-4 metres behind me. When I took off my rucksack, I noticed that I had almost no feeling left in my fingers. At this point it was a race against time. I had to drop to my knees twice more as I set up the tent, and just hoped I would manage to get myself and my equipment into it in time.

I did, but didn’t have strength to use any tent plugs. The tent has a very sturdy dome construction, and I was pretty sure it would manage the high winds without the plugs. I was incredibly grateful when I managed to zip down the outer tent door to get completely out of the wind. I got both sleeping mattresses ready. It was a battle just to pull out the sleeping bag from the rucksack.

I was very very cold, but no longer afraid of passing out. It didn’t take long before I fell asleep. I slept for two hours, and woke up shivering at 4 PM.

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Quick note. Got back to Datong the day after. Went straight to bed, and have been there ever since because of a virus. High temperature, feeling cold, very hot, sweating, no appetite etc. That’s why I have not written before. It is probably also the reason why I lost all my energy so incredibly fast.

Have thought a lot about the incident. Will write more tomorrow. Time to rest now.