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NEAR DEATH | TRANSFORMATION
My Almost Last Breath in the Peruvian Andes
And what that immense fear taught me
“This is not a race. If you are unable to continue to the peak, it’s ok. Listen to your body. Enjoy the surrounding beauty. Remember to honor the mountain.”
John’s words always play in my head when I think about the trek to Vinicunca. It was my first time in the Andes. And though I’d hiked mountain trails from Norway to Upstate New York to Austria, neither my mind nor my body was prepared for what they would experience on the morning of January 4, 2019.
Her summit sits at 5,036 meters (16,522 feet). Even though the trailhead hike to the mountain’s peak begins at around 3,300 meters (10,826 feet), altitude is still an issue for folks — like me — unaccustomed to being at such extreme heights.
For reference, back then, I was living in Harlem, New York City, where the average altitude runs about 16 meters (52 feet)! Outside of two years spent in Austin, Texas (altitude range 130–305 meters / 425–1,000 feet) and two and a half years (my college days) in Daytona Beach, Florida (4 meters / 13 feet), I have spent nearly my entire life very close to sea level.
For this trip to the Andean region, I took all the precautions: arriving several days…
