Trekking
We Started Up at 2:17 A.M.
The night bus left us beneath a black volcanic ridge. By sunrise, nobody cared who reached the high point first.
01
Dropped into the dark
The bus door opened at 1:50 in the morning and cold air replaced sleep. We stepped onto gravel with stiff legs, half-zipped jackets, and the confused silence of people whose bodies believed it was still yesterday. Above the trailhead there was no mountain, only a black shape removing stars from the sky.
Our guide, Ivo, checked the wind station, counted headlamps, and asked the same question of each person: water, warm layer, any pain? At 2:17 we began walking. The first kilometre crossed low scrub. Then vegetation ended and the trail became loose ash, every step sliding a little toward where it started.
02
The slowest honest pace
We climbed in a line of moving light. The beam ahead showed boots and dust; the beam behind showed nothing. After an hour, Nika's breathing sharpened and she stopped answering jokes. She insisted she was fine, which was technically true and practically useless. Ivo shortened the pace until it felt almost absurd, then made us drink and add layers before the wind ridge.
Nobody protested, though I could feel the impatience in my own legs. I had imagined the climb as a private contest with tiredness. Instead it became a group negotiation. Ten slow steps, a pause, ten more. The mountain did not care about our speed, and the sunrise was not an appointment we could bully the rest of the group into keeping.
“The summit was never the part that held us together. The pace was.”
03
When the horizon returned
Near the crater shoulder, the black sky separated from the black land. A line of orange appeared so thin it looked drawn with a pencil. We switched off our lamps one by one. Steam moved across the lower basin and distant ridges surfaced from the dark in layers.
We stopped below the highest point where the wind was manageable. Another team continued upward, small figures leaning into the ridge. For a moment I wanted their photograph instead of our position. Then Nika sat beside me, passed around a crushed packet of biscuits, and started laughing at how terrible they tasted. The envy went with it.
04
The way down counted too
Daylight exposed the slope we had climbed: steep, gray, and longer than it had felt inside the headlamp beam. Descending loose ash worked different muscles and punished anyone who rushed. We kept the same order, warned one another about unstable rocks, and reached the scrub as the cold finally lifted.
At the trailhead, the bus driver poured coffee from a flask into mismatched cups. We had not stood on the highest possible metre. Nobody tried to hide that. The morning was ours anyway: the cold start, the ridiculous pace, the first line of colour, and the decision to let the group define success. Years later, I remember almost nothing about the elevation. I remember that nobody was left to climb alone.