Every week, better yet, every day we run into challenges. Big or small, hard or easy each problem is different but they all must be overcome. The end result is a good thing but it does not come easily. Once in a while you are faced with a huge challenge it requires you mind, body, and perseverance with that you can do anything that needs to be done.

I was freezing like a Popsicle in the world’s biggest freezer, an 8 year old Popsicle in fact, it was so cold that when I spit, it froze clattering on the ground like a pebble when it landed, the wind blew around me and the tiny hail battered me to the ground. This was a mountain. I was in the Sichuan Province with my uncle in a place called JiuZhaiGou which literally means “the 9 villages in the valley”. Its 2000 ft above sea level with mountains so tightly packed even a skilled pilot would have to take a very small plane to land. This was my 6^th day here and I was ready for the challenge of my life, scaling up a 16,000 ft. mountain.

We met with our tour guide at 3 in the morning and right away started climbing; this was a tourist climbing mountain so there was a walkway. I seemed easy as we hiked on across the wooden planks like and endless bridge but I could feel my legs tiring, turning into Jello every step of the way. On and on and on, it was boring .Soon as we ascended it became colder but I really wanted to be tough so I kept going. Finally at sundown we stopped before a hut just in time before my legs turned to mush and I would start to use my hands to walk. We spent the night there and I collapsed next to the little matchstick “fire.”

The second day took all my will to wake up to and start climbing again. I looked at our guide all fresh like he’d done this all his life, well he had done it all his life but I felt envy that he could withstand such things. Around midday I could not stand it, I sat down on a bench and looked around........and what did I see? Convienently there was a cable car whizzing up the mountain seeming to say HAHA as it passed by, but it was out of reach. I thought to my self “I can’t make it” but I urged on. I joined my uncle sulkily and slumped up the planks. When I was so tired and wheezing of air sickness everything got worse. It rained. Then it became freezing cold, so cold I could feel my fingers succumb to the icy warmth of numbness, so cold I would pay a million dollars to have a thermal vest. Hail came next; it hit my shoulders driving me down making me fall. But then there’s my guide, good as ever. We passed a shop and I bought an “air in a bottle” for 5 bucks to deal with my high altitude sickness.

Around dark we got to the top, the result of 63 miles of upward hiking, freezing cold, and a mental breakdown. I held my breath forgetting my aches as warmth spread through me I look around and enjoy the scenery of beautiful frozen lakes. I saw a waterfall, frozen like a sheet of ice, a lake so calm the reflection was perfect that I saw a mountain and myself on the top. The smell of sausages broke the trance. I bought another “air in a bottle” and we descended the mountain by the big white rusty looking car. Going down was hard we went to fast for me to adjust so that I threw up. I could feel the driver break hard every time I did so; too bad my uncle thought it was hilarious. I was really proud of my self at the end for actually climbing 16,000 ft it’s a big number but it doesn’t matter if you urge yourself on. I had a great time and now there’s an urge in me to climb another mountain, a bigger one.