Prelude The past month of mountain adventuring has won me a lot of confidence. I'm not going to do anything where I would need them. I spent most of these two weeks in borrowed mountaineering boots and crampons , and yes, I still know how to use an ice axe. I don't need a boyfriend by my side to do big things; I'm doing more and bigger things alone. Mountain therapy. Succeeding where years of couch-therapy just had me doing somersaults inside my head. Me on Sierra Nevada. And I am. And this pack-carrying climbing machine got her ass kicked by a woman who, if I needed more proof that my ovaries don't make me less of a human, provided it.
Meet Melitta: in her deceptive cute blonde package probably the strongest, toughest person I've ever been in the mountains with. The evening was made sweeter by my introduction to Melitta, an Austrian mountain guide on a solo ski touring adventure around Chile. The Suizandina family had decided that, as two nice young woman mountain-lovers traveling alone, we needed to meet, and it surprised nobody when we became instafriends. Malacahuello, home of ridiculously cute llamas, among other mountain-loving, friendly creatures.
Our ride was an older mountain pair with the same plan: Chilean U. This was his 4 th attempt at Lonquimay having had bad luck in the past with weather, equipment, etc. Lonquimay as seen from the top of an Aurucaria forest at the foot of neighboring volcano Sierra Nevada. Melitta: knocking off another mountain like it was no big deal.
Melitta and I chatted on the way up about mountains, life, and love while rocketing up the flank of the mountain. We were well-matched until the going got steep and I started to struggle with the traversing and slippery snow on my essentially edgeless splitboard. At one point where slush met ice, I slipped and slid headfirst a heartstopping 50 meters down the side of the mountain, grinding up my hands and bare arms on the slushie-like ice crystals that made up the upper layer of snowpack as I clawed at the snow trying to halt my slideβyet another reminder that holyshitIneedskis.
While Melitta rocketed ahead, I took a half hour break to eat a sandwich while I slowly stopped terror-shaking. Then I strapped the board onto my backpack, put on my crampons, and headed back up. When I made the top, I was barely into my second sandwich when she arrivedβessentially her second ascent of the volcano for the day. I had a girl crush. Sierra Nevada from the Suizandina breakfast room.
