1 Down... 6 to go

I couldn't have taken the summit of Mt Elbrus without the love and support of a few special people. My cousin Charles Going deserves a special mention along with my parents Maxine and Neil, My grandparents Wynne and Lois Going, Jason and Iris Going, Calypso Paoli, Andrew Wexler, Mike Roberts and Guy Cotter with the entire Adventure Consultants team. Special mention also has to go to Annabel Anderson a dear friend, Dan Jones the Editor at large of Mens Health UK and my best friend Larissa Dyke for remembering the things about my dreams I can't and never been afraid to share how I used to dream with me. Last but not least I would like to thank Daniel for serving as my inspiration to be as close to heaven as humanly possible, I know you will be with me every step of the way.


Special thanks also to Ana, Z, Andrew M, Kev G, Andrew J, Nola, Jamie, Carol and Guy M.


There are also these special people that partner my climbs... It was your guys belief that kept me going. I will be taking everyone through my gear in later posts but for now BIG thank you to:


Adidas Outdoor USA, Sony NZ, Jamie from Marmot NZ, 1Above, Scarpa, Discovery Channel, Living Simply and Bivouac Outdoor. This was as much my summit as it was your guys.

ELBRUS aka Thissss issss Russsssiaaaaaa

It's 6am and it's still about 25-30 degrees. Today we hop in the bog and begin our Journey, I have been told this is where the Margarita pizza stops been served. I have been on a pizza diet since I got to Russia, that's all I have trusted in the food stakes to eat. I don't want to end up sick, it's also the only menu item I can read, order and trust to be getting what I thought I asked for. I have so far convinced other members of the team that pizza is the best thing to be eating so we are the walking Margarita Pizza brigade.

There is a larger group coming along with us and that group is entirely made up of British and South African folk. Which can only mean one thing for me with a last name like Going = Rugby banter. The South Africans are rather optimistic about beating NZ, apparently the game  is going on as we sit here waiting for the bog. I hope my dread isn't telling, history tells me even though I'm not a rugby follower that if NZ beat South Africa the rugby banter will be halved for the trip. But if we lose, I'm buggered. I've never actually prayed for the All Blacks to win a game, I mean I'm patriotic and I hate my country to lose at anything but I've never actually prayed before. I look over at Mike Roberts my only other fellow kiwi, he's one of our guides (pretty much a freakin living legend) and his expression says it all "man I hope we win but if we don't at least Pearl will cop the worst of it". I start praying immediately.

Journey to Base Camp...
We all pile into the bog I immediately gravitate towards Jamie, he's a brit but he couldn't give a toss about Rugby. He will be a sure bet not to give me a ribbing if NZ lose. Our little corner feels we got the best seats and for the next 7 hrs we become a tangle of legs, drool and feet all over the place trying to be comfy. Andrew J has made a wind catcher out of our window so our area has 'air conditioning'. I'm not a big googler ie; I never google people or look them up before I meet them which is kind of lucky because if I had I probably wouldn't have put my feet all over Jamie or even guessed that he would have such a bloody good sense of humor about it. In return he put his feet all over me and proceeded to mind me up the mountain, reminded me of my uncle. Not googling people makes for a comfier ride to the mountain.

We finally arrive at base camp, load our things into our tents. I'm with Ana ie. the first Brazilian woman to climb Everest. Then we set off for our first hike, we climb up about 200 mtrs and then return to Base Camp all of us starving. Dinner is a 5 star 4 course meal, Kev one of my other favorites on the trip informs me he has had it flown in especially for me. I am delighted. In reality it is a soup with mushrooms and since I am allergic I can't eat it. So I eat platefuls of cheese.


NZ won the rugby in case you were wondering but the banter has now turned to Kiwi's been a bunch of cop outs. I get offered a drink and when I turn it down (I'm not a drinker even when in a bar) I'm told by a Brit on the trip I'm taking it all too seriously and that I had better not be a cop out to the summit like the All Blacks are getting to a World Cup final. Nothing I haven't heard before so I brush it off, you know do the whole cop it on the chin and smile routine that you learn from a young age to master when you're a Going all the while in secret wanting to smack his dile - Told you I could be patriotic.

Welcome to the Northside
Because we are on the North side today we will be carrying gear about 1300mtrs or so up to Camp one and then returning to base camp. It will help us acclimatise as well. It's still about 25 degrees I'm looking forward to gaining some altitude and the heat dropping off. It's a 5-6hr trek up to Camp One and once we get there we have to turn around and come back down. We head back down via Mushroom rocks - Amazing.

Move to Camp 1
Today we move to camp one with the rest of our gear, it's back up the way we went yesterday and I set off with Ana, she has already become a treasured mentor on this trip. I can't think of anyone I feel safer with it's like she's my family already. We take our time going up because we don't have to turn around and head back down again. Neither of us have a watch, which means Mike has to constantly tell us the time. We are the official Team girl on the trip, complete with come on girls give us a Carlsberg ad banter on the way up, the term 'Hey f-ck you' is developed. Ana can't understand english that well so when the guys say something she looks over at me my face is usually telling so she just turns around and says 'F-ck you guys'. It's a potty mouth festival on the way up, all in good humor of course. For this reason last names will never be published on this blog. We finally arrive at camp 1 and Ana scores us an amazing tent out of the hut, we are pretty stoked. 

Crampons on.
Today we actually step foot on the mountain. Were tackling about 1200mtrs straight up in snow and ice with a gear carry to high high camp, just like we did coming up to camp one. I'm excited, it's the first time I'm going to play in my Adidas 3 in 1 terrex jacket. We start off and around 200-300 mtrs into it, I can feel a pain around my hip. I keep going, it's seriously starting to slow me down around 500 mtrs in. Jamie, Andrew J and the amazing Andrew M come alongside to help me out. At this stage I'm convinced it is the stitch. The guys decide to take my pack and help me push on, I couldn't have done it without them. The pain is almost unbearable and I make it to high camp tears streaming down my face the entire way. It's not until on the way down that it becomes apparent it's something more serious than stitch. Nola and Ana both examine me, I'm so tender and inflamed they're shocked I even made it up and then back down or that I can even walk. I have an acute groin sprain, Mike walks in looking heartbroken for me. I sit at the table tears streaming down my face. I know what it means and I feel my dream slipping out from me. I can't leave for high camp with this injury. I can't go up the mountain, I go down to my tent curl into a ball and cry, I can't even remember the last time I cried like this. Ana comes in with the Sat Phone wraps her arms around me and tells me to call my Mum. I'm so upset that I can't even get the words out over the ph, my entire family is devastated for me. It's going to take a miracle.

Deliverance
I lay in my sleeping bag, a beautiful Marmot Col from my sponsor and I realise that I have to have some faith. People have partnered me to live my dream because they had faith in it, it's at this moment I realise maybe the last 4yrs have damaged me more than I know. I never thought of myself as someone with low self esteem but maybe I do doubt myself. When I told the people closest to me I was going to do this they never doubted for a second, had I been doubting myself? I fall asleep and dream that a loved one I lost recently wraps his arms around me and I see his watch. On his watch is the date 6th of August. I awaken to a gale blowing outside, others tents have been shredded and I am nearly blow away heading up for breakfast. I walk in and they tell me were not going up the mountain today because the weather is rubbish. I've woken up feeling peaceful, I sit down next to Mike and Z (the other member of my small team) and tell them about my dream. I tell Mike that I'm going to summit on the 6th, I say it with such conviction that he looks worried. The 6th is a few days to go and our flights don't match, were supposed to be off the mountain by the 6th.

Blur
The next couple of days pass by, the weather as it would turn out after Mike and I talk about my dream he calls for the forecast and it's not gonna be good to go until the 6th. My groin injury is also healing at rapid pace. It's decided that we will move to high camp on the afternoon of the 5th, Adventure Consultants will change our flights and we will take a gamble on a typical Russian breakdown not happening. In other words we will fly by the seat of our pants and have faith the universe will sort it out. Some of our Visas run out on the 8th so we discuss missing the plane back to Moscow and the fact that we have to if we miss our flights on the 8th to get out of Russia we will just jump on any plane going anywhere to get out in time. Russian authorities are rather serious about overstaying a Visa.

Up we go
Today is the day, we move up to high camp about 1200mtrs up. There is a mammoth amount of fresh snow so that means more the stomp through on the way up. As we reach high camp the wind starts to pick up, we jump into our tents. A storm is coming, were told to get into sleeping bags and ride it out. Dinner becomes snacks and Mike bursting into our tent looking like a snow monster. Were at altitude so everything is becoming a little manic. The storm just will not let up, it feels like the chariots of hell are outside snow is slamming into our little tent. Hours pass by and Ana and I discuss not getting to go for the summit because of the weather. I'm filled with dread, Ana understands what I've been through and what I will go through if I don't make the summit. Chances are it will make the papers and a bunch of haters who have never met me will rejoice, we decide that no matter what even if we have to stay on when the others leave were staying until I get up this mountain. Our departure time keeps ticking by and getting pushed back because of weather. The altitude is making a host of people ill, I haven't suffered at all. I look over at my bottle of 1 Above and smile.

Were going for it
It's decided well after daybreak were going to take a crack at the summit. the weather isn't ideal but were gonna go for it. Off we go, Mike puts me behind him and ropes us up. It's a tough slog and 1000 mtrs to the summit. I'm battling my head the entire way up, get your shit together Pearl you can do this. It's inch by inch and you have to fight for every bit you gain. I'm having a real head argument, at this moment everything that has niggled at me over the last 4yrs is swirling around in my head, it literally feels as though I am beating it out of me. Mike sits down next to me on a break, he can tell something is going on. We decide to take a crack straight to the saddle the route is more exposed but it will cut a few hours off the journey. We finally reach the saddle, everyone is exhausted, I can't speak my head is too full for words I'm battling. The final push is going to be tough. I can see what we have to go up and luckily I'm in fighting mode because otherwise I would have turned and ran. It's decided that only 2 out of 8 of us will continue on to the summit with Mike. It will be Guy M and myself, Guy later tells me on the flight back to Moscow when he looked over and saw this little girl was going up there he thought bugger if that little girl is going up but not me. The rest of my small team have already headed up to the summit, we set off Mike in front, me in the middle and Guy M behind me. We move at such pace even Mike is astounded, I've started winning the mind game in my head and I'm not slowing down. In a bizarre fashion I'm speeding up. We take what would have been a 3-4hr climb in 2hrs without a break. We step on to the the plateau and Mike says the summit is a stroll away. I'm here. I'm in a daze, we walk over to the summit were about to become the first Kiwi's to take the summit from the North side. Ana, Z, Andrew and Jamie are coming down. The each hug me I get to Z and he picks me up and tells me it's there Pearl, it's waiting for you, you dreamed it. The tears start streaming down my face by the time I reach Ana I'm sobbing, I can not believe I'm here. My little mountain family huddles around me, they know exactly how I'm feeling. I walk over to the summit, Guy M puts his hand out and says come on up. 

I'm here
Here I am standing on the summit, it feels so good I just want to collapse and stay here forever, everything has become clear and I feel the lightest I have in the last 4yrs. I feel nothing but love everywhere, it's as though all the people who love me are right there with me. I can touch heaven. I'm so happy all I can do is thank Mike and Guy M for coming with me. It's everything I had imagined when I sat in my room staring at that diary and decided I was going to touch heaven on every continent. We come back down and it's nothing but a blur, we charge down the mountain in record pace. Ana and I pack our high camp and ski to the bottom on our crampons. I walk into the hut to have my last dinner and the cook who calls me Princesca it means princess in Russian gives me the biggest hug. 

Outta here.
Ana and I get ourselves together around 7am to head down the mountain, there's not much time were rushing for a flight. All of our packs are loaded up extra heavy. I end up taking a fall half way down and busting my knee with a gash that later requires 4 stitches. I hobble down the mountain and end up in the 4WD which makes the trip shorter by a few hours with Mike instead of the bog because my leg is buggered. From there it's a total off road adventure for the next 4h-5hrs screaming along dirt roads. 


We did it.... Now we have to catch the flight...

That moment where you wonder what the hell am I doing here?

I can't really explain why I ended up sitting in a box size Russian hotel room at 1am writing my first blog post. How do you explain the 'why?' of something that feels so inevitable. There is an old saying that goes something like, 'it's the exact thing you would go for if you knew it existed'... So In February 2011 when I found a childhood diary with go to the top of the world scribbled in it something hit home.

When you find such a note to yourself you have to ask what is the top of the world? It was what I asked my father, he must known it was coming because his tone of voice had a certain degree of trepidation as if he knew as soon as he said the words Mt Everest he would be dealing with his daughter wanting to climb to what is essentially the top of the world. If you don't know me I'm 26yrs old 5'5 and usually weigh about 46kgs, if that wasn't enough there is the other crap that goes on. You see everything I do or maybe the better phrase would be 'supposedly do' seems to become the focus of a band of certifiable lunatics, I have never met. In-fact I would wager that right now you could write to a blogger and announce I had just been spotted committing some hideous act in NZ while I am sitting on the other side of the world in Russia and it would end up all over the internet. I would be hung and drawn without even having the right to response, the blogger wouldn't give a flying toss if it were true or not they would post it because my name followed by negative garbage equals = blog hits. It is safe to say that this very post will end up dissected and pillaged. Needless to say wanting to climb Everest attracts a fair whack of attention, wanting to be the first NZ woman to do something like climb the 7 summits even more so. Which explains my parents trepidation.

Because the sad reality is as a friend of mine in the media said before I left a friend of mine in the media said to me on the phone “you know that you not making the summit would get more coverage than making the summit”. My only response was that I had reached a point where I really didn't give a toss anymore. After 4yrs of having my life stalked by a lunatic I have never met and wouldn't know from a bar, in the form of two hate sites set up off shore to make it harder for lawyers to tackle and then numerous blog posts spewing vile slander. I simply have reached a point where I no longer register it, when something has taken you so low that you hit a rock bottom that has you wanting to end your life? The only thing I can really say is once you've been hit in the same place one two many times it all becomes numb.

It was this numbness and not giving a toss about others opinions that led me to walk away from a career I had to fight every inch of the way to get to follow a dream I had forgotten I had. So what if others thought it was mad, so what if they tried to use it against me. The reality was that everything that could have been done has already been done to me. I already lost everything on a very fateful May day in 2006 working for Emirates airlines in Dubai, I was 21yrs of age and felt as though I had the entire world at my feet. The world went up in smoke when the car I was traveling collided with a concrete barrier leaving me with a sequela brain injury. It left my memory in tatters but if I thought that was the worst that could happen to me, I had no idea what was to come. I would return home to New Zealand to face 4yrs of hell at the hands of someone who didn't even have the human decency to meet me before he drove my world as low as it could go. Then spend the next 4yrs salvaging my life and building under constant attack, with it would come media attention and tabloid headlines. All the while I hunkered down into my family and rode it out, not saying a word. Hold yourself above it they told me, you're in no state to get into a war of words.

I've taken more unfair hits that 99% of the population could handle and you know what? I'm still standing. I'm not bitter, I'm not hating on life and I can be proud to say that I came out the other end ten times the person I was at the beginning. So when I found that diary and words I couldn't remember writing it was like a light went on, it was god or fate if you're more that way inclined handing me a part of my life back. So I will be damned if I'm going to let the raving lunatics stand in the way of a dream so unique and so precious. It was this school of thought that had me board a plane to Queenstown in search of one of the worlds top mountain guides Guy Cotter when my father said it has to be the best, when I dialed the number for Adventure Consultants words can not explain how scared I was. I had already cut a deal with my family, I would go with the best and I would make sure I came home in one piece.

So when the ph started ringing I had to battle with all my will not to chicken out. There was the initial reservation, what if he judges me on what a few blog posts on the internet say? I don't know what Guy Cotter thought when he answered because I started the conversation in a rather peculiar way it went something like “Mr Cotter, I want to climb Everest now I'm sure a lot of people say that to you but I'm actually so serious; I've just quit my job and truth be told I've been in Wanaka trying to pluck up the courage to call you for the last two days.” When he told me to pop round to the office straight away my heart literally jumped so high I don't think it has come down since. It was the very meeting that led me to where I am sitting right now in a shabby mountain hotel on the eve before I attempt a summit bid on the highest peak in Europe, Mt Elbrus. My first of the 7 summits.

They tell me climbing the 7 summits is a fine way to prepare for Everest. So here I am, beginning my 7 summit bid in Russia. Of course in typical Pearl fashion there has been some road blocks put in my way, the authorities have closed the Southside of the Mountain. Which is the route that is always used and for good reason. With chairlifts, purpose built accommodation and snowcats it is the easiest and most developed way up the mountain. So I'm going up the Northside, undeveloped, no accommodation and only your legs to cary you every step of the way up the mountain with all of your stuff. Not to mention the far more difficult climb base to top there is also the terrible weather.

My team which is the smaller group of 4 consists of seasoned climbers, one was the second oldest woman to climb Everest and the other was the first Brazilian woman to climb Everest. To say I'm intimidated would be an understatement. I am the baby, but strangely this doesn't bother me. I feel light and safe, as if the burden of having to be successful has been vanquished by a new feeling. The joy of learning something new, of having beginners curiosity.

So here I am sitting in a little soviet union era shoe box that goes by the name of Hotel Tourist in a tiny town called Pyatigorsk, with all the windows and doors open because were in the middle of a heat wave and temperatures are touching 40 degrees out. It's crippling. Tomorrow we will leave for the mountain in beast of a bog that will take us over bumpy roads in wooden seats in the heat with no air conditioning for 7-8hrs. Sounds a little bonkers right? But how much of life is lost in waiting? If you are lucky enough to loose all of your dreams and then one day discover them again at an age where you were capable of living them why would you wait. I have learnt that there is no point in waiting because living your dream isn't going to be easy, waking up one day and deciding to be true to yourself, to quit hiding and front up to your own life is never easy. Such living requires you to face your biggest fears and the things you hide from. In the last few months I have been forced to accept that everything even the worst things in life happen to make you who you are.

Along my journey to here, I have had support from amazing people and brands, some who I will be blogging about over the next couple of days.

When you set out to live a dream and you do so with such force of will amazing things happen. I was asked a few weeks ago if I am afraid to fail and the answer is NO. I am not afraid to fail because I am doing this for no one else but myself, this is my dream and I intend to live it. So whether I make it to the summit or not I'm not going to surrender my dreams to failure. Those who surrender their dreams to failure don't deserve to be living them. You have to get back up, you have to pull up your boots and say to yourself – if you want it, go get it! No excuses!

Which is what I will be telling myself on the ride tomorrow...