Kick Off

It all begun with an invitation from Vertic to assist to the KickOff Gore-Tex Experience Tour on October, 31th. To be honest I didn't have a clue of what it was about but I thought I could not miss an opportunity to listen to Edurne Pasaban. Once again.

I followed her challenge to be the first woman to climb the 14 summits over 8.000m, I shuddered at the thought of any incident and I dreamed of all her adventures.

Fantasizing is all I can do; I know I will never be able to climb much higher than 6.000m. I know nothing about the cold and the fears and the body that hurts so much it is the mind that has to take control. I read it in reports of expeditions. I just imagine something like my own feelings, multiplied by thousand.

I am an amateur climber, not particularly fit, nor particularly trained. But I am definitely in love with the mountains. I had a taste of the emotion of reaching a summit with the ascent of the Kilimanjaro: a special mountain in my imagination (thanks to Hemingway!) in a special moment in my life. I left the slopes of the mountain convinced that I had been lucky enough that she let me climb with no problem... Respect and devotion is also what I felt when, after a 3 weeks trek in the Khumbu valley, I surrender to the unique ambience of the Everest Base Camp. Looking at the Ice Fall that legendary climbers dared crossing, visualising mentally the track to Camp II, III, the South Pass... And waking up every morning surrounded by dreamed peaks with such incredible name as Ama Dablan, Cho Oyu, Lothse, etc. was not the least either. Those experiences gave me a flavour of alpinism and just made me even more addicted to it!!

Anyway, the point is that I went to the Kick Off, had my photo with Edurne (and Lucy ;) and started to think about what I should say to be chosen as one of the 12 lucky climbers to go to the Balmhorn. They said the candidates should make a video to support their application and get tons of votes... gosh! I haven't got a clue of how to do a video... and I don't like the idea of talking to a camera... and I don't have tons of friends to vote me (just enough to feel warmly supported :-)

The lovely official video of the "History Sessions" just makes the challenge even worse: