Wednesday, June 8th

Last night I left a mug of cocoa tea outside of our tent and it was frozen when I woke up this morning. Our “alarm” sounded at 5:30 am, and although most of us were still in our clothes from the night before, and fully intending to keep them on for today’s hike, we were slow to get up and going.

The cooks had eggs and cornflakes waiting for us in the red tent. Over breakfast we shared stories about the horses, dogs and alpaca that were so loud during the night that we all thought they were going to come crashing through our fabric walls. 

After breakfast it was apparent that OG and Victoria Idol were struggling. I stayed behind with them as the others pressed forward, initially trying to hang OG from my left shoulder and Victoria from my right while taking one slow, grueling step at a time. Eventually I had to sit both of them down, run ahead to ask for a horse.

OG seemed to be in worse condition than Victoria, and he was definitely much heavier, so we put him on the horse while Victoria and I remained on foot. This marked the beginning of what would end up being one of the greatest endurance tests of our lives. Victoria and I found Steven Ayers along the way, and together the three of us made our way across frozen streams, short flats and up 60-70 degree inclines. 

Steven was quiet and kept sitting down... refusing to go any further. Victoria was huffing and puffing so hard there were moments when I feared she would have a panic attack due to the difficulty she was having breathing. I would point to a rock in the distance and tell them, “Okay guys… we are going to walk until we get to that spot. Then we will stop and rest.” Sometimes I would count our paces aloud, trying to motivate them to get to 50 before stopping. At other points during the trek, I resorted to shouting loudly. I felt like a drill sergeant, demanding that the cadets keep moving and reminding them that if we did not press forward we would miss our train to Aguas Calientes.

By the time we were nearing 16,000 feet, we could finally see the others in the distance. When they saw us, they began cheering. “Tori, Tori, Tori. Steven, Steven, Steven.” Their affirmations echoed between the mountains and were exactly what my kids needed. We all put our heads down, our hands down and crawled to the top.

While our trek was far from over, cresting that peak symbolized victory in so many ways. From there, most of our journey was downhill, and while I was not with Victoria or Steven when they finally crossed the finish line, several people said that Victoria kept repeating the line, “Now I know I can do anything. Physically or emotionally, I can do anything.”