I headed off across the track into the darkness.
I set my bearing to the first trig point on the summit ridge, put my head down and started to move as fast as my feet would carry me.
The first checkpoint was some two thousand feet above, and I reckoned I could cut the corner off by heading up the bowl of the valley instead of following the ridgeline.
I knew early on that this was a mistake.
I had grossly underestimated how deep the snow pack would be, but by then I was committed to this route and couldn’t afford to go back.
The snow pile in the bowl was this horrible waist-deep drift snow. I was reduced to a snail’s pace.
I could see this trail of figures above me, silhouetted against the full moon skyline. It was all the other recruits moving steadily up.
Meanwhile I was floundering in this hellhole of deep snow, going nowhere.
I had hardly even started Endurance.
I cursed myself.
What a crap decision, Bear.
I was pouring with sweat already.
It took me over an hour to clear the ridgeline, and by then there was no sign of any other recruits. I was on my own and behind.
The wind was horrendous as I crested the ridge, and it was truly a case of moving two paces forward, then stumbling back one.
I worked my way cautiously along the ridge’s narrow sheep track, with a sheer drop of some eight hundred feet just yards to my right.
Suddenly a small icy pool under me cracked, and I dropped up to my thighs in freezing cold, black, oozing mud.
I was now wet, and covered in this heavy, black clay that clung like glue to my legs.
Cracking start.
I just put my head down and carried on.
As the first flicker of dawn began to rise, I ascended, for one last symbolic time, the east ridge of that one high peak we had got to know so well.
I had been strong on this mountain so many times, but this time, I was reduced to a slow plod up its steep face—head bowed, legs straining under the weight, breathing hard.
It felt like a final submission to the mountain’s enduring ability to make mere humans buckle.
As we descended and then started to climb up into the next valley, I found myself ascending toward a spectacular winter sunrise, peeping over the distant skyline.
We would walk all through this day, and wouldn’t finish until after midnight the next day—that was if we completed Endurance at all.
I just kept plodding and plodding, and then plodded some more.
Keep the pace; control your breathing; keep pushing.
The hours blurred into themselves. It was a war of attrition with my mind and body—all the time trying to ignore the growing swelling of bruised feet inside wet, cracked boots.
I descended yet another steep, snow-covered mountain down toward a reservoir: our halfway mark. Exhausted, I dropped my pack down and rummaged for some food. I needed energy.
The other recruits I could see were all eating madly as they shuffled out of the RV. Dark, wet, hunched figures, moving fast across the moorland leading back up into the mountains, chewing on oatmeal ration biscuits or army chocolate bars.
I had been stationary for more than five minutes now at the checkpoint, waiting in turn. I knew I had to start moving soon or my legs would start to seize up. Stops any longer than a few minutes were always more painful to get going from again.
I saddled up and started back up the same face I had just descended. I was soon slowed by more of the incessant moon grass and marshy bog. I tried to push through it as fast my body would take me.
Ten miles later, I caught up with Trucker and we moved on together—two lone figures trying to keep the pace, fighting this creeping exhaustion.
At the next checkpoint, I took my boots off, which were filled to the brim with mud and water from the marshy terrain. I put fresh socks on and drained my boots. In wet boots, fresh socks didn’t really make much difference, but they did mentally. We now only had eighteen miles to go—and I had new socks.
Psychologically, it was a fresh start.
Get on, Bear, get up, and get moving. Finish this.