With less than 4 weeks to my departure to Aconcagua, the highest in South America, I am pushing my training harder. Two days ago, I organised a night walk with the team. Often than not, the summit attempt happens after midnight; anxiety caused by stress and fear would prevent us from having a good rest, not to mention sleep. The objective of the night walk was to prepare ourselves for sleep deprivation climb.

After a days work, the team met at MacRitchie Reservoir Park at 9.30pm, with a loaded pack each. We all loaded our packs with unusually heavy loads, among us, our packs weigh between 16kg and 25kg. We needed to practice load carrying as we will be ferrying our personal and team gear from camp to camp.

Klaus diligently weighs each of our packs’ load

I have always encouraged everyone to take note of the load that we train with. Knowing exactly how much we each can carry is important. It is also a crucial skill for mountaineers to be able to estimate personal backpack load so as to be able to moderate the load as the expedition goes.

I am extremely impressed with the 3 petite ladies who are able to lug a backpack load of 16-18kg for 7hrs. They have started with a humble load of 10kg when we first started our team training in August 2010.Obviously, the training had paid off.

Most of us carried water with us, simply because if need to, can easily be off-loaded. Other than that, we have books, t-shirts, food etc. I have a mahjong set and two 50m condemn climbing ropes in my pack. My pack weighs about 20kg.

We called this madness midnight ramble.

A madness pose before the start of the walk

We started at 10pm. We covered a total distance of 21km, about 60% on trail, with some short breaks between distances of 3km and 4km.

One of the best pit stops we had was at an Esso patrol kiosk along Dunearn Road. It was already 4am by then. We bought sugared drinks, some of us had ice cream. I had a Magnum! one of my favourites where I indulge myself with only if I had train hard, train well.   

Vinnie threw herself next to the ice cooler to enjoy her paddle pop in isolation

Carmen (L) and Seow Thong parked themselves next to the pump station

At 5am (still pretty much alive), we were happy to see this overhead bridge as that would mean that MacRitchie Reservoir Park is near

Our target was to return to MacRitchie before 6am. We walked along Adam Road, passed the PIE entrances/exits, our mood was high, we were looking forward to a hearty breakfast. We arrived at MacRitchie Reservoir Park at 5.25am. Happy with the walk, we adjourned for breakfast at Upper Thomson Road.

Our runs, stairs and Bukit Timah trail climb training is on-going till the week that we will depart. I guess we are pretty much prepared except for the packing and some last minute shopping for additional gear. How I wish I could shop for “Luck”, priceless. Cheer us on, please.