Regine Mai wrote this on the flight home from Argentina, watching the aircraft's altitude climb on the screen in front of her. When it passed 6,962 metres, the height of Aconcagua, the mountain she had stood on top of just five days before, something turned over in her stomach.
The summit is a paradox
People often ask her how it feels to reach the top of a mountain. The honest answer, she says, is that it is ambivalent. The body has been in deep sleep and energy deficit for a long time; the air is thin, the pulse high, the cold biting, the legs tired. Every natural instinct is telling you to go down. And at the same time, the summit is the symbol of days, months, years of work, training and persistence, and standing there gives, beyond the wildest rush of endorphins, a huge feeling of euphoria, pride and gratitude.
“It's not about the summit, but about the journey there. About the person I become by working for something bigger, and by challenging myself.”
Only the dress rehearsal
For Regine, Aconcagua was never the goal in itself. It was the general rehearsal, the warm-up. The next mountain is the highest of them all: Mount Everest, 8,849 metres. The two months before departure will be some of the most intense of her life: binding together years of preparation, packing every carefully chosen item into its fixed place, and driving her body through the last training sessions so it isn't too surprised when it stands in front of the biggest challenge of its life.
“Trust in my body and my mind is one of the most important tools I carry, and it is carefully built from training, experience and love, for myself and for life.”
From the Andes to the Danish woods
What travels with her, on every mountain and everywhere in between, are the same layers. Merino regulates temperature, breathes, and doesn't hold odour, exactly what you want when you live between altitude and everyday life. At home in Denmark she wears the long-sleeved D-220 merino dress and the light base layers on the trail and off it.
The best thing a piece of clothing can do is come along, quietly, for a long time, from a ridge in the Andes to an ordinary week. Buy less, but better. Use it for years.
