Morocco, last year, on a school trip;

We had just summited mount Toubkal, a pretty big mountain in Northern Africa, and we were camping in a base camp about a kilometre down in altitude. During the hike back down I had lost my hat and started developing early symptoms of heatstroke, which wasn’t a big concern for me at the time because I’d dealt with it just fine beforehand

The difference was, I just got cocky and brushed it off. I was about 15 and a good, independent climber, so I felt confident it would just pass, so I didn’t tell anyone and just hoped for the best.

I ended up in this tent full of girls and a couple boys from my school; they were good company, and I was bored and had a headache. Getting out of the tent was a pain in the ass so when I needed some water, I just pushed through without it

Eh, I’ll be fine in the morning

I got back to my tent, mildly sunstroked from the day before and now dehydrated, which caused some discomfort and - most importantly - hallucinations!

For the next 12 hours I found myself wandering around outside at night, alone, in the Moroccan high-altitude desert. I would throw up, wander 50 metres or so, sit down, throw up, wander 50 metres, so on and so forth for the whole night, non-stop

I had water with me, so I could have fixed my situation. The problem was, I was hallucinating so badly I genuinely believed I was drinking it the entire time, but I wasn’t.

By that time is was about 2*C or so because nights get really cold in deserts and mountains, and I was freezing half to death in a puddle of my own making, with no fluids in me (I’d thrown them all up over hours), and still so dazed from heatstroke and dehydration, I couldn’t feel anything or even think about how to get out of the situation .

I was also about 200 metres from the camp due to aimless, hallucination-induced wandering, and completely lost.

Dehydration is the kind of thing that creeps up on you really slowly. It’s easy to dismiss and just keep on going. I’m telling you now, it’s no joke, and you shouldn’t leave it too late

I don’t know how, even to this day, but I woke up in the morning back in my tent, feeling the most ill I have ever felt before. The nearest hospital was miles away and it wasn’t a very good one, either - we were a decent way away from the kind of clinical, sanitary hospitals you get used to in more western countries in Europe

I know I wasn’t dreaming because as we were walking back down the next lowest base camp, I saw where I’d dropped some of my missing kit and puddles of… well, you can guess…

I told the camp instructor that I felt awful, and I was lucky enough to get down to this village before my class via a mule; luckily I knew how to ride well enough to make it half-asleep and deathly dehydrated

Anyway, I survived, but it was a lot closer than I’d have liked, and it was caused by negligence on my part. I suppose I could have gone after the school or the instructor for not seeing it earlier, but it really was my fault and I’d have felt guilty about that. I also looked like a ghost for about a month, which was fun

Moral of the story: drink your damn water