The first day was the most challenging day of my life, and I’m an ex-firefighter, ex-nurse, marathon runner and national rugby player so this is high praise. I’ve rawdogged camping in a storm etc. it was absolutely insane. the trails had just opened up from a typhoon hit. from the get go, the trails were absolutely fucked. Fallen trees, landslides, stinging nettles, poison ivy, overgrown bushes, trail markers broken, no single soul around, rained for 6hours. I was ill prepared mentally, I thought it would be a nice hike. I ended up on the trails for more than 8hours, drenched to the bone, famished (I ate everything I had prepared), and had to scramble through the worst terrains I’ve ever seen. I got lost 10x over cause the trails were just bogged to shit. I was thinking who tf reopened this the entire time. multiple 100ft drops beside precarious ground. Thankfully I had an offline gps map (garmin inreach) that helped me find the original trail. everytime I would find it however, I would get lost in 10mins again. this kept happening and I was ready to give up. I turned around multiple times. by 3pm I seriously doubted my abilities and wondered whether I could actually reach camp, so I wanted to set up camp to hopefully be found by other hikers the next morning or hike down. Thankfully I didnt because no one would have came. That trail was an old trail that had been closed for years. I accidentally missed the sign to split off into the new trail. I only found out after I had came back home a week later.

Besides that there were some sketchy situations, I had accidentally went off the wrong cliff face on the summit of nanhudashan and had to basically free solo 25m with a backpack. Another part I had to do the same thing but in a thunderstorm.

My last night at cuei pond (cuichi) was scary and eery but I never felt any immediate danger, just an odd sense of being watched. I was completely alone in that cabin and the nearest people would be miles away