It is August and my fingers are numb. I squeeze my hands into fists inside the gloves and watch Serena secure the crampons onto her boots. When my fingers have regained feeling, I do the same, and the cold metal bites into my skin.
It may be August, but the sun hasn’t risen yet and we are on the edge of a glacier at 3000m above sea level.
Serena gives me one end of the rope and shows me how to attach it to my harness. Then she fastens the other end to her own harness. Between us lie fifteen metres of rope.
‘Why have you put so many knots in the rope?’ I ask, only half-awake.
‘In case one of us falls into a crevasse,’ Serena explains. ‘The knots will slow down the fall.’
I pick up the ice axe from next to my rucksack. ‘And what do I do with this?’
‘Slam it into the ice. No, you’re holding it wrong. The other way around. Like this.’
‘And what happens after that?’
‘If it comes to that, I’ll give you instructions,’ she says. ‘Ready? Let’s go.’
She sets off, and I wait for the rope to unravel before I follow her. This is extreme social distancing: we’re now 15 metres apart with the heavily knotted rope stretched taut between us.
I’ve been on a glacier once before, and that was seven years ago in Norway. I remember being terrified. I was convinced the crampons wouldn’t hold me; but sure enough, they did – and somehow, that knowledge stuck with me. I no longer feel scared as we walk slowly across the ice. It creaks beneath us.
On both sides, the mountain pierces through the glacier and points sharply towards the sky, like teeth surrounding an icy tongue. Somewhere ahead is the Wildspitze, Austria’s second highest mountain and our destination.
I can still vividly remember my last trip to the Austrian Alps. It was March 2020 and I was making the most of the final weekend before the ski lifts closed: empty slopes, no tourists, perfect conditions. It was easy to leave reality behind and think only of the snow beneath my skis.
Unfortunately, reality struck with the force of an avalanche: the region where I was skiing was announced a high-risk area, my flatmate in Munich panicked, and it was clear that I should avoid returning to the flat.
On the glacier, a crevasse gapes in front of me. ‘Wait,’ I call out to Serena. ‘How do I get across?’
‘Jump!’ she replies.
I jump, my heart in my mouth – and land on solid ground.
With nowhere else to go, I fled to England. Mum picked me up from the airport. A week later, the borders were closed and I was helping my parents paint the kitchen.
Still, I was one of the lucky ones: I had a full-time occupation that could take place online (teaching English and studying for my Master’s) with a morning commute around the garden, chickens in tow.
And so time passed. First March came to an end, then April, May and June followed suit. After the borders finally opened, it was time to face Munich again.
Oh, the joys of the flat hunt! I’d formally quit the flat, feeling that it was time to move on, and now needed to find somewhere new. Searching for a place to live in Munich is bad enough in the best of circumstances, let alone from England during a pandemic. Still, after several video calls and online viewings, I found a temporary sub-let for the summer. Once I was back in Munich, I would be able to search for a long-term flat in person.
I packed my bags with trepidation. For the first time since I was a child, I was reluctant to leave the safe bubble of home. During lockdown, I had re-connected with the gentle, rolling hills and secret beaches of Devon, whereas I hadn’t yet properly connected with Munich. There were still a lot of uncertainties.
We’re well over 3500 metres now and the air is thin. I can feel it burn in my whole body; I’m covered in sweat. It can’t be much further, surely.
It’s surprising that even returning to normality takes some adjusting. On my first evening back in Munich, I was invited for dinner in a neighbouring flat by an Indian family. They had extended the invitation to all the residents of the house and, while the room was far from crowded, there were more people than I’d seen in the last four months put together.
Of course, it was a new normality. Nobody shook hands and we sat spaced out around the room.
A few weeks later, I returned to Austria for the weekend – no longer a high-risk area. The call of snow and ice is just too strong to resist.
The peak is in sight now and we clamber over rocks to reach the top.
‘At last!’ Serena says to me happily. ‘We made it!’
