I finished my Basic Mountaineering Course. I should feel accomplished, right? But all I remember is the cold that got into my bones, the silent panic at 3AM when the wind rattled the tent, and the way my hands shook tying knots I’d practiced a hundred times. Nobody talks about the weird emptiness after. You come down, everyone expects you to be tougher, more alive. Instead, I just felt smaller—like the mountain scraped something off me I can’t get back. I learned how to rappel, how to fall, how to get up. Nobody taught me what to do with the silence that follows. #Travel #AfterTheSummit #MountaineeringTruth