Last night when I went to bed (at about 8 o’clock with no dinner because that’s how awful I felt) I was pretty sure I would not be snowsoeing up Evening Ridge.

But when I woke up I felt so much better I decided to go for it. I knew I would be less, shall we say, energetic than usual, but still…

And it went fairly well – for a while. We shoed up, went down through Hummingbird Pass, and then up toward Selous Ridge. Somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn and ended up on the first Evening Ridge bump. But that was fine because, as Sheila said, it got us faster into the sun because it was a cold day. The sun made up for that big time.

It was on the steep incline up that bump that I started feeling the nausea. It was almost crippling. I figured it would pass. I’d be fine.

We dropped down into the notch and then started up the last few hundred metres to the top. And that’s when I knew I was done for. I was full-on nauseous. I could barely breathe. My body started shaking.

Nicky called it for me. Cecilia said something about my face being white. I felt it – white and fragile and even worried about getting back down. And I felt bad that the others couldn’t continue to the top. Well, Ben and Cecilia did so I was grateful for that. I was even more grateful that not a single one of my beautiful friends blamed me.

And it was still a beautiful day. The sky was deep, dark blue the trees were magical. The views were outstanding. And we took the front route down plunging through gorgeous powder. And I felt fine again. As soon as the effort was out of the trek, all was well.

I suppose we must now return. We have a good reason to.