Unfiltered: What hurt about Peru, and what I’m taking with me
“What a rich learning experience!”“The mountain will always be there!” EYE ROLL.
Before you can extract anything useful from a trip that went off the rails, you have to sit with the fact that it sucked. So please let me be wildly annoyed for a minute that I spent a small fortune and months of my life just to suffer in a tent and turn around. So here is the raw, unvarnished audit of Peru—the stuff that genuinely blew, and the bitter, practical data I'm taking with me.
The disappointments
1. The expectations gap
I’ve done plenty of solo hiking. I know how to talk to myself on a trail for eight hours straight. But I didn't fly to Peru to do a solo hike in my own head. I went to be part of a team—surrounded by people I had looked up to for a long time.
Turns out, meeting your heroes at high altitude is a great way to realize you'd rather be anywhere else. Instead of feeling supported or connected, the vibe felt transactional and cold. Being isolated in a high-stakes, low-oxygen environment is a special kind of mental drain. The gap between what I expected that team dynamic to be and what it actually was absolutely killed my headspace.
2. Zero mountain vibe
When I climbed Kilimanjaro, I felt this deep, peaceful, grounding connection to the mountain. In Peru? Nothing. Zero. No peace, no deep spiritual connection—just cold rock, bad vibes, and altitude. Without that grounding anchor, every single physical struggle felt twice as heavy and ten times more annoying.
3. Wasted money, time, and legs
Sitting up high knowing the trip was cooked, the math kept running in my head: I spent thousands of dollars, used up precious time off, and did all those mind-numbing stairwell training sessions for THIS?
The absolute cruelest joke? I wasn't even sore. My legs were fine. Leaving the mountain with a full tank of gas makes you feel less like a heroic athlete making a tough safety call, and more like you just threw a massive wad of cash directly into a campfire.
The data: Stuff I’m fixing next time
Once the initial tear-filled rage-cloud cleared out, a few cold, practical facts remained. No dramatic epiphanies, just operational fixes so I don't repeat the same mistakes.
Vet the team and outfitter like my life depends on it (because it does): Who you climb with—and who you share a freezing tent with—can make or break you. Period. I don't care how prestigious the name on the brochure is; if the culture is toxic or dismissive, it ruins the climb. Next time, I am vetting the heck out of the outfitter and how they manage group dynamics before paying a deposit.
Respect the altitude, take the meds: The altitude hit like a freight train. I need to drop the pride and just keep Diamox on deck for aggressive profiles. There are no extra points for trying to raw-dog high altitude and getting crushed.
I am nothing without a real pillow: I am officially too old to roll up a puffy jacket, put it on a rocks-for-floors tent ground, and pretend it’s a pillow. My neck was wrecked. A real, inflatable camping pillow is non-negotiable.
Stop packing gear by category: Grouping all base layers together in one dry bag sounds nice in your living room. In a dark, sub-zero tent when you’re hypoxic, it means dumping your entire duffel just to find one pair of socks. Next time, I’m organizing gear by my daily routine. (I think? Open to suggestions here.)
Do the annoying homework at home: Practice knots in the living room while watching TV. Get faster at camp setup off the mountain (you know, while my brain has oxygen).
The Great Snack Mystery: Did I overpack snacks again? Yes. Absolutely. Did I bring enough gummy clusters to supply a small birthday party? Probably. But to be fair, if I had stayed up high longer, I would have eaten them all. So I’m calling that a draw.
Moving On
I’m not looking for a silver lining here, and I don't need to turn a bad trip into an inspirational quote. Peru sucked, the team dynamic fell apart (for me at least), and I paid a steep price to learn a few basic lessons. That’s the deal with high-altitude climbing—sometimes you pay for the summit, and sometimes you just pay for the lesson. I've got the receipts. Now it's time to build for the next one.