Conquering peaks and troughs
At the age of 25, Nick Allen learned he had MS, an auto-immune disease he thought only struck old people. Six years on, he has achieved the near-impossible: scaling a Himalayan peak. Sarah Catherall talks to him about his new book.
Hauling himself out of a wheelchair and climbing the Himalayas, MS sufferer Nick Allen hopes his story will inspire others with an impairment to achieve their dreams of an adventure.
To the Summit is the inspirational story of the Palmerston North photographer and Phd student who pushed through the degenerative disease to climb Nepal’s 6189-metre Island Peak last year. For the 31-year-old who started tramping with his father and brothers from a young age, mountains are his happy place. ‘‘There’s this incredible sense of just been able to see all this stuff, and I love having an expanded feeling of self up there.
‘‘I see a mountain and look at it, and I so want to be up there. I would love to be able to do more. It makes me sad.’’
The outdoors guru went from cycling 400 kilometres a week and going on long tramps to being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 25. Struck by exhaustion, weakness, and needing to get around in a mobility scooter, his world was turned upside down.
Affecting 4000 New Zealanders, Allen writes about his journey in an emotional account which he admits was harder to revisit than any mountain expedition. ‘‘I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be revisiting those really tough times,’’ he says.
‘‘When I was diagnosed, I thought it was a death sentence. My mental image of people with MS was of older people with walking sticks or wheelchairs. I didn’t realise that young people get it too.’’
Despite still being affected daily by the neurological disease, Allen won’t stop there. Thanks to his astounding triumph conquering the Himalayan peak, he is planning his next adventure to climb a more technical mountain, the 6800m Ama Dablam, a twoweek expedition, in May 2018.
He has also launched a charitable trust, Mastering Mountains, which will award its first $2000 scholarship in November to an MS sufferer who wants to pursue an adventure.
‘‘Irrespective of whether they have MS or not, I would love for people to be able to enjoy the outdoors as much as I do. For those who do have MS or a disease they struggle through, I hope that my story would give them hope. While disease or impairment is hard, that doesn’t mean that it’s hopeless.’’
MS is an auto-immune disorder that attacks the central nervous system – the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. In severe cases, the patient becomes paralysed or blind while in milder cases there can be numbness in the limbs.
Mobility chair-bound, Allen prepared for his Nepal expedition by taking short walks, then easy tramps and eventually climbing the 2700m-high Mt Ruapehu. Heading to India last September, he first attempted to climb Stok Kangri with a guide, Tashi. But on the way up, he was struck by stomach cramps, suffering vomiting and diarrhea, and he couldn’t go on.
Forced to return to base camp, he writes: ‘‘Still nauseated, and choking back tears, I thought about how I had come down off the mountain. It was humiliating: I had joined the ranks of abortive summiteers as I rode down through the valleys, parading my weakness.
‘‘I chose to believe that MS was the problem, that if I had been an ordinary person I would have had the strength and stamina to push through and accomplish my goal... I despised myself for being so stupid, for being so ambitious... Since when does someone make a comeback from MS?... If I couldn’t climb Stok Kangri because of the MS, how could I hope to climb anything else?’’
The following month, he attempted his second climb, up Island Peak. Reaching it in just four and a half hours (most climbers take seven to nine hours to reach the peak), he writes: ‘‘As I stepped up on to the small ice platform on the summit I was enveloped in the most intense wave of excitement that I had ever experienced. It felt as if the world had fallen away around me...
‘‘Looking down into the valleys, across and into the cols, I again felt an incredible sense of opportunity and potential... I could hardly believe that we had done it. I felt profoundly grateful.’’
Afterwards, though, he developed a chest infection, and his MS began hitting him again.
Allen controls his MS through a three-pronged approach – a strict, controlled diet (he cuts out dairy, sugar, gluten, fat and red meat), keeping fit, and not getting too stressed. But it affects him most days. ‘‘This morning, I woke up at 3.30am and I was in a lot of pain. My tingling and extremities have been really bad. If I take too many pills to stop it, I end up feeling drugged.’’
Through his book and story, he hopes to change perceptions about MS. ‘‘The thing I most want to promote is the larger picture, about a healthy lifestyle and a physical goal to work towards. Going to the gym for me is boring and hard work and without a goal I quickly lose motivation. I suspect it’s the same for many others,’’ he says.
‘‘The realisation that I could take control of my MS and that it did not have to mean the end of a rich life was pivotal in my decision to resume climbing... While MS brings change to a person’s life, it does not necessarily have to bring an end to the pursuit of their passions.’’
To the Summit,
Nick Allen (Massey University Press), is released this week. $39.99.