Like most midlife crises, this one begins with a questionable mix of optimism, an overabundance of misplaced confidence, and a credit card. But here’s the thing about my particular brand of life after forty: every reckless, harebrained idea I’ve had since thirty-nine seems to start the same way — with me on a diet and buying shoes. Apparently, the surest sign of impending reinvention in my world is the dangerous combination of REI, low blood sugar, and a total disregard for common sense.

This brings us to my latest episode of self-improvement-meets-delusion: I’ve decided to train to climb the equivalent elevation of Mount Everest. Not metaphorically, but the actual 29,029 feet.

In the world of actual athletes, this kind of event is called Everesting. In endurance circles, it’s a polite term for voluntary suffering — climbing the height of Mount Everest, 29,029 feet of vertical gain, without actually going to Nepal. The idea is simple, and just impressive enough to disguise the fact that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing: climb a smaller but equally steep mountain on repeat, and pretend the blisters and burning glutes are character development.

Here in North America, Everesting events come in two flavors: luxury masochism with wine tastings, and full-blown misery¹.

On one end of the spectrum, you have the high-gloss, high-dollar Everesting experience — part endurance event, part lifestyle brand, 100 percent Instagrammable. The 29029 series has turned the concept into a Lululemon-sponsored, five-star vision quest with concierge service. Picture private mountains rented out for the weekend, heated glamping tents with Egyptian-cotton bedding, gourmet meals, and inspirational keynotes from former Olympians. Each participant gets a custom-branded parka, unlimited recovery snacks, a personal cheer squad, and finishers receive their very own French Bulldog puppy — all for the character-building price of around six grand. In short, you climb up, gondola down, and post about it from the spa’s recovery lounge with an organic, free-range, non-GMO, gluten-free smoothie in hand.

On the opposite end of the spectrum sits IronHike, which is best described as 29029’s feral cousin from Connecticut. It includes exactly zero luxuries. No gondolas, no glamping, no curated playlists, no massages. You go up and down on foot for seventy-two hours straight, sleep in a tent if you brought one, and eat MREs that taste like wet cardboard and self-loathing — all while contemplating your mortality. It costs $650 and comes with one guaranteed perk: the satisfaction of survival.

Given those extremes, I’m going with the €599 version in Austria instead — comfortably wedged between bougie transcendence and voluntary hardship. It may not come with champagne, hot towels, or a post-climb massage, but it also doesn’t require seventy-two hours of self-inflicted misery or sleeping in a damp tent. What it does promise is better cheese and chocolate, which feels like a reasonable compromise. Let’s be honest: no matter how you do an endurance event like this — first-class or bargain-basement — climbing 29,029 feet is going to make you question your life choices.

So, I plan to climb a mountain in Brandnertal, Austria — repeatedly — for thirty-four hours until I’ve racked up the full elevation gain. According to the event website, seventeen ascents should do the trick.

In this charmingly unhinged phase of adulthood we call midlife, some people buy convertibles, others book yoga retreats in Bali… I, apparently, sign up to climb a mountain seventeen times..

I have to admit, it’s the kind of midlife project that probably says as much about my emotional state as my physical one.

So while some people are sipping electrolyte mocktails in luxury tents or dragging their souls up and down North American peaks for seventy-two hours straight, I’ll be in Austria — doing it on the cheap, with questionable German translation skills and what I can only assume is a strong Wi-Fi signal in case I need to ask ChatGPT how to tape my knees.

And here I am in Wisconsin — where the tallest hills barely qualify as foreplay for an Austrian summit — preparing to spend the next seven months training. This is definitely not something I’m doing because I’m athletic. I’m doing it because something in me (restlessness, stubbornness, take your pick) keeps insisting that maybe it’s time to find out what else I can do.

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Progress Report (Generously Defined)

Category	Status
Training log	Yeah, so I haven’t exactly started yet… but I did buy shoes.
Vertical gain	Unclear. I haven’t worn my Apple Watch in months, but I did set it up — and had to go upstairs several times to find it and all its cables.
Fueling strategy	coffee protein spite
Recovery snacks	Yes.
Outlook	optimistic realistic hungry

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1. Disclaimer: Some exaggeration may occur. 29029 is not, to my knowledge, issuing French Bulldogs at the finish line, and IronHike participants are believed to be fine, though reports remain unconfirmed. ↩︎