SCARIEST DAY OF OUR LIVES (why we take risks)

By far the scariest part of the trek. We are just surrounded on all sides by crevasses.

In our last video, we went on the most incredible hike of our lives. Through the Swiss Alps and over the Gorner Glacier to a futuristic mountain hut to spend the night in. It was a very challenging trek, but we felt so accomplished and excited afterwards and proud that we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone. The plan was to wake up the next morning and do the same hike back down. But things did not go to plan.

So this video is going to be more of a story than a vlog. We actually weren't planning on filming anything this day because we thought it was going to be like a repeat of the day before. But things turned out way differently and when we realized that, we picked up the camera, but we really didn't do a good job of filming because we were more focused on surviving. So we're going to need to fill in some blanks.

This day would end up being one of the scariest days of our entire lives. So we woke up the next morning to a full on thunderstorm. There was lightning, it was raining, it was dark, and we knew we weren't prepared enough to hike back over a glacier in that kind of weather. So we decided we were just gonna wait it out. We weren't really panicking yet because we knew we had all day and if all else failed, we could just spend the night again in the hut.

But that wasn't really that dill option. Considering that a bottle of water literally cost $10, that's. No, not that we're putting a price on our lives, but a bottle of water costs $10.

After waiting for about two hours, there was a break in the storm and we just decided to make a run for it.

We had about an hour and a half hike to the glacier and then about an hour and a half hike over the glacier. And we knew if we could just get over the glacier, everything would be okay from there. But we really wanted to make it over with the good weather because it was sketchy enough the day before when it was perfectly beautiful and sunny.

Unfortunately, this is where we found ourselves about an hour into the hike.

The weather city and turn for the worst. At this point, we have to decide if it's smart to sit in the rain or cross the glacier in a thunderstorm.

This is madness. We're about to cross the glacier while it's raining and sleeting and thundering. But the other option is just stay out here exposed on the mountain. So we're putting on our crampons. Garrett, you're a trooper.

Trying to be.

We are both completely soaked from head to toe.

This is crazy.

At this point, we realized that we were in way over our heads. But what you can't see in this video is how cold we were. The wind was blowing so hard, it was thundering and lightning every 30 seconds, which you also can't see in this clip. And we were soaked from head to toe. And so we were just alone on this mountain, feeling completely helpless.

We knew it wasn't a smart decision to cross the glacier in the storm, but also that felt like the only option at that point.

Thankfully, it quit raining almost as soon as we got on the glacier. The problem is now it's about 40 degrees and we are soaked to the bone.

Be careful.

So there we were, alone and freezing on a glacier, praying that the storm would hold off for just one hour while we got across it.

Oh, it's really cold.

I'm gonna guess we walk across this.

Yeah.

Stay to this side.

At one point, my shoelace came untied and I bent down to tie it, and my fingers were literally so frozen that I couldn't tie my shoes, so I just had to stuff in the side of my boat.

There were very few words said during our trek over the glacier. I think we were both too busy fighting a mental battle in our heads and trying to push ourselves through the cold and the fear in order to hold any type of conversation.

I literally just couldn't think about anything else except for putting one foot in front of the other and getting over that glacier.

I don't know how long it's going to last, but we're going to soak in every second of the sunshine while we can.

There it goes. Oh, we got Sunshine for, like, 15 seconds.

At this point, we knew the most challenging part of crossing the glacier still lay ahead.

Hold my hand.

We didn't video this yesterday, but I just wanted to show by far the scariest part of the trek, where you're just surrounded on all sides by crevasses. And all it is is one step, but it's like the scariest step you've.

Ever taken in your life.

Okay, I'll put the camera away and do this.

So.

I'm thinking foot here, foot there, and across.

As long as that foot holds.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think you need to make sure to put your toe spike there.

There's no traction in the middle of your shoe, right?

Yeah.

Hey.

Okay.

What, you think I can do it.

Yeah.

Stick your toes back in there and give me your hand.

Ah, we got it.

We survived the hardest part. Oh, not again. Really not.

Oh, my goodness.

I think we're in the wrong spot.

I think we went across that way last time. I think we said this was the super scary part last time.

You good? Good work.

All right, here we go.

One more.

I'm just gonna let you start falling towards me because I don't want to come down on your foothold, you know.

For real. I think we're done.

That was, without a doubt, the scariest part of the day, because we had taken a wrong path at some point and we were still pushing forward. But we didn't know if that was eventually gonna lead us off the glacier or if we were gonna have to turn around and do all of those crossings again to find the correct path. Path.

My heart was beating so fast, but it wasn't like the adrenaline rush that you get when you do something like bungee jumping. Like, it was totally different because I couldn't even let myself, like, feel that fear. I had to focus all of my efforts on getting across these crevasses. Like, it was like I was in full on survival mode. It was almost like a calm feeling because if I let myself get scared, then I wouldn't be able to do it. I've never felt myself get that way before.

It was weirdly calm. Like, there was no, like, screaming, and there was no really even, like, talking about how scared we were. There was, yeah, just very little talking the whole time.

Well.

Just as we were about to make it down the glacier.

Rain'S back.

So we've done a lot of scary things over the last few years, like skydiving, paragliding, bungee jumping, cage diving with great white sharks. But the thing that made this experience totally different than all of the other ones is all of the other things that we've done in the past were designed to be safe. They were designed to give you a fun adrenaline rush. Nothing about this was designed. Nothing about this was safe. So it was a totally different kind of fear. So while jumping out of a little metal box with a small string attached to your feet may seem like a more extreme experience, this was actually a lot more scary.

I can't even bend my fingers to.

Kira.

I feel like I'm gonna cry.

I can't believe we did it.

Now we just have two hours, hopefully uphill, to get my body temp up, and then we'll be back at the train station. At this point, all we had left in front of us was an Easy two hour hike along a dirt trail.

Well, we can see the train station. We've almost completed the craziest hike of our lives. Maybe the craziest 24 hours of our lives. And now it's warm and sunny. Believe it or not, we're hardly wet anymore. The Swiss alps are insane.

2 hours ago I was wondering if.

We were doing Vegas.

Now we're here during sunshine.

Thanks for pushing me out of my comfort zone. Couldn't have done it without you.

I was feeling very responsible this morning.

When it was raining.

We did it.

Let's go get some pizza.

Okay. Based on the comments that we received on our last video and on Instagram, we are very aware that many people are upset with our decision to undertake this journey. Just because you can do this heck alone doesn't mean you have to do it. Newspaper headline of today. Two vloggers found in crevasses. Dead, Reckless and irresponsible. By far the dumbest thing you've done. A good way to die. That was really stupid. I'm disturbed how ignorant you guys are. These two have now officially lost their friggin mind. Great video. But you don't have to do everything for the gram and YouTube. And honestly, we completely understand. If we watched a video like this about two people that we cared about, I would probably have the same feelings. Even though you could have been a little nicer about it.

Not everyone, but either way, we really do get it. And we know that it's coming from a good place.

So here's what I would say. Hindsight is 20 20. It's easy to see that this was an irresponsible decision. Now, and I'll be the first to admit that this was not the smartest choice that we've ever made. To go on this hike with not enough gear and without enough information and to put ourselves in more danger than we should have. But at the same time, I don't feel like we made the wrong decision with the information that we had at the time.

There wasn't a ton of information about the hike online.

The guy we rented the crampons from told us we'd only be on the glacier for about 20 minutes and that.

He had taken two of his girlfriends up there. We didn't know the weather was going to take a turn for the worst.

And we had been on a glacier before in Patagonia wearing only crampons, so we figured it would be a similar experience. Plus, I figured if you were allowed to do it on your own, how hard could it be? And the mountain hut that we were hiking to held 120 people, which made me think it was a decently popular trek. And if it was popular, how hard could it be? Obviously these were flawed assumptions, but I didn't set out to put us in danger or to do it for the grand.

If we would have known how all of this was going to pan out beforehand, we probably wouldn't have gone. But in life, you rarely know the outcome of the decisions you make until you just do it.

The part of us that decided to go on this hike is the same part of us that pushed us out of our comfort zones back in 2016 when we decided to put all of our stuff in storage and go travel for a year.

We were way more clueless then than we are now.

And that might sound a little crazy to make that comparison, but it's really the same same mentality. At that time, we had no clue what lay ahead of us. We were under prepared. We didn't have all the information. But the one thing that we did know was that it was going to be an adventure and that no matter what, we would grow from the experience.

But sometimes things go wrong. Obviously this is a perfect example of that. And we know that more things will go wrong in the future, but we just don't let that rule our lives.

I think we've kind of gone with the philosophy that we would rather take, calculate at risk and go into something and figure it out along the way than to sit back and think about all of the bad things that could happen and let that hold us back from taking action. I think ultimately, if we valued security and safety above everything else, our lives would be vastly different than they are right now. Because we've chosen to take these calculated risks. I think we're at a place in our lives that we never even dreamed of being.

And I think our lives are vastly better because of it.

Let's go on a hike.

I feel like crampons. They should have named a tampon. That is so true. That's funny.