Notes from 6,153 m

A short personal one. Swap this out with your own writing in data/blog/notes-from-6153m.md.

The summit push on Stok Kangri starts a little after midnight. You've barely slept, it's well below freezing, and the headtorch only shows you the next few steps. At 6,153 m, the air has about half the oxygen you're used to, and your body knows it.

Pace beats power

The fast people on summit night are rarely the strongest - they're the ones who found a sustainable rhythm and never broke it. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. I think about this constantly when I'm tempted to rush a release.

Plan for the conditions, not the plan

Weather windows, acclimatisation, turnaround times - the mountain rewards people who respect the conditions and punishes people who are attached to their schedule. Same with shipping software: the plan is a hypothesis, the conditions are the truth.

The summit is optional; getting down is not

It's an old climbing line and it's also good engineering advice. Finishing safely - with something that works and a team that's still standing - beats planting a flag on something fragile.

The sunrise from the top was worth every cold step. So is the feeling of shipping something solid.