This is great and all, but for me it feels like much more of an achievement when I reach the summit with 30kg+ of mixed gear and child on my back - and there’s nothing quite like the feeling of putting it all down and feeling like you might just float away.
Then again I am the kind of masochist who used to run ultramarathons with a backpack full of rocks just for the jollies.
What does it feel like to put it all on again to go down? That is the absolute worst for me. I’ve had lug all sorts of heavy gear to some crazy uphill locations for photo/video shoots, and none of that is designed to wear comforatably on your back. Downhill back to the truck after going up hill and then doing the shoot has on more than one occasion made me think “I’m too old for this”
Just “here we go again”, with a few squeaks and pops from various body parts, as I’m not quite the unblemished young thing I once was. These days the luggage also likes to yank my hair and kick my kidneys, and occasionally violently lurch to one side or the other without warning, which definitely makes matters exciting.
Empathise on the gear-lugging - I have Sherpa’d full size solar panels up a pathless and sheer mountainside, and it was not fun - although again standing up there with two tonnes of hardware going “heh, I hand lugged all this here” was gratifying.
At least I didn’t have to carry them back down.
I've done the same many times with the 30+ kg of gear and kid, even once going up to resupply a friend on a multi-week trip. It's good fun for your quads. Helps to put some of the heavier gear in a pair of those large waterproof roll-top bags and sling them across your chest, gets your centre of gravity more neutral.
I mean, if you find it easy enough to reach the summit with 30kg+ of mixed gear, then surely there's another more difficult summit that would be just as much of an achievement without?