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Q: What do your hands look like right now?

West: They’re finally clean. My hands are pretty dry and they’ve got some calluses where I was walking and pushing my chair. But every crack in my hand was covered in dirt. Everything under my fingernails was dirt. But my hands are tough, I use them every day to walk on. So I wasn’t too worried about cuts. I was more worried about my elbows and my shoulders. I’ve been walking with my arms for the past 31 years, so I’ve developed a bit of tennis elbow. I’ve had a partial tear in my rotator cuff and had that repaired. So I was really worried I’d tear my rotator cuff.

Q: You spent eight days just walking. There have to be some boring parts.

West: That’s the thing. The first day we were in rainforest. Then the second day we were in the alpine desert. The next day we were literally in the desert and it was like the side of Mars. The next day it was a steep slope up to the top. At night we would play cards or Yahtzee. A couple of times we meditated. I’ll be very honest with you, I was never bored.

Q: Walk me through that moment when you reached the top.

West: We collapsed in front of the sign and hugged and of course, cried.

Q: Was there a part where you didn’t think it was going to happen?

West: Up until the summit day, my buddies were cheering me on. But when we got to that point to climb the summit, my two best friends were hit by massive altitude sickness. They were literally throwing up on the side of the mountain, I thought “Maybe this is it.” To be very candid with you, this is one of the first times I was like “I wish I had legs today.” Because I would have picked those guys up and carried them one by one to the summit. But I couldn’t do that, so instead I got on my hands and said “Guys, let’s walk this together.” I was going to go as far as they could go. If they stopped halfway and couldn’t make it, then that’s what we would have done.