What follows is a letter from Mount Kilimanjaro:

Drew,

The days that follow will bring out the truest pieces of who you are. They will challenge your weaknesses like they've never been challenged, they will rely on your strengths to carry more fortitude than ever before. Your years of growing up, being teased and picked on by your older brothers will seem like a cake walk compared to what is to come. You have decided to challenge me. I will exhaust you more than you have ever been exhausted physically, emotionally, and spiritually. My job is to scrape away anything superficial, so that all that is left is the real you, the way you were meant to be. If you make it to the top, if you defeat me, it will be because of the real you, not because of any false self you have trained to put up at all times. Nothing could prepare you for what is to come, not your years of high school sports, nor your recreational hikes in North Georgia. The journey is long, and the reward is ever-teasingly another step in front of where you will be. If you make it to the top, the man that comes back down will be a different man than the one that came up. You will be stronger, more courageous, with a stronger identity than you had before. The reward is sweet, but can you make it? Only time will tell what you are truly made of.