Sequoia Schmidt details her journey through her home country of New Zealand in her latest book; Changing Gears: Ups & Downs on the New Zealand Road. Photo/Supplied.
Sequoia Schmidt details her journey through her home country of New Zealand in her latest book; Changing Gears: Ups & Downs on the New Zealand Road. Photo/Supplied.
Five years ago, Sequoia Schmidt received a phone call informing her that half her family - her father and brother - had died suddenly.
Her father, Kiwi mountaineer Marty Schmidt and her 25-year-old brother, Denali, had their lives cut short in July 2013 when an avalanche struck their camp on the world's second-highest mountain, K2, on the China-Pakistan border.
They had planned to become the first father-son duo to reach the mountain's summit.
After seeing a Facebook post by Swiss climber Mike Horn which showed human remains on K2, she got an emergency visa to go to K2 and try to recover the bodies of her father and brother.
And although it turned out the remains were not those of her loved ones, she said the trip was something she needed.
The diary she kept during the 16-day trek became the subject of her first book, Journey of Heart: A sojourn to K2, published in 2015.
Marty Schmidt (left) and his son Denali Schmidt during a mountain climbing expedition before they were killed. Photo/File
Sequoia, 27, has been living in Los Angeles running her publishing business and hadn't been back to New Zealand for 10 years, after leaving their Hastings flat for Houston, Texas.
That changed last year when she decided to return to her homeland and reconnect with her roots by cycling the length of New Zealand.
It is this journey which is chronicled in her latest book, Changing Gears: Ups and Downs on the New Zealand Road.
"My first trip to Pakistan really took me out of my comfort zone in a whole different level and threw me into this super intense situation," Sequoia said.
"Physically, mentally and emotionally, when I finished that trip I came to the realisation that I shouldn't be afraid to go back to New Zealand, like I shouldn't be afraid to face the memories of my past and I shouldn't be putting them in the back of my mind, I should find a way to confront them and work through them."
Like many, Sequoia's relationship with her father was tumultuous and it is something she still struggles with.
"The first book I wrote touched on that quite a bit, on having that complicated relationship and the second book really comes to try and understand a little bit more of who he was and the decisions that he made and to just respect him as a person," Sequoia said.
"I think that that is something we all go through when we transition from our adolescence to our adulthood and that understanding that our parents are just human beings and they are trying to do the best that they can and when you are a kid you don't really get that."
"Sadly it's something that I realised after their deaths and it is also something that allows our relationship to continue growing even though he is no longer alive - I can still learn life lessons from that relationship."
Despite moving 17 times to 15 cities, across four different countries by the time she was 14, she attended Havelock North Intermediate and Hastings Girls' High School in Hawke's Bay.
"Going back to Hawke's Bay was a big deal for me and I knew it was going to be a huge thing just because I had so many memories there and I hadn't been back since my dad and brother died."
"There are a lot of memories, but if I had to sum it up, I would say it was really cathartic to come back to Hawke's Bay especially on a bike and doing something physical," Schmidt adds.
The people she encountered along her way and the flashbacks from her childhood, paired with the aloneness that can only be had on a solo excursion of self-discovery, led her to understand more about herself and her strengths than she realised when she began.
"I have this sense of pride in knowing that they would be super happy and super proud of me for all the stuff that I am doing."
She recalls one of her favourite memories of the trip being when she struck up a friendship with a fellow cyclist named Rod while coming out of the Akatarawa Forest path.
"We became good friends and he even let me sleep on his couch one night and then I woke up the next morning and he had packed his bicycle ... so he ended up cycling with me for two days."
When they reached Hawke's Bay, she realised she needed to go into Hastings by herself.
"He was totally understanding which doesn't usually happen so he let me do the actual cycle into Hastings on my own. That was one of my favorite highlights of the whole trip because when you're on adventures you never know what's going to happen."
