Figuring that you only live once, and if you do have to go it might as well be in as spectacular a fashion as falling several miles from an impossibly high ladder, you firmly grasp the ladder and begin your long climb.
The going isn't too difficult at first, but the climb begins to tax your energy reserves more quickly than you expected, and you find your pace slowing as fatigue starts to burn at your muscles. It is only after your legs have begun to develop serious cramps that you spot something above you. What you had originally taken to be merely a cloud becomes a tad more suspicious, as you realize that the ladder heads straight for it. Assuming that something substantial must be lurking past the pale, fluffy underbelly of the cloud, you gather your resolve and continue the trek upward, glad that some sort of destination has presented itself.
After what seems like hours of climbing, you manage to make it to the cloud level and find yourself pushing upward into a thick fog. Unsure of what it is you'll find beyond, you hope that whatever lurks above the misty area contains something solid to collapse upon, as your body burns with the worst muscle aches you have ever experienced. The end of your journey turns out to be quite abrupt, as your head passes out of the cloud cover and back into the sunlit sky, you find that there are no further rungs to grasp and you are left with nothing around you but wispy tendrils of water vapor. Having apparently crapped out, you berate yourself for having made such a climb for absolutely nothing, and wonder if you'll even be able to make the climb back down.
Resigned to a very difficult and painful trip back down the ladder upon your burning legs, you decide to at least enjoy the view for a moment, needing to gain something from your ordeal, if only a picturesque memory. Strangely, the cloud which you are situated just above doesn't look as picturesque as it should, and in peering at it you discover why. Nearly hidden by the haze of the cloud is some sort of pathway set right in front of the ladder. Reaching out and patting at it, whatever substance resides on top of the cloud feels solid, and you experimentally climb forward and set foot upon what is apparently solid ground. Figuring out what it is you are standing on takes a back seat to getting some much needed rest, and you flop down onto the path in relief. While recharging your batteries, you take the opportunity to look at your surroundings, but are only treated to a vision of the tops of clouds and the sunny sky above.
Eventually, you manage to stand and stretch, your body still aching, but not as severely as it once had. Not being able to see any constancy to anything beneath the clouds, you wonder what is holding the path you stand on aloft, but that line of thinking is quickly squashed as you don't want to rub up against the Wile E. Coyote principle of falling once you've figured out that you're not really standing on anything. Content to believe that the hazy path beneath you is substantial enough to walk on, the idea that strolling along it for a spell might lead you to some amazing discovery just around the bend kicks you into first gear, and you begin winding your way over the top of the cloud.
With nothing other than fog to see, the walk isn't a particularly interesting one, aside from the fact that it is occurring several thousand feet above the ground. Almost becoming bored with the stroll, your attention is suddenly focused with a laser-like intensity when you see something emerge from the haze ahead of you.