If climbing 4 more steps from the first step reaches the middle, the person has climbed 4 steps in total. This means the middle step is the 5th step from the bottom (1st step + 4 steps). For the 5th step to be the exact middle, there must be an equal number of steps below and above it. Therefore, there are 4 steps below the middle step and 4 steps above it, making a total of 4 + 1 (middle step) + 4 = 9 steps.