"I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men."
- Sir Edmund Hillary
Just a week ago there’d been jungle
vegetation growing from the hillsides and valleys - green all around - and now snow
built up everywhere like a warning to stay low, turn back. That wasn’t going to happen; at least not for
us. Not now anyway. The same couldn’t be said for a group of
young trekkers from California and Hong Kong though. One of the members of their party came down
with a severe case of altitude sickness our first night in Dingboche. She was feeling sick to her stomach and light
headed but her worst symptom was the loss of her vision. She repeatedly complained that her eyes were
swollen with pain. When she went to open
them she agonized. I asked her if she
had been wearing sunglasses during the day out of fear she’d been victim to
snow blindness but she assured me she’d been wearing a pair. The only thing we could do was give her a
warm towel and offer pain medication.
Her parties plan was to wait it out and see if her symptoms improved by
sunrise the next morning; if not, a helicopter would be called to take her back
to Lukla where she could receive treatment.
The event played out slowly, hour by hour, while we relaxed and ate
dinner in the teahouse; an uneasy feeling hanging in the atmosphere. All we could do was to wait. Every time we checked in it seemed her
condition had either stayed the same or got worse. Very well, I thought, they’d have to make the
inevitable decision in the morning, on their own. I felt sorry for her. She had come so far to get to Everest Base
Camp, put in so many hours of planning and training, but this is a reality in
the Everest region, and would remain a reality long after the helicopter came
the next day to bring her and her boyfriend to the hospital. You deal with the facts at hand in the
Himalayas, and the fact now was that they were descending while Pancha and I
were going on, our fate undetermined.
Of course we still had another full day and night in
Dingboche. Now more than ever we felt
the need to acclimate and not push too far too fast. Why would we not succumb the same way the
young lady from Californian did? Were we
special in some way? The answer was as
clear as the view to the north had been up until now. Presently we looked up and saw nothing but
clouds and snow. The forecast, as
reliable as a forecast can be in the Everest Region, called for another two
days of snow and clouds, with possible high winds, gusts upwards of what we
cared to imagine. As I purified water in
a small stream I wondered how our journey might end. Would we come all this way and have our views
of Everest shrouded in storm squalls and snow drifts? Would we even make it to base camp? Was the young lady a sign to slow down and
wait out the weather? If we did wait out
the weather there’d be a chance we didn’t make it back in time for our
scheduled pick up in Phaplu. Also, if we
waited for the storm to pass and it didn’t, we’d now be running late and in no
better shape than if we’d continued on as planned. It was my first big decision as de facto
party leader. Sure, Pancha was the guide
and had the experience, but I had the final say so concerning big decisions;
regardless of Pancha’s advice. After
all, I had some experience myself and I was the one funding the expedition,
small as it may be. Pancha vehemently advocated
for moving on as planned and when I had questions about it he became
incoherent. So much so he nearly shut
down altogether. In the end I came
around to the idea that we should probably move on as scheduled and pray that
the weather improved instead of staying another day in Dingboche, but I didn’t
come to the decision lightly, and it took us half of the next day to return to
terms as usual. In hindsight it proved
to be the right decision and what’s a three week expedition without a little
drama?
It was now
day 13 and we were hiking through blowing snow and fog. The trail from Dingboche to Dughla and on to
Lobuche was a steady grind uphill with no views to speak of. At times it was hard to tell where the ground
ended and the sky began: a true whiteout.
Above Dughla, where we stopped for lunch, on a rocky slope just after
the pass, we hiked through a memorial of fallen climbers; huge rock piles
draped with colorful prayer flags and snow.
Most were Sherpa’s or European climbers, but there was one in particular
I wanted to find. It was Scott Fischer’s
memorial, the California climber part of the 1996 Everest expedition which
ended in disaster when 8 climbers died after a storm rolled in near the
summit. Scott Fischer was one of the
guides who perished due to exposure, along with fellow guide Robert Hall of New
Zealand. John Krakauer was on the
expedition and fortunately lived to tell about it in his book “Into Thin
Air”. Years before, in college on a ski
trip to Vermont, I’d read the whole book over the course of three days. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think
I’d be standing next to a memorial of one of the climbers in the book. Life is certainly a trip. I won’t lie and say Scott Fischer is a hero
of mine. I’m not a mountain
climber. He never impacted my life as
did Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Roosevelt, or even if I may be
completely frank, Drew Brees, but he did hold a special place in my heart when
it came to my limited knowledge of the history of mountaineering. I took my gloves off, touched one of the
stones and gave my best shot at a prayer which I hadn’t said since middle
school.
In Lobuche, at 16,207 feet, there is nowhere to hide
from the cold. Trees don’t grow anywhere
near the village, and so yak dung is the only fuel to burn in the wood stove. The Sherpa’s do their best to conserve fuel
until the sun has set. Then they get the
stove as hot as possible for dinner. Moving
around and putting on as many layers as you can is your best bet not to freeze
before the fire begins for the evening.
By now the altitude had taken its toll on me and my head was
pounding. Apparently, as I was told, a
headache that aches in the front of your head is nothing to worry about. It’s the headache that aches in the back of
your head which should concern you. I guess
this is because it’s closer to your brain stem and means you could be
experiencing signs of cerebral edema.
Mine hurt in the back of my head – Wonderful! Suffering from cerebral edema ends a trip
immediately. There is no cure besides to
descend. Basically, your brain swells
and pushes up against your skull and since there’s nowhere for it to expand
after a period of time, you begin to act drunk, then pass out, then die, in
that order. Naturally this worried the
heck out of me, and if it wasn’t for everyone else complaining about their own
headaches, I may have turned around.
Above 16,000 feet it’s nearly impossible to be spared mild headaches
from the altitude, and since we weren’t going any higher than base camp, a
couple thousand feet higher, I figured I was ok. Still though, it was the first night of the
hike that I slept poorly. Between the
cold and the headache I woke up every hour or so. I could feel the aching in my eyes. Every time my head throbbed so did my
vision. At times I didn’t know if I was
dreaming or not. It wasn’t all bad news
though, because the next day, after apple pancakes at 5:00 am, we went outside
and the fog had lifted. Mt. Nuptse (25,801’)
– the 20th highest mountain in the world – rose above Lobuche like a
white mirage in a desert of blue and bode us farewell on our way towards Gorak
Shep, the last village we’d sleep at before reaching Mount Everest Base Camp.
The cold at this hour of the morning, before the sun’s
rays have a chance to warm you, is biting.
With the wind in the valley coming off of the Khumbu Glacier - which we
were now hiking next to – the cold pierced through our layers like arrows
through butter. As we hiked we heard an
occasional “crack” from the glacier slowly adjusting itself downhill. I say we heard it, but it was more that we
felt it. Whenever it moved it let off a
deep vibration that moved the earth.
What we were able to hear, however, were the avalanches that broke loose
on the other side of the glacier. These
sounded like thunder and occurred at a surprisingly consistent frequency. Finally, at about 7:45am, the sun poked up over
Mount Nupste and we were bathed in warmth.
As rays came in, layers came off and we enjoyed the next couple hours of
hiking before reaching Gorak Shep. It
was now as clear as it had been before the storm hit. I turned to Pancha an admitted that we’d made
the right decision following his advice the morning we’d left Dingboche. He was happy.
I was happy. The world seemed
happy.
We reached Gorak Shep (16,942’) at 9:30am. It’s a tiny village of only a few buildings
set next to what is otherwise high desert.
A long, flat stretch of sand lies off to the west just at the base of
Kala Patthar (18,514’). Yaks leisurely
wander around soaking in the sun from the sky and warmth radiating off the
sand. The original plan was to keep
going to base camp and come back to Gorak Shep for the night to climb Kala
Patthar the next morning, but weather is unpredictable in the high Himalayas
and so we decided to take advantage of the sensational clear skies to hike up
Kala Patthar that day and save base camp for the next morning. Understand, Kala Patthar is a hill – the
highest hill on the planet, but a hill nonetheless. And being the highest hill on the planet next
to the highest mountain on the planet, views of Mount Everest from its top are
as grand as you’re ever apt to see outside of climbing one of the many
dangerous mountains in its vicinity. A clear
blue bird day is a blessing, one that we recognized and wanted to capitalize on.
So we had some late breakfast/lunch in Gorak Shep,
and then, warmed by coffee and tea along with hot apple pancakes, started
ascending Kala Patthar. The climb was a
steep and steady one up 1,572 feet.
Though I had shed layers at Gorak Shep along with a heavy backpack, it
was as exhausting a climb as any I can remember. The elevation was steep, but I’d hiked
steeper; the terrain was rocky, but I’d hiked rockier. It was the thin air more than anything that
exhausted me. My mind was willing to
climb, but my body refused. Every 10 to
20 steps I had to stop and catch my breath.
The most frustrating of all was it seemed as though we were right there,
right near the summit after every section, and yet I couldn’t will myself to continue
beyond a few yards every time. The
higher we went the worse it got, until finally, hours later, like out of a
dream, I made it to the top and collapsed.
When I stood up and turned around I was speechless. There was Mount Everest rising above the
Khumbu Valley, towering over Mount Lhotse and the rest of the planet like an
undisputed heavyweight champion - not only tall but thick and massive covered
in snow, rock and ice - victorious. I
turned to Pancha and he smiled at me. I
smiled back and gave him a big hug and then a violent high five. Seeing it so close was a new experience. Instead of the emotions I had felt when I first
laid eyes on her a week before, I now felt mostly pride. Only months before the idea sprang into my
mind “What if I go to Everest?”, and now here I was at my ultimate reward. Anything is not possible; to think that
anything is possible is naïve and just ain’t so, but for me, it turned out hiking
to Mount Everest was possible and now I knew it.
Mount Pumori, another giant, looked down on us as we
descended back to Gorak Shep, almost like she was making sure we made it
safely. Mount Everest, on the other
hand, grew more hidden with every step downhill and eventually disappeared
altogether, yet again, posing the question if I’d really seen her at all. Turning in at night was a relief. I was tired and the next morning we’d wake up
before sunrise to set off for base camp.
Sleep was hard to come by - again interrupted by headaches and cold - but
the knowledge that this was the last night before descending made it easier to
get through. The excitement of the next
day added to the restlessness.
It
was the 15th day of the trip and we were out the door, sharp, at 5
am. We were greeted in the early morning
dark by the moaning Khumbu Glacier and adjacent mountain avalanches. Thank God the trail was on this side of the
valley I thought. The trail weaved
through boulder fields of the lateral moraine which made the going slow. At times I wasn’t sure we were on the trail
at all, but if we’d been on the other side we’d have to worry about dodging
oceans of snow careening downhill like class V rapids; rapids which would
suffocate rather than drown you. We
found our stride but even now it was hard to breathe. The oxygen at this altitude is half what it
is at sea level, so you need to take two labored breaths to get the same amount
of oxygen as someone who takes one hiking in – say - the woods of the Eastern
United States. Even Denver, known for
its thin air, was 13,000 feet below us.
I paused to guess how long an NFL kicker could make a field goal on the
Khumbu Glacier – 80 yards at least.
As we
approached Everest Base Camp a city of yellow expedition tents came into
view. I’ve heard somewhere that the
population of Everest Base Camp during peak climbing season can reach anywhere
from a thousand to two thousand people; if not a city of tents then certainly a
township of them. We were early and many
expeditions were asleep, acclimating as they would for upwards of 40 days in an
effort to climb the mountain. I
understood the need for acclimatization now more than ever. These mountaineers were starting where I was
finishing. They had another 11,000 feet
to go! The thought of it made me
uneasy. I determined then and there that
I’d never be a mountaineer. The closest
I’d ever get to Mount Everest was now, and I was ok with that.
For some time I explored base camp. I walked up and down the “streets” and dodged
through multitudes of prayer flags. I
walked into the hellish crags of the Khumbu Icefall. The only way to describe it is to compare it
to a Dr. Seuss story set in haunting ice formations - peaceful, but exciting;
safe, yet dangerous. Every now and then
it would “crack” and I’d be reminded to go no further; after all, hundreds if
not thousands of people have died inside, some bodies carried down in ice from
above still thawing out to be discovered at base camp, others lost forever.
We spent only an hour at base camp before we had to
turn around and begin the week long descent towards Phaplu and ultimately
Kathmandu. On the way down we’d have
plenty more exciting adventures, including making it out of a storm just in the
nick of time - the home we took shelter in getting struck by lightning 2
minutes later – and meeting Hollywood actor Andy Serkis who played Golem in
Lord of the Rings as well as starring in many other films such as Avengers and
Planet of the Apes. I gave him some
advice about what to expect above Dingboche and could tell he was already
starting to feel the effects of high altitude.
Pancha and I parted ways in Kathmandu most likely
never to see each other again. We spent
every waking hour together for the previous three weeks and now it was all
over. I thanked him again and he thanked
me. We’d had our differences but
eventually reached Everest Base Camp together as a team, and along the way we’d
really gotten to know each other and share many spectacular moments. Saying goodbye to the Himalayas a few days
later was even harder, though I suppose they’re going nowhere anytime soon so
they should be easy to find again.
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