Ramblings from Asia: Everest

Like Ling Wong the giant panda's pregnancy...this is a big one. (I shouldn't have to clarify, but that was an Anchorman reference.) In fact, it's so big that I have included some "large" photos to complement the usual array of "medium" ones. The text, images, and videos in this post chronicle the two weeks that I recently took out of my "busy" schedule to scramble to the foot of the highest mountain in the world. I didn't fall off a cliff and my head didn't explode from AMS (altitude sickness, but the acronym stands for acute mountain sickness in case you're playing at home). I successfully managed to arrive at Everest Base Camp (standing up) and the summit of Kala Pattar (not standing up). Below is my best attempt at recapping the 14-day trekking bonanza.

The trek to Mount Everest was the most physically and psychologically draining task I've ever undertaken (choking down the ants was a close second). Although I've always been an athlete (albeit of the oft-injured variety) and have physically exerted myself during countless squash matches and soccer games, as well as mentally extended myself during many all-night study sessions (well, a few, anyway), I have never felt so totally depleted as I did at several points along the trail. Frequent gasps for air, piercing headaches, slightly delusional comments; this was my existence during our 3-day stay at 5,000 meters (16,404 feet) and above. Everest, or Sagarmatha to Nepalis, is humbling both in its awe-inspiring massiveness and the heavy toll that it takes on your body.

Before I delve into my tales from the trail, I want to extend my gratitude to my friend Erika. Initially, I had planned on doing this trek solo because A: I only know a few people in Nepal and all of them were still enlisted in their respective volunteer programs and B: I assumed that I would meet fellow trekkers in the tea houses and lodges along the way.

Erika and I met while teaching and living together in Thailand. She's a nice, intelligent young woman from Australia who was often a calming voice of reason in the occasionally chaotic Ao Luk GVI house. In fact, I thought she was one of the most thoughtful and rational people that I'd met during my time in Asia.

Then she decided to tramp through the Himalayas with me and my neuroses. I guess it was a momentary lapse in judgment on her part, but I was thankful that she elected to tag along, particularly in light of the fact that neither our guides nor our fellow lodge-dwellers were ideal conversational partners. (Our guide and porter, named Bale and Asman, respectively, were great guys, but spoke limited English. In the lodges we just met a lot of people who weren't interested in speaking to us. And lots of French people.) Erika was always upbeat and able to keep my complaining to a minimum.

In good times...

and bad times...

So thank you Erika for tolerating my altitude-induced mood swings with the grace of a trekking veteran...and for not strangling me in my sleep.

Enough with the niceties; let's get to the trip report. We awoke before dawn and took a taxi to the airport. Our flight wasn't until 6:15, but we wanted to arrive early in case any issues arose with tickets, bags, etc. In most countries, this would be a logical course of action. However, in Nepal one is hamstrung by the fact that the airport opens when someone feels like it. Thus we ended up watching the sunrise from the Tribhuvan International Airport parking lot while waiting for whomever had the key (and motivation) to unlock the main entrance to the terminal. Our flight was at 6:15; the airport finally opened at ten minutes to 6. (Only in Nepal.)

After finally gaining admittance to the airport, we checked our bags and boarded our flight to Lukla via Yeti Airlines. (By the way, I have yet to come across a sweeter name for an airline than one named after the Abominable Snowman.) Despite what you might think based on the photo above, the flight to Lukla was surprisingly smooth, our pilot managed to steer us clear of those inconveniently placed mountains, and we landed in Lukla thirty minutes later. (I use such a flippant tone. The reality is that the Lukla airport is a notoriously difficult runway to navigate. I'm no aviation expert, but I would guess that it has something to with the fact that the airstrip is carved into the side of a mountain and is so short in length that an incline is required to slow each plane down to prevent it from crashing into the onlooking porter hopefuls. Hopefully the pictures below will provide further illumination.)

We were greeted by our guide Bale (Asman would join us later in the day) and started down the trail. Bale was a jovial fellow who insisted on shouldering both of our backpacks and referring to me as "sir." After a day or two of this nonsense, I implored him not to call me "sir." He said it was a traditional sign of deference in the client-guide relationship. According to him, I was the "big boss man." I assured him that even though I was the "big boss man," I should not be afforded such a level of respect. And that being referred to as "sir" makes me feel old. We ended up settling on a rotation of "Alex" and "bai" (Nepali word for little brother).

On the other hand, Erika was always referred to as "bini" (Nepali word for little sister) and was usually an afterthought when either Bale or Asman would ask us a question about the trek, meals, etc. Despite some progress in the gender equality department, Nepal is still a very male-dominated society. Within the scope of a trek, this translates into the man (that would be me) always deciding how far to trek, when to eat, etc. Additionally, Bale always handed me the bill before leaving each hotel (even though he was well aware that we were each paying for our own expenses). This manifested into somewhat of a running joke as we went along the trail since it was abundantly clear that neither of our trail leaders could wrap their heads around the fact that Erika and I were not a couple. They were equally perplexed that I routinely asked her opinion (well, once in a while, I am the "big boss man") when daily plans were being bandied about. Cultural exchange can indeed be hilarious! (The four of us are pictured below with Bale on the left and Asman on the right. Oh, and I'm in red and Erika is the girl.)

After walking for a few hours we arrived in the village of Phakding, where we would be hunkering down for the evening. The availability of lodges that provide beds, hot meals and even hot showers amazed me. Whenever I've gone "trekking" in the past, it has usually involved sweat, mosquitoes, and the ground. I was living large! (What I failed to realize at the time was that the beds would grow increasingly uncomfortable, the meals would become harder to digest and the showers would become a non-factor because they required you to remove your clothing. The photo below should help you understand. Do I look like I would want to disrobe so that I might bathe myself? I think not.)

After the first night in Phakding, we headed to Namche Bazaar (pictured above), which is the regional center of the Khumbu region (meaning it had Internet and a bakery). This was the longest and warmest day of the trek. (I certainly didn't need to worry about being hot again for many days after that.) We spent an extra day in Namche since we had ascended 800 meters from Phakding and needed to acclimatize. This additional downtime allowed us to mingle with some of the other trekkers in our hotel's dining room. We met some nice people and some indifferent people, but one family stood out (and not for good reasons). Naturally, they were French. The young (although not that young) son and daughter would start screaming at each other no later than 7 A.M. and the boy would often end up ordering three dishes at dinner as he decided he didn't like each one. (I have seen a lot of bratty behavior in my time; theirs would rank near the top.)

I'm not going to recount all the instances that they were rude to me, Erika, or simply everyone within earshot, but I will confirm that the mother and daughter used the common room as a grooming area. To clarify, they took showers, ambled out to the room where Erika and I were writing, and began brushing their manes. For the next twenty minutes, they were successful in covering the floor, table, and chairs (the latter two were used for eating) with a thin layer of their matted hair as the daughter whined to her mother in a grating tone of francais. After I stifled the urge to stab myself in the eye with my pen, it was time to move on to the next stop, Khumjung. (We didn't really leave right after I suppressed said urge to stab myself. It just seemed like a way out of the story.)

The next four days followed a similar pattern. We woke up early, ate breakfast, and walked...up (shocking, I know). Over that period, we hiked from Namche Bazaar to Duglha with overnight stays in Khumjung, Tengboche, and Dingboche. (If you're curious about the route we took, I have attached a map at the bottom of the post. Duglha is missing, but it is located between Dingboche and Lobuje. The heights listed might be slightly different than my notes- as you know, nothing is easy in Nepal- but it was the only small map I could find for this entry. If you really want to know, just Google it.)

The night we spent in Duglha is when I began to derail. Duglha was where I lost the urge to consume solid food. Duglha was where I began having Advil-proof headaches. Duglha was where I started feeling bad for Erika that she had to tolerate my presence. Suffice to say, I won't be returning to Duglha anytime soon. Thankfully the poster pictured below, which was prominently displayed in the lodge's dining room, gave me the strength I needed to continue walking up the trail.

Although I never doubted my ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other, I was beginning to think that my chances of making it to Base Camp waffled between poor and very poor. As we proceeded to Lobuje, my mindset had changed dramatically from the first day when I bombed up the hillside as fast as my legs (and lungs) could manage. I was now in endurance mode; my goals had shrunk to lesser ones like "Get out of bed" and "Don't die." For the next three days, I was at the mercy of the mountain. My breathing began to resemble that of a Biggest Loser contestant following a grueling 2-minute treadmill session. My headache pain had peaks and valleys (seems like an appropriate metaphor), but my nausea and generally unpleasant demeanor never waned. (In fact, my sulky manner would probably have reminded my parents of 1997. To clarify, that was my 13th year on Earth, during which I uttered 12 words and approximately 55,000 grunts in response to their attempts at conversation. Ah, puberty.)

Despite the pity party that I was focused on throwing myself, I did manage to find the energy to haul out my camera and shoot the following yak train video. Soul Train it is not, but who doesn't love a good yak train? (We passed multiple caravans everyday. In case you happen to run into one, always get to the high side of the trail. Yaks are bigger than you and will think nothing of knocking you off a cliff.)

AMS is not fun and can gnaw at you in a variety of ways. In particular, I suffered from a total loss of appetite and relied on an all-liquid diet while we were in the (really) highlands. I would not advise this strategy to even my worst enemies. When one is climbing a mountain, they need nourishment from hearty, nutritious food. I relied on soup and tea. My reluctance to choke down solid food stemmed from both my nausea/loss of appetite and my deduction that I couldn't eat and breathe at the same time. (Breathing trumps eating. Always.) As I sat in Gorak Shep (a mere 2 hours from Base Camp) lamenting the 50% oxygen levels, it was clear that I needed some food. But I can't eat and breathe at the same time....I'll just sit here and drink tea between gasps.

It was also in Gorak Shep that Erika completed her memorable string of altitude-influenced quotes. As we ascended and less oxygen was getting to each of our brains, my trail partner started spouting out increasingly nonsensical things. The higher she went, the funnier she got. (In my case, the increased elevation just made me more sullen and irritable. Go figure.) As any good travel companion should do, I took it upon myself to jot them down. In ascending order of awesomeness:

"My brain hurts." - mumbled during our first day at a higher elevation in Phakding

"My face smells like a baby's ass." - said during one of her first baby wipe sessions (baby wipes are popular along the trail since there is often no running water at the lodges)

"I want to go hug that yak." - said while staring longingly out the window at one of the smelly beasts

"I'm going to go baby wipe myself." - said on multiple occasions

"At least you can say you've been in my pants." - uttered nonchalantly while handing me her spare pair of fleece pants so I wouldn't freeze during the night.

"You nearly got yakked." - said after I almost got speared by the headgear of a yak

"I have an icicle in my eye." - said on Kala Pattar

Let's move on to more serious matters (or just move on). Below is a video I shot from Lobuje, a small village located at the foot of the Khumbu Glacier (which you are looking at as the clip starts) and one of our final stops before making a run at Base Camp. Hopefully this will give you an idea of how cold and windy it was up there.

After choking down some soup and my 200th cup of black tea (of the trip, not the day; the latter would be some sort of record), we departed from Gorak Shep and made the final push to Base Camp. Thankfully, we had gorgeous weather and strolled into the rather desolate summit expedition launching point in just over two hours. Standing at 5,357 meters (17,575 feet) surrounded by snow, ice and 8,000 meter peaks, I was in awe. We made it. I'm not going to be eloquent here so just take a look at the clip below. (Directors note: I don't know how Bale misunderstood me when I asked him what kind of man he thought I was. He had literally been telling me everyday that I was a "very lucky man" because of all the good views we were seeing. I knew it wasn't for any other reason.)

After putting our collective footprint in the Base Camp snow, we descended back down to Gorak Shep for the night. It was cold, I didn't eat or sleep, and we left the following morning at 5 o'clock. (So it was everything I imagined!) The reason we rose at such an early hour was to tackle Kala Pattar (5,545 meters/18,192 feet). Meaning "black rock," KP (I just made that nickname up) left me with no feeling in my fingers, minimal feeling in my toes, and a new appreciation for the acrobatic qualities of snot. (When it's too cold to get out a tissue, the wind is blowing at 50 mph, and you can't breathe, a runny nose seems rather insignificant.)

As I approached the summit, the temperature was probably hovering around 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-25 degrees Celsius) with the windchill making it feel much colder. I also started having slight chest pains. At this point, a rational person would turn around because A: it's Kala Pattar, not Everest and B: nobody cares except you if you make it to the top. But it should be abundantly clear by now that I was sometimes not a rational person during this trek. This was one of those times. (And dammit, this was the highest point I'll probably ever reach in my life so I was not stopping.) An indicator of how little brain activity was going on inside my head can be derived from the following internal conversation that I was having with myself:

Alex 1

"Who's going to make it to the top?"

Alex 2

"This guy."

Alex 1

"You know what's waiting up there for you?"

Alex 2

"Yes. There is a stack of Wendy's junior bacon cheeseburgers, Marisa Miller in a bathtub, and an oxygen tank."

So there you go. I was encouraging myself with the promise of fast food (despite having no appetite, I thought greasy grub would be a useful motivator; I am sooo American), naked supermodels, and air more to my liking. Not surprisingly, none of these things was waiting for me when I lumbered up to the summit like a drunken brontosaurus. However, the video below (and the first photo in this post) should give you an idea of the views that were waiting for me. (Directors note: The slurred speech near the end of the clip is amusingly Blair Witch-esque, but parents should be advised that my contorted face may scare young children.)

As you can see from the clip, I was not in great shape. But dammit, I stood atop an 18,192 foot peak. I'm sorry, but I really can't overstate how exhilarting those few minutes were. I know it's uncharacteristic of me to get excited about something like a 5-year-old child does about candy, but this was one of the coolest things I've done in my life. Standing on top of that mountain made me realize how fortunate I was; both to have made it to the top and to have the opportunity to be in Nepal in the first place. (Sorry, I'll simmer down now.)

When I started really worrying about frostbite, I began quickly walking/rolling down the peak. Thankfully, Bale was there to hold me up a few times (he had stayed down the mountainside with Erika) and I managed not to break my neck on the descent (that would have put a damper on the whole trek). We packed up our gear at Gorak Shep and started walking down the trail at brisk clip. Oxygen awaited us and we had a wonderful reunion with it at Pangboche, Namche, and eventually Lukla. Our original flight out of Lukla was cancelled because of poor visibility ("poor visibility" meaning the entire town was lodged within the confines of a cloud), but we sucessfully arrived in Kathmandu the following day. (Who doesn't want to spend an extra day in Lukla?)

The last photograph of our trip was taken solely to satisfy my sophomoric sense of humor. While waiting in the airport with our fingers crossed in the hopes that a giant cloud wouldn't suddenly envelope the airport, my (and Erika's) day brightened...

She appeared to be from Germany, but was not speaking German. She appeared to not have the desire to dance, but she danced (at the gate upon seeing our plane arrive). She appeared to be a relatively sane individual, but she willingly walked around sporting one of the most grotesque mullets I have ever laid eyes upon.

And.

It.

Was.

Awesome.

I survived Everest and saw one hell of a mullet. Mission accomplished.

NB: The link to the complete trek photo album is in the upper-right hand corner, as usual. Take a gander if you so desire.

NB: I'm off to India tomorrow after 7 weeks in Nepal. I am unsure of what awaits me there (other than 1.1 billion people). However, I looked up the temperature in Udaipur, which is where I'll be living. 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). And I've heard there's a bit of a water shortage problem. Pray for me.

Pictured above is a close second in the juvenile humor photo contest. In order to clearly denote its runner-up status, I've displayed it in a slightly smaller form.

Day
1. Kathmandu-Lukla-Phakding
2. Phakding-Namche Bazaar
3. Namche Bazaar (Rest Day)
4. Namche Bazaar-Khumjung
5. Khumjung-Tengboche
6. Tengboche-Dingboche
7. Dingboche-Duglha (not on the map)
8. Duglha-Lobuje
9. Lobujue-Gorak Shep-Everest Base Camp-Gorak Shep
10. Gorak Shep-Kalapattar-Pangboche
11. Pangboche-Namche Bazaar
12. Namche Bazaar-Lukla
13. Lukla (Snow day at the airport)
14. Lukla-Kathmandu