cold
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| Translates (roughly): Beware the vampyrrhic red panda |
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| A porter checks his load in front of Ama Dablam |
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| An unlucky yak lost some wool to the thorns |
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| But it took much more wool than that to create this ensemble |
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| Arriving in Dhole |
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| Sharing the joy (and pain) of Egyptian Rat Screw with our Sherpa friends |
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| A comfortably flat portion of the trail following the Gokyo Valley |
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| Snow falls on Gokyo |
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| The Gokyo Lakes, here frozen, compose the world's highest freshwater lake system |
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| The difficult pre-dawn climb up Gokyo Ri |
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| Sunrise behind Everest (sort of) |
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| Dancing for warmth |
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| Tibetan prayer flags decorate the peaks and passes of the Himalaya. With each whip of the flag in the wind the prayer is transmitted to heaven |
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| It was cold |
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| The Everest Himalayan Range with the Ngozumpa Glacier in the foreground, as seen from Gokyo Ri. Everest is the distant chunky mountain in the center |
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| Prayer wheels at the Thame monastery |
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| View from the climb up the Renjo La Pass |
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| Everest and Lhotse, the first and fourth highest mountains on earth, as seen from Renjo La |
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| Happy at the top, about 5400m above sea level |
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| Descending the far side of the pass |
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| Celebratory popcorn with Phurba. We later had a beer and, at that altitude, were drunk after four ounces |
I want to climb a mountain - not so I can get to the top - cause I want to
hang out at base camp. That seems fucking fun as shit. You sleep in a
colorful tent, you grow a beard, you drink hot chocolate, you walk
around, ‘Hey, you going to the top?’ [...] ‘Soon.’
-Mitch Hedberg
The flight from Lukla to Kathmandu would have been adventure enough. Named (by the History Channel... I know, I know) the world's most dangerous airport, Tenzing-Hillary Airport is a single 460m long, 20m wide, steeply graded runway tucked onto the face of a steep hill in the Himalaya. The airport can only accommodate helicopters and planes smaller than a De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, which is what we flew in. In good conditions, landing in Lukla requires extreme precision. On approach, the runway begins suddenly at the edge of a mountainside cliff, so "undershooting" it is no option. However, if you overcompensate and touchdown too late then you won't have time to safely stop before the runway terminates into a vertical wall (which has been struck by its share of runaway landings!). The runway was only paved for the first time in 2004. But the real problems occur in inclement weather. The 35 minute flight can cross through multiple weather systems, so while it might be clear in Kathmandu, Lukla may be shrouded in cloud, making landing all but impossible. The airport appears to try its best to be cautious, often closing completely during questionable weather, stranding folks in Lukla or Kathmandu for potentially days at a time. But every few years there is a major incident, killing a dozen or so flight crew members and tourists. But it is a calculated risk. The mountainous roads from Kathmandu to Lukla are absolutely not safer, and so for the thousands who feel they must visit the Everest region every year, the flight is an acceptable option. (Taking off from Lukla is theoretically much safer, eliminating the primary risk of weather, but because the plane is not quite airborne until the runway ends, you are actually driving full speed toward the edge of a cliff hoping the plane will actually take off in time! You can see the airport in action here, though it does not do the chaos - military personnel emptying and refilling a plane of passengers without the pilot ever powering down the propellers, for example - justice.)
Our flight into Lukla was as uneventful as we could have hoped for. We gained about 1400 meters on the flight, standing in Lukla about 2800m above sea level. The shift in weather hit us immediately as we watched the moisture of our breath dissolve into the cold, extremely dry mountain air. We allowed ourselves just over 20 days to hike up the Gokyo Valley, across the Cho La Pass, to Everest Base Camp, across the Kongma La, and finally back to Namche Bazar and Tenzing-Hillary.
From Lukla we walked to Pakding, where we spent the night on our way toward Namche Bazar, the largest village in the Khumbu region. The climb to Namche, about 800 vertical meters of switchbacks and steep trail, was shockingly difficult. No part of the climb was beyond my physical ability, but I slowed to a crawl. Above 3000m for the first time, I was suddenly unable to take ten steps before pausing to regain my breath. It felt as if the oxygen was not making it to my muscles. I struggled to will myself forward while simply breathing deeply seemed to require more strength than I could summon. Christina patiently herded me up the final steps to Namche Bazar while I worried: if I struggled so deeply at 3400m, how would I manage the climbs above 5500m?
We took a full day of rest in Namche to aid our acclimatisation. But sleep did not come easily while our bodies struggled to adjust to the thinner air, despite our exhaustion. Just before midnight night one a restless Christina shot up out of her sleeping bag: "WHY ISN'T IT LIGHT OUT YET?" I couldn't respond, I was completely winded from the ten foot return walk back from the toilet. What was going on?
Surprised by the early challenges of the altitude, and discouraged by the reemergence of personal injuries (my old nerve pain and Christina's ailing shoulder), we decided to hire a porter. I had a powerful desire to travel independently, but it didn't make sense to push through pain that would deny us our happiness on the trail. And so we hired Phurba Sherpa. A physically small man of about 30 years with some command of English, Phurba is an exceedingly gentle and hardworking father of two. A lifelong resident of Namche Bazar, Phurba has never left the mountains and, we realized only later, has therefore never seen an automobile. Without him, under the circumstances, we would have had no chance.
But even with the assistance of a third able body, just leaving Namche Bazar proved an extraordinary challenge. Rather than acclimatising as scheduled, Christina and I worsened physically with each day of rest. Christina lost her appetite completely and struggled with ordinary tasks such as changing her clothes or exiting her sleeping bag. When I found her collapsed and sobbing, having given up halfway down a small stairway, I considered that we might not make it a step farther than we had already come.
Early symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness include lethargy, nausea, loss of appetite, headache, and difficulty breathing. Distinguishing between what was a reaction to the altitude and what was common Nepali stomach illness, therefore, was nearly impossible. That is, until some gastro-issues shoved their way to the forefront. I was periodically visited by a twisting, digging pain in my abdomen that doubled me over in horror until it passed, and Christina's stomach began speaking a portentous language indeed. The full truth emerged, so to speak, when on the morning of our departure one of us (I won't say who) shit his/her pants standing up. (It was me.) Tired of waiting to feel healthy, I swallowed a handful of Ciprofloxacin and we hit the trail to Phortse Thanga.
The Everest Base Camp trail and the trails in the surrounding valleys are not limited to tourists - they are the roadways that connect dozens of Sherpa villages. Many communities are self sufficient, tending their own crops, raising their own cattle, and harvesting their own timber. Other villages, particularly those at higher altitudes, exist solely to service trekkers. Little grows above 4500m, and so these communities survive and provide to tourists by the shipments of food and supplies that are carried on the backs of porters, sometimes in frightening quantity. Passing by many times more porters than hikers, I quickly understood what effort is spent to support the trekking economy. The great caravans of yaks, donkeys, goats, and horseback riders were an entertaining, sometimes dangerous extension of this delivery service. As my mom warned weeks before our departure, it is critical to stay on the mountain side of the yaks when letting them pass. Though the trail is often wide and well worn by perhaps hundreds of years of heavy traffic, it can still be quite narrow at times, overlooking the sharp drops you would expect in the Himalaya. Yaks are not immune to losing their balance down a set of steep stone steps, and you don't want to break a yaks fall, nor do you want to jostle with a 2000 pound beast for the last piece of footing on a cliff.
Leaving Namche Bazar we were quickly high in the Himalaya, enjoying our first views of Everest, Ama Dablam, and Lhotse. Tramping along the open face of the spectacular Gokyo Valley, we stood level with the great jagged and snowy peaks. In such scenery I felt weightless, piloting an effortless, scenic mountain flight.
To be honest, our first week was not so taxing. The rules of ascent at high altitude state that we cannot sleep more than 400m higher than the previous night, and that we must take a full day of rest if we gain over 1000m within three days. To exceed these limits would dramatically increase our risk of developing Acute Mountain Sickness, or the related, life-threatening HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema - fluid in the lungs) and HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema - swelling of the brain from fluid leakage). Often we reached this 400m daily limit within only two to four hours of hiking. Departing very early in the morning (early morning offered crystal clear mountain views; clouds began to settle in the mountains as early as 11am), we regularly reached our day's end well before lunch. With little to do at our guesthouse but play cards and drink tea, the temptation to continue to ascend was great, and many of our peers did push beyond the medical recommendation. But in Machermo we were reminded of the risks. A young Japanese hiker continued to ascend to Gokyo without taking an extra day of rest, and, more dangerously, in spite of the headache he was experiencing. He wisely turned around when his symptoms worsened, and he rested in a helpless state in our lodge for much of the afternoon. Thankfully there was a medical clinic in Machermo, and when he was finally helped to the doctor he was instructed to descend immediately. There was a real risk he could die overnight: the doctors believed his brain was swelling. With the help of a steroid and his guide he made it the 400m down to Dhole that night and, we were later told, back to Phortse Thanga the next morning.
We made it to Gokyo the next afternoon, standing at 4800m. The cold at this altitude was excruciating, the temperature dropping as low as 15-20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the interior of our window covered in a thin layer of ice. Things also get slightly... weirder the higher you get. With no wood to burn (for better or worse many lower lodges use timber logged from Namche's forests for fuel), our only source of warmth was dried yak shit doused in kerosene. Yak poo is commodity up there, used not only as fuel but as insulation. Our Gokyo lodge had seven large burlap sacks of evacuated yak dung in our bathroom. Fair enough, but why did it perfume the room unmistakably of cocoa powder?
Gokyo village was our base for the side trip up the 5357m high Gokyo Ri. I hoped to reach the top before sunrise to see the stars above, and finally the sun rise behind, Mt. Everest. This ambition would change the course of our trek. Our first attempt to the summit never had a chance: just after our 3am alarm Christina alerted me that she had a headache and did not want to ascend. Unsure of what were symptoms of the altitude and what was a response to the terrible hour and cold, I pushed the issue slightly, or slightly more than I should have. After being told in no uncertain terms that I was being an ass, we went back to sleep, and aimed to depart the next morning after another day of rest and acclimatisation.
The next morning we departed under a clear and moonless night sky, the white mountains reflecting the soft light of the Milky Way. It was absolutely frigid. Before we even reached the foot of Gokyo Ri, not more than ten minutes outdoors, my water supply had frozen solid. I didn't have anything to drink until the sun melted the ice hours later! The climb up Gokyo Ri was a relentless slog. Above 5000m your blood receives about 50% of the oxygen that you would get at sea level, and this oxygen deprivation takes a toll on your endurance, your muscles, and your lungs. In the intense cold, in the dark, and struggling to breath, Christina stated that she was considering turning back, and she intimated that she no longer wanted to climb the notoriously difficult Cho La and Kongma La passes as we had planned. Just over halfway up the peak she did turn back. Minutes later the sun crested over the Everest range, covering us both, now headed in opposite directions, in blistering unfiltered sunlight. On her way down Christina watched the morning mountain birds foraging for breakfast, including the alpine chukka, which is as amusing as any flightless bird we spotted in New Zealand. She didn't regret her decision.
Another hour and I reached the top. And I missed Christina. It is always better to share the view, better still if it is with someone you love. But I made due with my next best friends (in proximity), the handsome Swiss chocolatier on the packaging of my Lindt bar and the untouchable Classic Quartet studio version of "Out of This World." I relaxed at the top for a few hours, waiting for the sun to rise high enough above the Everest range to allow a decent picture. But Gokyo Ri offers terrific views of the Himalaya in all directions, with five of the world's fourteen 8000m peaks visible: Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Kangchenjuga, and Cho Oyu.
Descending the peak my attention turned to the future. Crossing the Cho La east toward Everest Base Camp, our goal from the beginning, now felt distant and unlikely. I felt energized by the scenery, and much more comfortable above 5000m than I expected. And I was loathe to backtrack down the Gokyo valley in what would have felt like a retreat. But at such altitude the line between tolerable discomfort and physical risk is unreadable. I did not want to pressure Christina. And so after reuniting with a cup of really horrible hot chocolate, we settled on a third option. We would travel west across the Renjo La Pass, which we were told is easier than the Cho La or Kongma La, though is still a challenging and satisfying climb above 5400m, and finally down the Thame Valley on our way back to Lukla.
We left the next morning with Phurba, this time after dawn and after a real breakfast. Scrambling up rock and ice, it was a much more interesting climb than the monotonous Gokyo Ri. Nearing the end I pushed ahead - the weather was beginning to change and I wanted to reach the top of the pass before the clouds covered Everest. We reunited on top of the pass a little after one to enjoy lunch together, and we even bartered with two Israelis for two cups of fresh coffee which they somehow managed to brew in the powerful mountain wind. From the top facing east we could clearly see Everest's jet stream blowing ice particles into the sky. Clearing the pass, facing west now, we were greeted by a fresh set of mountains, some of which were across the border in Tibet. The long descent down the Renjo was slow but beautiful, particularly when the late afternoon sun lit the valley. We arrived in the village of Lungde just before dark, back down at 4400m. We had reached our highest point.
The next two days descending the Thame Valley were a lush blur of glacial rivers, 400 year old monasteries, blooming rhododendrons and irises, and pyramidical peaks. Coming down to 3600m, the air felt rich with oxygen, and the many ladybugs, butterflies, and mountain dogs were welcome friends after the inhospitable landscapes above. We seemed to shed a layer of clothing with each warming day, but we gained the weight back in the thick layer of dirt transferred to our skin from the great clouds of dust hanging in the air.
We finally arrived back in Lukla, catching the airline office just before closing to book our flight for the next morning. Sitting in our guesthouse across the road from the familiarity of an internet cafe and espresso bar, it felt to me like we hadn't been gone for more than a few days. It had been 15. We sat down for tea and snacks before saying good-bye to Phurba, and we retired to bed, where an enormous spider was waiting for me in the bathroom. My bug-free romance in the snow was over. Time again to sweat on the subcontinent.
From Lukla we walked to Pakding, where we spent the night on our way toward Namche Bazar, the largest village in the Khumbu region. The climb to Namche, about 800 vertical meters of switchbacks and steep trail, was shockingly difficult. No part of the climb was beyond my physical ability, but I slowed to a crawl. Above 3000m for the first time, I was suddenly unable to take ten steps before pausing to regain my breath. It felt as if the oxygen was not making it to my muscles. I struggled to will myself forward while simply breathing deeply seemed to require more strength than I could summon. Christina patiently herded me up the final steps to Namche Bazar while I worried: if I struggled so deeply at 3400m, how would I manage the climbs above 5500m?
We took a full day of rest in Namche to aid our acclimatisation. But sleep did not come easily while our bodies struggled to adjust to the thinner air, despite our exhaustion. Just before midnight night one a restless Christina shot up out of her sleeping bag: "WHY ISN'T IT LIGHT OUT YET?" I couldn't respond, I was completely winded from the ten foot return walk back from the toilet. What was going on?
Surprised by the early challenges of the altitude, and discouraged by the reemergence of personal injuries (my old nerve pain and Christina's ailing shoulder), we decided to hire a porter. I had a powerful desire to travel independently, but it didn't make sense to push through pain that would deny us our happiness on the trail. And so we hired Phurba Sherpa. A physically small man of about 30 years with some command of English, Phurba is an exceedingly gentle and hardworking father of two. A lifelong resident of Namche Bazar, Phurba has never left the mountains and, we realized only later, has therefore never seen an automobile. Without him, under the circumstances, we would have had no chance.
But even with the assistance of a third able body, just leaving Namche Bazar proved an extraordinary challenge. Rather than acclimatising as scheduled, Christina and I worsened physically with each day of rest. Christina lost her appetite completely and struggled with ordinary tasks such as changing her clothes or exiting her sleeping bag. When I found her collapsed and sobbing, having given up halfway down a small stairway, I considered that we might not make it a step farther than we had already come.
Early symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness include lethargy, nausea, loss of appetite, headache, and difficulty breathing. Distinguishing between what was a reaction to the altitude and what was common Nepali stomach illness, therefore, was nearly impossible. That is, until some gastro-issues shoved their way to the forefront. I was periodically visited by a twisting, digging pain in my abdomen that doubled me over in horror until it passed, and Christina's stomach began speaking a portentous language indeed. The full truth emerged, so to speak, when on the morning of our departure one of us (I won't say who) shit his/her pants standing up. (It was me.) Tired of waiting to feel healthy, I swallowed a handful of Ciprofloxacin and we hit the trail to Phortse Thanga.
The Everest Base Camp trail and the trails in the surrounding valleys are not limited to tourists - they are the roadways that connect dozens of Sherpa villages. Many communities are self sufficient, tending their own crops, raising their own cattle, and harvesting their own timber. Other villages, particularly those at higher altitudes, exist solely to service trekkers. Little grows above 4500m, and so these communities survive and provide to tourists by the shipments of food and supplies that are carried on the backs of porters, sometimes in frightening quantity. Passing by many times more porters than hikers, I quickly understood what effort is spent to support the trekking economy. The great caravans of yaks, donkeys, goats, and horseback riders were an entertaining, sometimes dangerous extension of this delivery service. As my mom warned weeks before our departure, it is critical to stay on the mountain side of the yaks when letting them pass. Though the trail is often wide and well worn by perhaps hundreds of years of heavy traffic, it can still be quite narrow at times, overlooking the sharp drops you would expect in the Himalaya. Yaks are not immune to losing their balance down a set of steep stone steps, and you don't want to break a yaks fall, nor do you want to jostle with a 2000 pound beast for the last piece of footing on a cliff.
Leaving Namche Bazar we were quickly high in the Himalaya, enjoying our first views of Everest, Ama Dablam, and Lhotse. Tramping along the open face of the spectacular Gokyo Valley, we stood level with the great jagged and snowy peaks. In such scenery I felt weightless, piloting an effortless, scenic mountain flight.
To be honest, our first week was not so taxing. The rules of ascent at high altitude state that we cannot sleep more than 400m higher than the previous night, and that we must take a full day of rest if we gain over 1000m within three days. To exceed these limits would dramatically increase our risk of developing Acute Mountain Sickness, or the related, life-threatening HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema - fluid in the lungs) and HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema - swelling of the brain from fluid leakage). Often we reached this 400m daily limit within only two to four hours of hiking. Departing very early in the morning (early morning offered crystal clear mountain views; clouds began to settle in the mountains as early as 11am), we regularly reached our day's end well before lunch. With little to do at our guesthouse but play cards and drink tea, the temptation to continue to ascend was great, and many of our peers did push beyond the medical recommendation. But in Machermo we were reminded of the risks. A young Japanese hiker continued to ascend to Gokyo without taking an extra day of rest, and, more dangerously, in spite of the headache he was experiencing. He wisely turned around when his symptoms worsened, and he rested in a helpless state in our lodge for much of the afternoon. Thankfully there was a medical clinic in Machermo, and when he was finally helped to the doctor he was instructed to descend immediately. There was a real risk he could die overnight: the doctors believed his brain was swelling. With the help of a steroid and his guide he made it the 400m down to Dhole that night and, we were later told, back to Phortse Thanga the next morning.
We made it to Gokyo the next afternoon, standing at 4800m. The cold at this altitude was excruciating, the temperature dropping as low as 15-20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the interior of our window covered in a thin layer of ice. Things also get slightly... weirder the higher you get. With no wood to burn (for better or worse many lower lodges use timber logged from Namche's forests for fuel), our only source of warmth was dried yak shit doused in kerosene. Yak poo is commodity up there, used not only as fuel but as insulation. Our Gokyo lodge had seven large burlap sacks of evacuated yak dung in our bathroom. Fair enough, but why did it perfume the room unmistakably of cocoa powder?
Gokyo village was our base for the side trip up the 5357m high Gokyo Ri. I hoped to reach the top before sunrise to see the stars above, and finally the sun rise behind, Mt. Everest. This ambition would change the course of our trek. Our first attempt to the summit never had a chance: just after our 3am alarm Christina alerted me that she had a headache and did not want to ascend. Unsure of what were symptoms of the altitude and what was a response to the terrible hour and cold, I pushed the issue slightly, or slightly more than I should have. After being told in no uncertain terms that I was being an ass, we went back to sleep, and aimed to depart the next morning after another day of rest and acclimatisation.
The next morning we departed under a clear and moonless night sky, the white mountains reflecting the soft light of the Milky Way. It was absolutely frigid. Before we even reached the foot of Gokyo Ri, not more than ten minutes outdoors, my water supply had frozen solid. I didn't have anything to drink until the sun melted the ice hours later! The climb up Gokyo Ri was a relentless slog. Above 5000m your blood receives about 50% of the oxygen that you would get at sea level, and this oxygen deprivation takes a toll on your endurance, your muscles, and your lungs. In the intense cold, in the dark, and struggling to breath, Christina stated that she was considering turning back, and she intimated that she no longer wanted to climb the notoriously difficult Cho La and Kongma La passes as we had planned. Just over halfway up the peak she did turn back. Minutes later the sun crested over the Everest range, covering us both, now headed in opposite directions, in blistering unfiltered sunlight. On her way down Christina watched the morning mountain birds foraging for breakfast, including the alpine chukka, which is as amusing as any flightless bird we spotted in New Zealand. She didn't regret her decision.
Another hour and I reached the top. And I missed Christina. It is always better to share the view, better still if it is with someone you love. But I made due with my next best friends (in proximity), the handsome Swiss chocolatier on the packaging of my Lindt bar and the untouchable Classic Quartet studio version of "Out of This World." I relaxed at the top for a few hours, waiting for the sun to rise high enough above the Everest range to allow a decent picture. But Gokyo Ri offers terrific views of the Himalaya in all directions, with five of the world's fourteen 8000m peaks visible: Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Kangchenjuga, and Cho Oyu.
Descending the peak my attention turned to the future. Crossing the Cho La east toward Everest Base Camp, our goal from the beginning, now felt distant and unlikely. I felt energized by the scenery, and much more comfortable above 5000m than I expected. And I was loathe to backtrack down the Gokyo valley in what would have felt like a retreat. But at such altitude the line between tolerable discomfort and physical risk is unreadable. I did not want to pressure Christina. And so after reuniting with a cup of really horrible hot chocolate, we settled on a third option. We would travel west across the Renjo La Pass, which we were told is easier than the Cho La or Kongma La, though is still a challenging and satisfying climb above 5400m, and finally down the Thame Valley on our way back to Lukla.
We left the next morning with Phurba, this time after dawn and after a real breakfast. Scrambling up rock and ice, it was a much more interesting climb than the monotonous Gokyo Ri. Nearing the end I pushed ahead - the weather was beginning to change and I wanted to reach the top of the pass before the clouds covered Everest. We reunited on top of the pass a little after one to enjoy lunch together, and we even bartered with two Israelis for two cups of fresh coffee which they somehow managed to brew in the powerful mountain wind. From the top facing east we could clearly see Everest's jet stream blowing ice particles into the sky. Clearing the pass, facing west now, we were greeted by a fresh set of mountains, some of which were across the border in Tibet. The long descent down the Renjo was slow but beautiful, particularly when the late afternoon sun lit the valley. We arrived in the village of Lungde just before dark, back down at 4400m. We had reached our highest point.
The next two days descending the Thame Valley were a lush blur of glacial rivers, 400 year old monasteries, blooming rhododendrons and irises, and pyramidical peaks. Coming down to 3600m, the air felt rich with oxygen, and the many ladybugs, butterflies, and mountain dogs were welcome friends after the inhospitable landscapes above. We seemed to shed a layer of clothing with each warming day, but we gained the weight back in the thick layer of dirt transferred to our skin from the great clouds of dust hanging in the air.
We finally arrived back in Lukla, catching the airline office just before closing to book our flight for the next morning. Sitting in our guesthouse across the road from the familiarity of an internet cafe and espresso bar, it felt to me like we hadn't been gone for more than a few days. It had been 15. We sat down for tea and snacks before saying good-bye to Phurba, and we retired to bed, where an enormous spider was waiting for me in the bathroom. My bug-free romance in the snow was over. Time again to sweat on the subcontinent.
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