MOUNT EVEREST TREK, 2005: DEFINITIONS AND TIDBITS OF KNOWLEDGE 

DAILY ROUTINE:  6 am wake up call usually, with hot black coffee with sugar---most have hot tea but I am not a hot tea kind of man!  And hot “washing water” which I have before every meal and tea. Drink and pack up in tent:  What I will carry in my pack, what porter will carry in my duffle bag.  7am Breakfast—cook boys have “set my table” either outside with my camp chair or inside lodge restaurant, which includes all the condiments of drinks, jams and jellies, etc., which they do for every meal and for tea mid morning and at 4 pm.--- of porridge/oatmeal, eggs/omelet, toast/pancakes, peanut butter/crackers, everything one could want, and I eat! 

7:30-8:00 we are on the trail.  We trek for couple of hours and usually have tea and snack close to 10 am, the walk some more until lunch around 12-1 pm, sometimes little longer for rest if trek has been difficult.  Couple more hours of walking and we will be at today’s camp, usually 2-3 pm.  We average walking probably 5 hours a day, sometimes more, few times less.  4pm IS TEATIME!  Except for one long day we are always sitting down for 4 pm tea!  I do learn to like hot black and lemon teas along with Tang and Cadbury chocolate drink.  You must drink a lot at altitude, and I do.  I estimate drinking at least 16/8 0unce liquids a day. 

While I drink tea at camp porters and cook boys are setting up camp and preparing for dinner.  They also give me hot washing water and I do a kind of “spit bath” sometimes, always wash hands and face.  6 pm dinners of roast chicken, yak steak/mash potatoes and gravy, Buffalo steak, tuna, ham and other meats with potatoes, greens, yak cheese, always preceded with “Y Y soup, or mushroom soup, or vegetable soup, cookies or PB and crackers for dessert. Great food!  And fruit for dinner and breakfast, banana, tangerines usually.  Apple sometimes.  Then we talk, Nawang gives plan for next day, go to bed around 7:30—8 pm. 

THE WAY OF SIR HILLIARY AND TENGING NORGAY as they trekked to climb Mt. Everest for the first time ever in 1968, is the same Everest Highway I am trekking.  Trekking trails evolved from trade routes.  Indians carried goods to remote villages  in Nepal and Tibet and they still interchange with each other.  Porters, farmers, and animals carry everything as there are no roads in the Khumbu.  Also many traveled these routes from colder to warmer climates, weddings, funerals, festivals and celebrations.

TREK CLOTHING:   Having the right clothing is critical.  Starting out in Lukla with shorts and tee shirt and baseball cap, but we are in bright sun at 8400 feet.  As we go higher you can feel the temperature getting cooler, than colder.  Wicking clothing is important to, so that the sweat/heat is wicked from your body out to the next layer.  Except for the 2-3 days at and before base camp when it was coldest, I trekked in short and long sleeve shirts and my Gortex Coat, long pants and OR hat and liner (light) gloves.  I was warm and protected from sun. I could take of and put back on with these clothes and stay protected.  Coldest days meant fleece and outer pants, adding a fleece light sweater, heavier gloves and warmer hat, and, since this was high in the snow, “glare protection sun glasses”. Comfortable Asolo boots a must for the rocky trail to prevent sore feet.

 LIVING TWO WEEKS IN A TENT   Tent organization is very important.  I had basically 4 “room areas” in my 2-man tent:

   1—sleeping bag in middle of tent with my duffle bag next to it on the left.

   2---Tent left is wardrobe area: Stuff sack with little things (gloves,undies,

         Socks, etc.; stuff sack with shirts and tops;  stuff sack with pants; what

         I will wear tomorrow in back.

   3---Tent right is 1/2 library for my books and maps,devotional material,

         Other half for personal and toilet articles.

   4---“Mud room”, the covered by flap outside front of tent for boots, trek

         Poles, wet socks.

This is a 4 season tent which means it works for all 4 seasons, no windows.  The flap I could zip in front just behind the mud room, enclosed me in the most warmth possible.  Knowing where everything is is very important in tent living. 

CNN, BBC, US Newspapers:   Remember back in January when the King of Nepal “shut down” the country---no flights, email, phone calls---in order to deal with the Maoist rebels who have been trying to start a civil war for 10 years?  The above news agencies made it sound like there was killing in the streets of Kathmandu, and people did not come here for trekking, and this is the NUMBER ONE industry in Nepal.  A neighbor called me when that happened and basically said, “did you see the article in the Urinal Constipation Newspaper (reports what the enemy is doing!!) about the civil war in Nepal?  Man you don’t want to go there”!  Well, many people canceled trips and tourism is down over 30% and to my knowledge the war “down in the trees” has not caused problems to tourists or foreigners but 2-3 times in the past several years.  According to Tiger Mountain and others in Nepal, and some of what I saw, the reporting was inaccurate and unfair.  Once King opened everything up again 7-10 days later, it was back to normal, whatever that is.  I never saw reports of how safe Kathmandu and most of the country is.  I felt safer there than I would in downtown Atlanta.  Too bad too, because people in the Khumbu (Sherpas) are hurting.  Lodges should be full and only 2-3 people there.  Should be many more treks and mine was the last one Nawang had for the spring season.  Our news agencies have so much influence and it can really hurt others when reporting is not correct.

TREKKING AND HIKING!  I now know the difference!  When Alan and I go hiking, we go to a specific place to see or do a specific thing, usually within 3-4 hours from home, we stay a day or several days, then go back home. Hiking is an event.  Trekking however, is an EXPERIENCE!  Treks are usually much longer (2-4 weeks), farther from home, longer in length, and you become “part” of the people and culture there, eating their food, staying with them.  Trekking is also unhurried, smell the roses along the way, stop at a view and have tea.  We really do not have trekking in the US in the sense that our trails are in the wilderness, the woods, sort of following logging roads, Indian trails, and waterways.  Treks follow the trails/roads of the local people going through their villages. 

BASE CAMPS:  Base camps are where expeditions go to establish headquarters in a good area close to the mountain to be climbed.  An expedition will have tents for climbers, cooks, porters, etc. as well as a mess tent for eating, reading, relaxing, and sometimes the base camp manager has his/her office there with computer and weather information, directs everything from there;  and they must have a toilet tent.  Expeditions will be at base camp anywhere from 2-4 months or until they finish the climb or quit the climb, or run out of time and money!  Locations are basically “first come first serve” and disputes are now handled by one Sherpa from each expedition forming a council, at least that is what happens at Mt. Everest Base Camp.   

WILDLIFE AND FLORA:  Animals I saw:  Yaks and Naks and Gorkos!  A heard of 15-20 Mountain Goats, big goats; 8 Eagles, 6 were at the same time;  Snow Chickens running around like road runners;  Chipmonk (only 1?); Pigeons at 16,000 feet???;  Crows, ravens, sparrows and other colored birds looking like them.   I saw tons of Crested Dwarf Iris usually between 11,000-13,000 feet and we see them in N.Ga. at 2000 feet, same flower.  Lots of cedars, pines, junipers, scrub brush down low;  Rhododendrons in bloom, pink, white, red;  Dandelions, bluets, big stickers.  Also plaintain pussytoes on long trail up mountain from Phortse. 

CLEANLINESS IS RELATIVE!  I have basically had the same clothes on for 4^th day as I write this, no bath since we began (have washed up though).  No reason to be real clean.  Think about it:  Trekkers, porters coming in from the Everest trail with dust and mud!!  Restaurants in lodges have dirty floors, few showers to clean anyway, no big deal.  As my friend and Exum guide Jim Nigro told me about mosquitoes in the Wind River Range, “John, they are there, they are bad, just deal with is and have fun”!  Same about dirt.  Everything and everyone here is dirty (to US standards) most of the time.  OK….what is next! 

NAMASTE!  The greeting, hello, how are you? In Nepal.  The ladies always “drug it out” nicely, to Namasteeeee.  I used this greeting a lot.   

THE KHUMBU:  This is the area of the Sherpas and the Himalaya, beginning for us at Lukla.  Along with the SAGARMATHA NATIONAL PARK, this is all or most of the Sherpa/Himalay region. I am not sure.