Trek to Mt.
Everest Base Camp, April 9-30, 2005, John Pearson
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared and the sea was also gone.
And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a beautiful bride prepared for her husband…So He took me in spirit to a great high mountain, and He showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.
It was filled with the Glory of God and sparkled like a precious gem, crystal clear like jasper…Then wall was made of jasper and the city was pure gold, as clear as glass.”
Revelation 21: 1-2;
10-11;
18
This is John’s description of Heaven given to him by Jesus Christ.
I will see this heaven one day, but I have just spent 15 days in God’s heaven on earth if there is such a place.
I realized on Day #2 of my journey to Mt. Everest Base Camp in Nepal, that words could not describe what I saw day and night.
This will be my best effort to share with you the greatest adventure of my almost 63 year life, filled with the highs of physical and mental achievements and spectacular views of the Himalaya and being with its people, the Sherpa,
as well as a few lows of pain and the price one must pay for such bliss.
This is my story…
April 9th, 2005, Saturday:
Claudia lets me off at the airport for my adventure and the first thing I notice is that I looked at the wrong flight time on my ticket, and I have missed my flight to Los Angeles---WHAT A BEGINNING!
But Kim, a Delta ticket lady got me on the next flight and I connected with my other flights---no harm done except to me for such a stupid mistake!
Oh well…
Sitting in LAX waiting for my 13 hour flight to Taipei (13 hours??!!), I read in my church’s devotional (Roswell UMC) about commitment.
The realization of the BIG commitment I have made in time, training, and effort are now “front and center”.
My commitment is made:
Lets get going!
I board the flight to Taipei and notice right off that things are made smaller for Asians---not many 6’2” Asians, and my rear fits pretty tight in this seat, and there is not as much leg room.
13 hours of this!
Best part is that China Air is a first class airline---great, hot food, full meal, real silverware and
cloth napkin…but 13 hours on any airplane will drive anyone crazy!
They hand out cloth slippers too!
FINALLY I am out of that 13 hour ride, next flight on China Air to Bangkok and again great food and service---nice looking young lady flight attendants too!
The farther I go into Asia, the more things become Asian!!! Imagine that!??
I tried and ate several things that I could not identify, veggies, kind of stringy stuff.
Also fewer Americans/white people like me…surprise, surprise!
But we converse OK and all is well and I survived the whatever I ate.
APRIL 11th, Monday:
I don’t know what happened to April 10th???
It is somewhere between Taipei and Bangkok, I think??
And now it is April 11th??
I have lost a day but will get it back on return trip?
Well anyway, I flew from Bangkok to Kathmandu
Nepal and here I am at 10:35 am.
I have no idea what day or time it is in the US, but it really doesn’t matter.
An agent from Tiger
Mountain, my trekking company, met me at the airport (thank you Lord) and takes me in taxi to Kathmandu Guest House where I will stay 2 nights before trek begins.
I have a new definition for traffic and it is found in Kathmandu
Nepal!!
Roads are rock, dirt, mixed in with pavement, tons of cars, trucks, busses, taxis, motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws, cows (they are sacred here and some roam the streets too), and people of every kind---ALL ON STREETS NOT TWO LANES WIDE!
SCARED ME TO DEATH!
I don’t know how they drive here, honk horns all the time, and stay a minimum of two inches from another vehicle all the time.
I AM A NERVOUS WRECK every time I get on the roads here which is only back and forth to the airport.
This is a third world country and this is what to expect, but I did not expect it???
Does that make any sense???
Lord get me off these streets in one piece and into the mountains!
I am in the Kathmandu Guest House, I think the first “western” type hotel in Nepal.
No central heat or air of course, but windows and fans, running cold and hot water, etc.
Nice garden area (
0001
,
0002
) to go read, eat, or just hang out.
Nice outdoor restaurant (
0003
) for meals too.
There is a front gate that separates me from Nepal!
Out that gate and I am in the streets in the tourist shopping areas where you can buy just about anything in the “open air” shops.
Lots of trekking and camping/climbing gear, books and pics of Mt.
Everest and other
Himalaya Mountains (great bookstores), CD shops, clothing,
restaurants, everything you can think of is within a football field of my hotel.
I am here for two nights, pack up for trek tomorrow.
Ladies love shopping here.
I purchased hand-made Sherpa wool lined with fleece caps (really warm) for $1.80 each;
Hamburger (more like veggie burger—no beef served in Hindu country) with fries and fanta orange drink, $2.10;
Long Sleeve hiking shirt with the bells and whistles for me $3.50 ($35.00 at REI), and nice ladies shirt for Claudia, Nepali style, $3.50.
I also purchased a full front embroidered 100% cotton tee shirt with the map of my trek to Mt.
Everest embroidered on front for less than $4.00.
I can’t sell them for Patricia’s for that!!!
Great shopping with people driving you crazy to buy this, ride that, see this, etc.
So I shopped, ate, looked, was generally a good tourist rest of this day.
Also became teary-eyed as I read the Bible given to me in Mexico by TEAM ONE last June---a metal travel Bible that I can take in my pack.
All missionaries and Pastor Vale signed and wrote nice things about me in it.
I told you guys it would go with me and here it is!
April 12th, Tuesday
:
Kathmandu is truly an international city, people here from everywhere, even in my “up-scale” hotel which is very reasonable at $35.00 per night!
For this area, very nice accommodations!
I see Germans, Indians, South Africans, French (!!), Brits and Aussies, and Americans too.
Food is also good here.
I am eating Nepali food mostly and am careful to order stuff I can recognize and taste---I don’t get very adventurous here!
It is also here I learn that I will be alone on my trek.
Four others had signed up but canceled or rescheduled due to a blown knee of their leader I think.
Most companies would have canceled the trek rather than just take one person.
I credit Tiger
Mountain for honoring their agreement and providing the FULL TREK just for me!
I am up this day at 5 AM just because I woke up and could sleep no more---devotional time!
After devotion I start organizing stuff: (1) 1 duffle bag to take in trek (2) one duffle to leave here (3) My pack with what I will trek with tomorrow:
First aid kit, several personal items, sun tan lotion, extra clothes just in case of hear and rain, camera, etc.
One big surprise out in the garden (
0002
) as I hear people shrieking and running away as two big monkeys (
0006
) decide to join us for tea!
Got a good picture or two before management steps in and shoos off our monkeys.
Speaking of prices, purchased a very large sugar cookie with chocolate on top for 17 cents!
Man could I get fat here! Sticky cinnamon buns are about 25 cents---what a country!
I have been in Europe (5 countries), Mexico, Brasil, and all over USA and these are the noisiest, busiest, dustiest streets (
0004
,
0005
) I have ever seen and yes I know these are not all words, but you get the point.
What a place!
Also, I cannot believe the English influence here, primarily the USA.
Almost everyone speaks some English.
Not just USA but also Great Brittan, Australia, New Zealand, but primarily us.
I don’t get the feeling that anyone here hates the US, or even dislikes us.
Probably more envy and some jealousy??
Will comment more on this as I am here longer.
I feel very safe here, everywhere I have been, and it is pretty easy to tell where I am from, especially when I open my mouth:
“Are you from Texas”????
I am packed ready to go, for tomorrow the adventure begins!
APRIL 13TH, Wednesday
:
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!
Well, its 10:30 am and here I sit on the “patio” of a lodge/tea house at 8420’ about 2 hours from Lukla airport.
Lukla is where the Khumbu begins, home of the Sherpa, no roads, cars, trucks, etc.
I am surrounded by 20,000 foot plus (
0008
) mountains on a beautiful, sunny and warm day (60’s), and I just had breakfast at this place prepared by my team of Sherpas, my first meal!
Pancake, egg, French fries, pork and beans, great orange and peach marmalade/jelly, real natural peanut butter with lemon tea, tang, etc.
We just stopped here and my cook team goes inside, unloads the kitchen and prepares breakfast at the lodge for me!
We landed at Lukla airport about 8 am this morning which is a story in itself.
We circled the airport in our 30 passenger Otter with a fuel leak, and I knew why when I saw the airport.
It is cut out of the top of the mountain, runway about 200 yards long at about a 20 degree angle going up the mountain.
We hit that sucker and are going up that hill with reversed engines, and finally stop just right!
I can’t wait to take off here on return trip, like falling off a mountain!
Sherpas grab my bag and we are off to tea while they pack up and get ready to go.
I meet my team (
20A
) of Nawang our Sirdar (leader, guide), Pemba, cook;
3 cook boys and 2 porters who carry the kitchen, tents, everything in ROCOS, baskets, on their backs with head strap. Also at the airport I met Lila and her group of Americans.
Since she knows
Nawang, we decide to trek together when we can and we do start off together.
Lila kind of reminds me of SUSIE of the Tetons, about as high a compliment as I can give!
See PEOPLE for names and places of this team.
When we got to this patio tea room place, first thing was “hot washing water” for me, then set up my table with all the “stuff”---teas, tang, coffee, hot water, jellies, PB, salt and pepper, crackers, cookies, Cadbury chocolate drink, catsup/catchup whatever, everything you can think of, then I sit while they serve me, then themselves.
Then they clean everything and we pack up and trek!
What a country this is!
We are walking slow in order to acclimate to the altitude.
Already approaching 9000 feet, air thinner obviously.
Four things that can spoil your trek:
Altitude sickness; bacteria infection (stomach); cold or flu; injury.
We are on the EVEREST HIGHWAY (
0018
) which is fine dirt and rocks from 6-10 feet wide:
trekkers, porters,
Zokos (bulls) (
0016
) and later in colder weather, Yaks (male) and Naks (females).
No cars, trucks, just foot traffic.
I had wondered why distances are discussed in hours not miles---this is why.
Everyone walks everywhere, miles not important.
People and animals have been traveling the EVEREST HIGHWAY for thousands of years (before it was named the Everest Hwy), delivering and selling goods to India, Tibet, and remote Nepal, and still do this.
They are also supplying trekking teams and climbing expeditions not only to Mt.
Everest, the best known, but many other mountains on climbing schedules:
Amadablam, Lhotse, Pumori,
and many others.
The Sherpa porters (
0017
,
0040
) are carrying 60-80 pounds on their backs, some more.
We saw one Sherpa carrying 105 Kilos (over 200 pounds) of plywood…but I get ahead, more on him later.
But, suffice it to say that the average Sherpa is about 5’5” tall and weighs 100 pounds or less, and carries that much weight. These are the strongest people I have ever seen, by far.
As we are under 9000 feet there are farms along the way growing cabbage, lettuce, mustard, onions, potatoes (their potatoes are the best! Good and sweet!), fruit trees, and other things.
All farms and farm yards are fenced in with rock fences Sherpas build and they NEVER FALL DOWN.
All the rocks fit.
I don’t understand this.
As we finish eating and resting the command, “tally ho” means away we go up the mountain again!
At 3 pm we arrive at Chumawa, a farm with lodge (
0013
) and small restaurant.
We set up tents (
0012
) (Lila’s group (
0014
) is here too) as Brits set up their green tents above us.
We are looking at magnificent mountains, the “little mountains” or “foothills” to the Himalaya, only 20-22,000 feet tall:
Thamserku Central is one we will see for days, beautiful, covered with snow and ice, glacier.
For the first time on DAY ONE I realize that words cannot describe what I am seeing.
OK ladies, first discussion of “the facilities” here!
Wooden outhouse with double doors.
Inside is hole in the wooden floor in which to do your thing.
They do not have toilet paper so the water pail is to wash yourself with your left hand.
If you have toilet paper throw it away in the cardboard box so it may be use to start fires later.
Then after doing your thing, toss a little whatever is on the floor on your thing in the hole, leaves, sawdust, etc.
This
is
“composting”, keeps the smell down and promotes disintegration, dust to dust kind of thing.
Also be sure to latch the door as you go in.
The above is why in the Khumbu you do not shake hands with your left hand, only your right.
If you offer both hands it means you have cleaned your left hand and all is OK!
This is all true by the way!
KHUMBU:
This is the region where Himalaya mountains are, where the Sherpa live.
Where my trek is.
Dinner is like breakfast/lunch earlier:
They set up my table in the “restaurant” with all the condiments, hot washing water, hot water and tea, then prepare my food.
Oh, 4:00 pm everyday is tea time!
I have snack and tea or whatever to drink---hot drinks. Snacks usually PB and jelly, cookies, etc. Later they learn I like popcorn---everyday thereafter, as good as the movie theatre!
Where in the world do they get popcorn up here???
We eat, talk among ourselves (Lila’s group), and about 7:30-8:00 go to bed to be ready for 6:00 am wake up call with HOT COFFEE!
APRIL 14TH, THURSDAY
To
Namche Bazaar
6am black coffee with sugar and is it good!
6:30 breakfast, 7 am pack up, 7:30 or so, “Tally ho”!
We continue up and down following the Dodh
Koshi
River
on the trail with farm houses and small villages along the way.
We enter the Sagarmatha (Nepal name for Mt.
Everest) National Park (
0015
), show my pass, and then go down to the river for awhile.
Come to our first bridge crossing, a steel suspension bridge (
0011
) about 3-400 feet long, swaying in the wind. Once we cross this bridge, we begin one of the hardest climbs from about 8600 feet to 11,260 feet to Namche Bazaar.
Very difficult and dusty, takes 1 ½-2 hours.
The key is slow and easy, otherwise the altitude gets to you---drink lots of water.
We fill our water bottles with boiled water after every meal and tea time, and drink lots of water.
About 30 minutes up the mountain after crossing the bridge(
0019
,
0020
), Nawang tells us to “come here, see
Mt. Everest”.
This was the first time to see Everest (cannot see in pictures). It was a classic view, wayyyy of in the distance with snow blowing off the summit in a trail.
This sucker looks mean and meanacing!
But for the first of 7 or 8 times, there she is.
One of the reasons I came here---tallest mountain in the world, and I SEE IT! This perked us up for the remainder of the climb!
We also see Nuptse 25,800’ next to Everest 29,035! What a sight!
Also on the way up the trail we observe a Khumbu Sawmill:
On a platform built out of the felled tree, on man on top and one just below, about 6 feet, each on the end of a long saw (approx. 6-8 feet long), up and down, and their accuracy is sighting by eyeball, and they are as accurate as your saw in the garage---it is amazing, and very difficult.
One pushes down on the saw while the other pulls or pushes up, and vice versa.
Both are sighting for accuracy.
Farmers have a name for this saw, something like the “misery blade”???
Namche Bazaar (
0021
,
0023
,
0024
,
0028
) is the largest village in the Khumbu, lots of lodges, shops, houses, army base on top of the hill, museum about Mt.
Everest, a very popular place. Kind of like the last shopping center before the country!
We continue up the hill, and up, and up, to Danfe Lodge (
25A
) and Restaurant at the very top which give us a beautiful view of the entire city which sits in an amphitheater type bowl.
Everything is terraced in the Khumbu.
Even the mountains are growing terraced.
I ask Nawang about why this is, and he says, “I don’t know, it just is”.
You will see this from pictures.
And of course we are still surrounded by “little mountains” 20,000+ feet.
This was a hard trekking day and I am ready for Tea at 4 pm, rest, and dinner!
So, I sit out on my terraced tent area and observe Namche Bazaar.
Later while talking with Nawang, he mentions that we can go to Mt. Everest Base Camp and Kala
Pattar, a peak with good views of Everest and others, and how we can do it and live to tell about it!
Also on the way up the trail, we saw a community electricity project going on.
A Sherpa from Oregon has purchased a 1200 pound generator that will give electricity to 3 small villages and the people are digging and laying the wire just beside the trail.
Everyone is involved, Moms, Dads, children carry rocks away, all listening to the person in charge.
Since everything has to be carried in, it took 12 Sherpas 14 days to carry this 1200 pound generator to this point, from Lukla where we started two days ago to here.
INCREDIBLE!
Many or most villages do not have electricity and those that do have 110 volts I believe it is, which is not very strong, hard to read by.
We are going to be here two days, acclimatize tomorrow and have our only “fun” day off.
Another interesting thing is the stacks and stacks of firewood.
For fuel here in the Khumbu, there is either fire wood which is in short supply with trees down low being and endangered species almost, kerosene, which the government pushes, and yak dung which they tell me burns as good as wood.
Most of the fires we had in restaurants were yak dung fires in a sort of pot-bellied stove.
Over the years trees that were accessible to be cut have been cut and it causes tremendous erosion.
I believe there are laws and regulations about cutting down trees, requiring permits.
Many homes and lodges now use kerosene which is readily available in good supply.
I had forgotten what kerosene smelled like---still stinks!
The way they prepare yak dung is collect it from the fields and “lay it out” on rocks or fences so it dries out, then it is ready to burn.
Gives a new meaning to a “weenie roast” doesn’t it???
Our weather is in a good pattern:
Clear and cool in the morning for seeing mountains, wind comes up as late morning also warms up to 60’s, late afternoon fog or clouds settle in low and blow out overnight which takes out all the bad stuff in air so that it is clear in the morning again.
Later the afternoon clouds became snow---4 nights we had snow up to three inches, but I get ahead again!
And here comes the heavy fog or clouds about 7 pm tonight, but in the morning will be clear!
Tomorrow is a sight-seeing day in Namche.
8:30 and I am going to bed…night night!
We still have 7000 vertical feet to climb……
APRIL 15th FRIDAY
.
5:15 wake up call to go see views at park.
Fog has cleared and sky clear royal blue.
We will visit park early and come back for breakfast!
WOW, WOW, WOW!
6:30 at the park and I cannot believe my eyes.
Can there be a more beautiful view in the world than this?
Left to right:
Lobuche
20,100’
Ama
Dablam, 22,350’, most beautiful mountain in the world!
Nuptse, 25,800’
EVEREST
29,035’
tallest in world.
(
0031
,
0042
)
Lhotse 27,900’, 4th tallest in world
Lhotse Face = longest rock face in the Himalaya
Lhotse
Shar, 27,500’
I am in total awe of God’s creation here.
And again, words cannot explain, and we have a perfect, clear sky to view these beautiful, giant mountains.
WOW!
We go eat breakfast and I come back around 8:30 to view these some more. Ian from Lila’s group is there with one of these million dollar cameras and we take pics with he and I and all the above in the background. He is taking some pictures for I think National Geographic.
It is here that he informs me that Michael of their group is sick and probably going to have to go back.
The really big hill to Namche Bazaar got him---altitude.
At 9am the museum opens and it has several rooms with memorials to all the Sherpas who died on Everest, special room with Hilliary and Tenzing
Norgay
pics and some of their equipment, scary pics of the Khumbu Ice Fall, I enjoyed seeing this.
Also stuff about Sherpas, how they live, pics good too.
I used to say that what I would really like to do on Everest is in the Khumbu Ice Fall, to stand on those ladders across the big holes just to see if I could do it.
After seeing these pictures (scary!!) and later seeing the ice fall, NO WAY I WANT TO GET ANY CLOSER TO THIS AREA!
The ice fall with huge blocks of larger than house-size ice, pinnacles, always moving and shifting…NOT ME!
And today 5-4-05, American climber was killed in the Khumbu Ice Fall.
Dangerous place and is the first thing climbers must go through.
Off day today!
I go down to town, lots of shops, 3 bakeries and I choose the best for a “sticky bun”, change some money at the bank which is just a table in a room with a desk and security guard, purchase some small souvenirs like patches for my pack, generally play tourist.
This is the only day we do not trek.
Total acclimatizing to altitude!
Here come the Irish with 4 tents, 8 guys, nice guys in the same group.
I see a guitar and they have a good old fashion “Irish Hootenanny” after supper, probably drank some Irish Whiskey too!
Had popcorn for 4 pm tea/snack time, as good as homemade!
Told cooks that and now I will have it almost everyday!
Have I mentioned that there are “tan chen” I think is right, Buddhist prayer flags (
0054
,
0069
,
13A
,
0009
,
0010
) everywhere.
They go from pole to pole, tree to tree, hillside to hillside.
We are literally never out of site of them.
They are colorful and have prayers written on them and are put up by the people.
GUEST LODGE defined.
These are in most villages.
They have 15-20 rooms on average, rooms 10 X 10 feet some larger,some smaller, with two bunks of plywood on each side built onto the wall with blankets and usually a pillow.
Some have electricity but not bright enough to read.
Usually indoor “plumbing” consists of one toilet, porcelain bowl on floor with grid to place your feet so that when you stoop, all will go into the bowl and not the floor (some still manage to miss).
Water there to wash left hand after cleaning and to wash out bowl, or if you have TP throw it in the box, not in the bowl.
Better than the outdoor ones described earlier.
Lodges also have a small restaurant with 8-12 small tables and a pot-belly type stove in middle of room, and a kitchen, dirt stone floor usually.
Fuel for stove is usually yak dung.
NEPAL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY:
There were 2 lodges being built that we could watch in Namche Bazaar, one just below us.
On site were tents to house and feed the 30-40 workers, all the materials such as doors, window frames. Lumber, etc. that all had to be brought here on backs of porters.
From 6am to 6 or 7 pm you can hear the ping, ping, ping of hammers as workers crush granite rock with small hammers for the foundation;
larger rocks are broken up with sledge hammers.
Everything is hand carried.
The structure itself is wood from a Nepal Sawmill as described earlier and the room will be a colorful thick tin (royal blue, red, or dark green most popular).
No equipment for building, just people and hand tools.
They will build this guest house in 4-5 months says Nawang, who just built one for his son!
This is real work.
APRIL 16th, SATURDAY:
Awoke early, 5:15 am as usual.
Heard the Buddhist horns early this morning from the GOMPA (monastery), the long, low, mournful sound.
At 6am the “peck,peck,peck of the construction site below us---see under definitions Nepal Construction Co.
The largest market in the Khumbu is here (Namche Bazaar) (
0025
,
0026
,
0027
) every Saturday and we saw it.
Every vegetable, meat, condiment, “junk” from everywhere offered for sale.
Buyers and sellers come from all over to shop here (the locals), kind of like a mall.
All the meats are in this 70’ long building where people can come in a select their cut.
No refrigeration.
Found out later that the buffalo meat I will eat tonight came from here as well as onions and other veggies.
We pass through and head up the mountain on our way to Khunde, Nawang’s home.
We go up 1300 feet today to 12,250 in Khunde.
Lots of Crested Dwarf Iris along trail too in full bloom!
We put up my tent in Nawang’s side yard (
0037
).
He has a nice wood frame/rock home like others here.
Inside is most all wood and this home has been passed down from his parents and he will pass down to his children.
This village of Khunde is medium size, about 40 houses and several lodges.
The clinic that Hillary built is here in Khunde too.
Village is quite proud of this—only one in the Khumbu.
We have lunch and go for acclimatizing hike up GONGRI
MOUNTAIN, 14,600 feet and the sights toward Tibet are just UNREAL!
There goes the Bhotekoshi
River
wayyyy below us going toward Tibet (north I think), and we can see where it branched off from the Dudh
Koshi which we saw often the first two days.
Wild, cold, river.
We can see 3 villages, big mountains, a waterfall at least 3000 feet, tumbling from the glacier mountain to the river some 3000 feet below us.
And by the way, Ian, David, and Panang are with Nawang and I as we hike and rest in this view.
Climb high and sleep low is the key, so we head back down to Nawang’s house.
Big mountain in background (
0029
) is a picture of Khumbi Yul Lha, Buddhist Holy Mountain and it has never been summitted.
I brought a bunch of pens to pass out to children (
0032
,
0033
,
0034
,
0035
,
0036
), so Nawang says “lets do it now” and tells one or two children in Khunde and here come others.
Not only children but Moms, teens, guys.
We pass out pens, make sure they right, take pictures and shoe to them on digital camera and they are amazed---probably many have never seen this before.
Fun time for all.
Tonight Pemba has prepared most famous Sherpa meal “Momo” with long O’s.
It is buffalo meat inside these pasta things with a sauce, veggies, etc. and it is very good.
An hour later, something got me.
My stomach said “this is not going to be a good night” and I began throwing up and had the Nepal runs---everything came out of me by midnight and left me feeling bad and weak.
It was a bacteria infection, not altitude---altitude gets your head first, dizzy, headache, I had none of that.
Nawang was with me the first couple of times, then I was on my own as it should be.
I WAS SICK.
But everyone I met but one person had something like this at least once---has to happen when you go to a totally different culture.
I think some spice in the curry got me??
Next morning I was weak, not feeling well.
Nawang says rest and we go later.
About 10 am we left to cover as much as we could which turned out to be about two hours.
We got to the bottom of a big hill, facing a VERY BIG uphill and my body said NOPE, this is as far as I go.
Nawang had the crew make camp in this yak field, a village called Teshinga (
0038
,
0039
), where yak dung was drying on the rocks.
I lay down on a pallet under a shade tree and slept for 2-3 hours.
Have not eaten today, but managed to eat a little rice noodle soup tonight. They had my tent up, my “pottie tent”, about 100 feet from the river---I went to bed.
Woke up feeling much better, hungry, able to eat and away we go.
Nawang agrees that it was a 24 hour thing.
Good thing cause I would have died if it had been longer.
This was a bad 24 hours, the price one must pay!
APRIL 17th, SUNDAY
:
We begin with me eating a medium breakfast, eggs toast, no “Momo” thank you!
We begin this morning’s trek with a very hard uphill to TENBOCHE (
004
1
,
0043
) , 2-3 hours, where we should have been last night.
We have extra time built in so we are still on schedule except we will have to skip going to Anapurna Base Camp.
Big Gompa (monastery) here, everything on top of hill.
I have lunch here, go to visit Gompa with Nawang.
We take off boots, go inside, see the big drums, walk around clock-wise, we see the big horns, the holy books, etc.
This popular Gompa burned down in 1998 or 99 and just built back.
Nawang shows me around and I visit the small bookstore and read the info available.
Nice village in a nice location.
Talk about COINCIDENCE???
We are resting while going up the big hill to Tenboche at a small rest area and here comes two younger “flat bellied” guys.
One of them turns and says “Pemba”???
They start hugging.
Then “Nawang”???
They are all hugging.
This man is Pat Morrow the second man to summit
Mt. Everest (
0042
) from Canada.
In 1982, Nawang was Sirdar (leader and guide) and Pemba was head Cook of the Canadian Expedition to put a man on Mt.
Everest for the first time.
By flip of the coin, another Canadian was first to summit, and Pat Morrow summited the next day.
Pat, Nawang, nor Pemba
have seen each other since that expedition in 1982!!!
And here we all are—is this a coincidence or what?
Nawang was also in charge of Sherpas putting the ropes through the Khumbu Ice Fall and he lost three Sherpa friends and one Canadian friend in an avalanche in the ice fall.
We all sat there and talked for half hour or so.
What a neat event!
Now….for the rest of the story, as I was in the Kathmandu airport leaving for home, sitting amongst a group of Canadian women who had been trekking to Anapurna, I was talking with the one sitting next to me pretty
close to my age.
She pointed to a man and said “we are here with that gray headed man there (pointing), Peter Speer.
He was with our first climbing expedition in 1982”.
BOINGGGG.
I say the 1982 expedition that put two Canadians on Mt.
Everest”?
“Yes” she said.
I told her about Nawang, Pemba, meeting Pat Morrow, all the above.
She grabbed me and took me to Peter Speer and introduced us, and I told him my story.
Peter was the Base Camp Manager for that expedition and knew Pat, Nawang, and Pemba too.
Is this unreal or what?
I have now met in these coincidences, four major players in the 1983 Canadian Expedition including one summiter, Pat Morrow!
My plane is called so we could not talk long.
Man!
About 3 pm we arrive at Panboche (
0046
) , 13,150 feet,Sonam Lodge and Restrurant, after 3-4 hours of trekking (short day) and I am sitting outside on this beautiful day with the greatest view of the most beautiful mountain in the world, Ama
Dablam (
0030
), almost close enough to touch, and my new friend Erin, from Lansing Michigan, who also works part time at REI.
He has been to base camp and is hanging out here in order to meet 12 Norwegians he is climbing Ama
Dablam with.
And no he does not know them!
His climbing group canceled so he hooked up with them.
We are looking at the ridge he will climb all the way to the top—ice, snow, rock.
Will take 2-3 weeks.
He told me it cost 100 rupees for a room (68 cents), 300 rupees if you want a room, 3 meals, and a hot bath ($2.04 American).
The baths are most always outside, fiberglass with wooden floor, a curtain separating you and your towel and dry clothes---water poured in the top and you use a lever to open and close water.
They poured wrong water in top---COLD RIVER WATER!!!
Even though he says he loves the cold, said it took him 30 minutes in his sleeping bag to get warm again!!
BRRRRR.
I hope he make summit of Aba
Dablam.
Will contact him at REI in Lansing later this month.
He is celebrating college graduation with this trip and has climbing experience including ice and snow.
My first night in a lodge---I also clean up pretty good and feel better after the really bad sick day.
APRIL 18th Monday:
We have a long day to Dingboche (
0059
), 14,355 feet, where we will spend two nights to acclimatize, hike high the second day, 6-7hours trekking today, rough terrain, lots of up and down, more up.
I have talked with Nawang and Pemba about food and asked for no more curry, and they say fine---they just want to please me. They understand I do not blame them. We get to Dingboche mid afternoon after many beautiful sights and stay in the lodge Nawang built for his son to run.
There are probably 6-7 lodges here and some farms.
This is the last village on our way up of any significance.
We are about to get into the real mountains after here.
Every place we come to gets a little colder.
Long day, we eat and go to bed early.
APRIL 19TH,20th,TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY
:
We are up early for our acclimatizing hike to Chukhung (
19A
,
16A
,
17A
,
18A
) , 15,800, the highest I have ever been, very small
village 3-4 houses and a guest lodge about 3 hours up the mountains.
We have a sack lunch prepared by Pemba, so we eat breakfast and go at about 8 am.
Views are beautiful and different on way to Chukhung:
More Ama
Dablam from different angle;
Island Peak 20,400 (
0047
);
Lotse
Shar we see again 27,600;
Nuptse again 25,900, with its 4 summits covering up Everest from our view; Ampu
Grabjen (
0048
) with a very long ice/snow ridge line toward Island Peak;
We have left tree line and it is colder today so we are adjusting to warmer clothing and wind protection.
We get to lodge at Chukhung, have tea and eat our lunch as the clouds are kind of swirling above us and it is getting colder.
Nawang looks around and says, “weather changing”.
I wanted to say NO JOKE, but instead said, “do you think we need to go”?
He said “after you finish your tea”.
I gulped it down and said LETS GO!
We head down as the snow is following behind us.
We can see it covering just behind us---neat!
Took 3 hours to get here, we get back to lodge in 1:45!!
We rocked and rolled to beat the snow.
Now I am sitting in the lodge watching our first Khumbu snowfall.
I go to visit Lila and her group about ½ miles away at another lodge.
Lila is fighting the flu, not feeling well;
Ian is fine;
David and Rene have both had the Nepal runs!
We have tea, fun, I say goodbye, back to lodge as snow continues.
Our porters, cook boys, have the day off today as we acclimatize, but they find work for a day hauling the big rocks to a construction site just below us.
All day long through the snow, they haul 40-60 pounds of rock on their backs.
An hour after Nawang and I get back, there is Nawang, throwing rocks around helping with the work in the snow---a competitor for his lodge business.
They all work through snow until almost dark.
Man, these people have energy and the will to work!
And, it is 20 degrees outside and they do now wear big coats, nothing over ears, no gloves---they do not feel cold like we do.
Nawang and Pemba like me sleep in a tent, but they leave the front open as cold as it is at night!
I ask them about this and they say “warm nights”!
My tent is closed as tightly as possible to keep all heat in!
PITY PARTY:
Well, my Ziz
Ziglar
“Pity Party” is over I believe!
This tough mountaineer was actually home sick upon arrival in LA on the first day! And after while I was sick and getting strength back, my mind kept saying stuff like “you don’t have to do this”!
“Your injury from the fall with Alan is not healed”.
“You don’t have anything to prove to anyone?”
“You are higher right now than you have ever been, over 15,000 feet---go back home, have fun in the springtime with flowers blooming!”
And I am truly homesick to tears right now.
I miss Claudia and Scruffy, and Melissa, Chelsea, and Traci.
My friends at church and business.
I am in a real survival test and it is very difficult, more so than I thought.
Every day we hear and see the rescue helicopter picking up the sick and wounded, taking them back to civilization for treatment, several times everyday. I hear the stories about everyone else being sick too, most worse than me.
But, I keep plodding, one more step at a time, up the mountain, knowing that many are praying for me and wishing me well---I can feel it and it gives me strength to tolerate the altitude, dirt, sun, cold, small pains I feel.
Why am I doing this?
I hope it is not about me.
I give all glory and honor to the Lord for bringing me here to this wonderful place.
There is a purpose He has for me and I will find it probably when I get home.
Right now it is about survival and I am a survivor. This is the most incredible and emotionally difficult adventure of my 63 year life!
I am over my “pity party” and know that I will make it to base camp.
This is an ultimate test of survival for me and I will!
With God’s help I can do anything, but without Him I am nothing!
UP THE MOUNTAIN I CONTINUE WITH RENEWED SPIRIT!!
Pemba’s omelets are so good I have requested another for dinner:
Eggs, yak cheese (which I really like), veggies, toast or pancakes…mmmmm good!
Snow is covering ground as I turn in for the night.
SERVANTS TO OTHERS:
I wish I could be as good a servant to the Sherpas with me as they are to me.
I am trying.
I will not be an “ugly American”.
They put me first in literally everything, every minute of every day.
And they never fail!
I am doing my best too, to be friends with them and have achieved this with all but our 2 porters who are somewhat stand-off-ish.
I brought lots of snacks that I do not need since they have snacks for me everytime I stop for anything, so I share mine with them, bars they may not have ever had before, and my GORP which I made myself---they appreciate and enjoy.
They do not say much about appreciation, or big thank yous, but you can tell in their eyes.
Man, what servants they are.
THE SUN AND WEATHER: We have been blessed with great weather!
The sun here is very hot so one must wear long pants and sleeves and good hat in order to avoid sunburn which would be serious.
Looking back, every day but one (the last day of trek in Lukla), we had very sunny, clear mornings.
I could not have scripted or ordered better!
We had 4 snows the greatest 3 inches in Gorak
Shep, the last outpost before base camp.
Wonderful having Himalaya snow falls!
We had warm days and down to single digits one night (the above at Gorak
Shep), enough wind to make it interesting.
PERFECT WEATHER!
Continue
