"Kanada ... hockee champions"

Everest poking its peak out from behind Lohtse. View from Kala Patther.

This blog entry was imagined as the pictorial climax of my 6 months.  I took photos each step of the way to record our legendry ascent to the highest place in the world.  Then at base camp, at -15 degrees and 5400 m the SD card failed. So I will annotate a truncated version of the events.

waiting and waiting and waiting

Day 1-3: The airport.  First flight into Lukla is gold, we were on the second flight, and Katmandu fogged over and the flight was cancelled. Day 2 we got to the runway, sunny weather, step onto the plane, the pilots step off, share a smoke, and get into a truck and drive away.  Bad sign.  We spend the rest of the day in the airport, at 4 the flight is cancelled.  Day 3, we are determined to fly somewhere, Lukla sure, but if by 10am we are not in the air, refund, and fly to some other part of Nepal.  We get a boarding pass at 8, miracle, as we are only booked for 11, wait in the departure lounge (which smells of urine, you can imagine how intense that smell was at 3 pm the previous day) we pass through the gate, onto the little bus that lurches toward the plane, onto the runway, get on the plane, the pilot starts the engine we taxi, takeoff, but I know only when you land is a trip to Lukla real.

Landing in the most dangerous aiport in the world is an experience in itself.  You drop over a ridge, wind buffeting the small plane, the runway appears below, looking to be vertical and very short.  The plane lands hard, brakes are applied, and very quickly a rock wall appears in front of the plane, which marks the end on the runway.  The plane into a small parking area, passengers are whisked off ,one propeller still turning luggage tossed off and then on, 12 new passengers are quickly ushered on, and the plane leaves within 5 minutes.  Takeoff is a terrifying descent down the short tarmac and liftoff as the ground descends into a gorge and the plane begins a precipitous ascent to scale the nearby mountain range. 

Mani Walls and Buddhist script carved onto rock slates

A dog followed us for the first day

view from one of the 6 suspension bridges

Finally in the Himalayas we look for a porter.  We decided to forgo the travel companies and hire a guide porter directly. The men that confront us at the airport are mangy and shifty, not like the clear faced, nice men that helped the other trekkers at the airport, the ones vetted by the companies that hire them. We walk across the one street of Lukla with its dirty hotels and take safe haven at a tea house, and then I walked alone without my bag, and successfully navigate finding a reliable guide for the trip. (I asked some nonchalant men sitting in the sun and guickly a 12 year old boy appeared, I have to decline, and say I am looking for someone your age, and I am introduced to an experienced guide, Pemba, phew).

Walking is the best part of the trek and as we walk out of Lukla the green mountains, villages, river, and small gardens quickly shake off he grime of three days at the airport. 

Day 5-6: Walking requires crossing 6 suspension bridges as you crisscross the milky blue river below and climb 600 m into the base of treks into the Everest region, Namche Bazaar sitting at 3500m.

I get sick.  I have had a fever and a head cold for 4 or 5 days, probably exasperated from sitting in the airport, but at altitude with no heat, snow, and when the pipes all freeze, the illness explodes into a fever of 102, coupled with shakes.  (brushing my teeth is like using an electric toothbrush)  Luckily the worst of the illness happens on a rest day, a day to acclimatize to the altitude, and I get anti-biotics, pain-killers, cold tablets, throat syrup to guzzle and which soon freezes, and try to get better.

Day 7: Walking to Tengeboche a monastery at 4000m. Massive mountains newly covered in snow surrounds one as you walk, following a ridge, then descend to the river, then again climb 500m to the monastery.  We decide to descend a little lower to Deboche as this section of the trail is covered in ice and the descent at 4pm will be less treacherous then a descent at 8 am.

We made it this far, but the most dangerous moment awaits us.  Sharing one squat toilet with 20 other people, the floor completely covered in a one inch layer of ice.  (oh, I broke my hip falling into the pit of the squat toilet I need a helicopter lift back)

Day 8 and 9: Walk to Dingboche.  Following the icy track down form Daboche you emerge at the river and cross the bridge looking up the valley and Amadablam that looks like a mirage as the sun sits behind it and it appears only faintly sitting in the sky.  You climb from the river to Pengboche and make your way up the valley eventually climbing to Dingboche at 4400m. On the acclimatization day the views of the two valleys emerging are fantastic Amadablam on one side Taboche Peak on the other.

Day 10: We walk two days in one. We follow the ridge to Dughla, climb the pass, cross the memorials of those who died on Everest, and enter into what is now the Khumbu Valley. A straight valley greets us, and we though the snow following the trail past Laboche towards Gorapshep.  The end of the day is a circuitous traverse of the ridge above the glacier, but you are greeted with remarkable views of the entire valley and the peaks of Nuptse, and Lohtse. 

Gorapshep is cold, everyone circles the stove until the heat disappears and you have to spend a long, cold night in your bag, tossing and turning and peeing at 5100m.  

the stove in the middle of a lodge, this one in Daboche

In the morning we climb Kala Patthar to be at the top of the valley and to get the best views of Everest and base camp below. 

This is what makes the entire trip worth it, the cold, the altitude, the 7 hours of walking, the broken nails on your big toes, the frozen squat toilets, the loss of appetite, no vegetables, the 12 hours a night in your sleeping bag, it is all for the view.  To be on the top of the world to see a landscape that can only exist in one place. Amazing, beautiful, spectacular, and in one case the word awesome seems completely appropriate.

view down the Khumbu iceflow

Lohtse and Everest

We return after breakfast back tracking past Laboche, to Dughla, and down towards Periche (a wind tunnel that looks like a town from a western movie, one street, a few lodges, some corals just out of town, and a bar or two.) We walk over the Periche pass and down to Oches having dropped 1500m in the afternoon.  From Oches we descend the following day to Namche, and from their the next day we make it to Lukla, where we spend the night in a dark town, cold lodge, and dank room and pray we can get a flight out of the town the next day.  At this point you just want to get  hot shower, a salad, and a good night sleep.

"Kanada ... hockey champions, yeahh!!"