DAYS 35-48, EVEREST BASECAMP TREK, NEPAL
Sure, I love the mountains.
But I’m not a mountaineer.
I think all of those people you see in the documentaries, losing their limbs to frostbite, sleeping in tiny windblown tents and suffering through negative bajillion below zero temperatures just to stand on top of a summit are absolutely insane. Like they have to have a screw loose or something. But for better or for worse, I married a man who is a little bit crazy about mountains, and so sometimes I find myself agreeing to do things that I would otherwise reserve for those insane folks…like spending two weeks hiking through the Himalayas and eventually to the basecamp of Mount Everest at 17,600 feet.
Now, to put this into perspective, the tallest mountains in the intercontinental US are about 14,000 feet. We’ve got 53 of those peaks in Colorado, and my slightly crazy husband has summited 45 of them. And little ol’ inexperienced me? Oh, I’ve only summited one. But I knew enough to know that what had been proposed was no easy task. Which is why I immediately shot down the initial three week proposal - and rebutted with a two week compromise. I could survive anything for 14 days right? No big deal. And how cool would it be to see the tallest mountain on earth? Oh, how clueless I was. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for...
Day one began in Kathmandu, Nepal. Elbowing and shoving our way through the most archaic, disorganized, chaotic airport you could possibly imagine and finally finding ourselves on this poor excuse for a puddle jumper of a plane. Spirits were high and the flight was wild. Forty-five minutes zipping from one cloud to the next, clutching the armrests with white knuckles while the cabin jiggles and jostles and your stomach anxiously somersaults its way into your throat. You expect the giant peaks you see out the window to disappear as you reach cruising altitude, but they don't. They just sit there in their ginourmaty as you begin your decent to Lukla, a tiny town practically hanging off the edge of a cliff. You shakily step down to the tarmac and into a land of dense fog and deep green and blue hues.
Most people hire porters (people who carry your stuff) for their trek, but considering our lack of income, we opted to carry our own load. So we strap on our packs and start hiking and I am just so curious and excited and enamored with the surroundings. Lukla is like the entrance gate to a fairy tale. The windy dirt path is scattered with small stone cottages and wildflowers and waterfalls. Adorable almond-eyed children drop their sticks and balls and run to happily shout “Namaste” as you walk by. Women in brightly colored outfits tend to their lush green crops and stir huge metal pots over flaming stoves. Herds of yaks announce themselves with the bells around their necks and practically run you over as they lug food and supplies and giant North Face bags up the trail. You cross terrifyingly long bridges that sway in the wind as a glacial river storms by, hundreds of feet below your boots. There are prayer flags delicately fluttering in the breeze and giant boulders carved with Buddhist mantras and small temples with these beautiful wheels that you spin to send your prayers up to the heavens.
The whole place is just magic. It's no wonder the native people regard it as sacred.
On day two we end up in this tiny town called Namchee at 11,500 feet. It’s only reachable by foot or helicopter, but it’s scattered with cool little bars and restaurants and shops. Throughout the hike, you stay at these “tea houses,” pretty much glorified hostels which I initially found adorable and quaint. Everything is made out of plywood, there isn’t any heat, the bathrooms usually consist of a bucket, a jug of water and a hole in the ground, but they’re painted really sweetly, have awesome little gardens and these common dining rooms where smiling Sherpa women serve you rice and noodles. It's all so cool and fun and unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. And I’m still all happy and smiley and loving life. La la la.
On the following days we keep hiking. Hopping from village to village. Climbing higher and higher. Sometimes taking a rest day to let our bodies acclimatize our new elevated position on the planet. Eleven thousand feet turns to twelve thousand feet to thirteen thousand feet to fourteen thousand. As we continue to climb the air gets thinner and thinner. The villages get smaller and smaller, their tea houses less and less idyllic. Altitude begins to rear her ugly head. We start waking up in the morning with pounding headaches. Brad, who has been sick from day one, begins to cough from deep inside his chest.
The nights are the worst. The sun goes down and it gets cold. Bone chillingly, body achingly, toe numbingly cold. The tea houses heat their dining rooms with yak dung (a smell that will forever haunt my dreams), but as soon as you finish your noodles and head back to your plywood closet, you’re freezing again. And it’s all you can do to force yourself to head to the communal bucket to brush your teeth before you have to climb into your sleeping bag and shiver yourself warm. And then there’s the lying awake. For hours and hours. Tossing and turning in frustration. Because even though your body is exhausted, the second you find yourself dozing off, you abruptly wake back up gasping for oxygen. I stop sleeping on night four.
But after you make it through the night, the mornings greet you with their beautiful views. And the mountains - Oh! The mountains! Once you’re above the cloud cover, the Himalayas reveal themselves. And they’re absolutely spectacular. Behemoth masses of striated granite swaddled in scarves of crisp snow. Sheets of luminous ice that hang suspended and heavy against their sides. Sparkling white streams that dance off their windy jagged peaks and thread themselves into the surrounding sky. They're so quiet and so big and they make you realize what a small insignificant peanut you really are.
We keep hiking day in and day out. Some days we walk for three hours. Some days we walk for seven. And it’s manageable enough. There’s lots of time to think and joke around and stop and stare in awe. I stay pretty happy until day seven when we come to our first “pass,” which is basically a point through which you cross a mountain range. This particular one is called Renjo La and stands towering at 17,600 feet.
Now let me tell ya a little something about trekking that high. It’s miserable. That kind of altitude does crazy things to your body and your mind. It makes even the simplest of tasks, like putting one foot in front of the other, exponentially difficult. Your legs start to drag. Your feet become cement bricks. Your body feels like it is starving for a breath your lungs can’t seem to reach and your chest begins to ache as your inhales become more frequent and more desperate. The harsh wind bites your cheeks with it’s sharp teeth, staining them the most uncomfortable shade of rosy. And you quickly learn that tears won’t do you any good. They just waste precious oxygen. But you’ve got Brad. And even though he’s sucking air too, he’s behind you the whole way. And he’s pushing you forward, telling ridiculous stories, making you laugh, carrying your pack at the very top when you can barely take another step. And he pushes you through.
And then you see her in all her glory. The mother of all mountains surrounded by a sea of other Himalayan giants. And at their feet stands this placid turquoise lake, bluer than any Caribbean sea. It’s unreal how quickly your body can forget misery when presented with unparalleled beauty. The moment is sublime. Really and truly. And we smile and take photos as our pain evaporates into the thin air.
And then of course we have to get down again. Back down to 15,600 feet. But we’re heading to this gorgeous little village that has parked itself on the edge of that blue lake. It’s called Gokyo.
We finally arrive. And we’re dog tired, but we still can’t sleep. And when the sun peaks out the next day we’re feeling bruised and battered. And our noses are stuffy and now we’ve both got colds. So we decide it’s best to rest for a day. We eat breakfast at the World’s Highest Bakery. And I don’t know if it’s the fact that I had only eaten noodles for a week or if they really were the most delicious doughnuts I had ever tasted, but those chocolate covered sugar-highs totally lifted my spirits.
We read and relax. We meet old hippy artists and young hipster filmmakers. People with kind souls and true hearts. We commiserate about the altitude. Swap stories of adventure. They’re great and it’s refreshing to talk to other people and listen to the tales they have to tell.
But despite the wonderful day, the night comes again. And it sucks. I start to get a belly ache (yet another fun side effect of altitude). But we know if we are going to stick to our Everest Base Camp itinerary, we need to wake up and make it over the daunting 17,800 foot Cho La Pass. It is going to be a whopper.
We don’t sleep as per usual so we’re out of bed at 4:45 am. We ignore our drippy noses and rumbling tummies and hit the trail. It’s freezing, but there’s a soft alpine glow on the peaks so at least it’s pretty. We break for breakfast, but I feel so nauseous I can’t force myself to eat anything. We get back on the trail. And the hours tick by and the incline gets steeper and we keep moving forward. It’s grueling but we eventually reach the top of the pass. This time I don’t even enjoy the view. I just curl into a ball for a few minutes because my stomach is hurting.
We descend down a glacier and continue to make our way. Four hours turns into five and then five hours turns into six. The trail winds up and then down, and then back up. We cross fields of boulders and sheets of ice. The sun begins to set and it gets cold again and we keep walking. Seven hours, eight hours, nine. More walking. By hour ten we finally set our eyes on the intended destination for the night, conveniently located at the top of yet another hill.
By the time we make it to our room, I collapse on the plywood cot in complete and total exhaustion. I’ve just hiked further and climbed higher than I ever have before on nothing but a piece of toast. My body is achy and sore and covered in 6 days of un-showered dry sweat. I smell like a teenage boy’s dirty gym bag. My hair is a greasy tangly mess. I've been wearing the same shirt for more than 72 hours. I'm sick of being tired. I’m sick of being cold. I’m sick of sucking air and sleepless nights and disgusting bathrooms. I don’t want to hike anymore. I don’t want to look at the mountains anymore. It is day nine and I’m all kinds of cranky and I just want to be done.
I quietly drag my pity party to the washing basin. And as I’m standing there, something happens to the grip I have on my toothbrush handle and I watch, in slow motion, as it falls out of my hands and cascades into the grimy bucket…clink. clink. clink. It lands smack dab in the center next to a bar of soap covered in someone else’s hair.
And that was it. That was the moment, the last straw. I completely unraveled.
I started to cry. And cry. And cry. Not just a few rolling tears, but these deep, heavy, get-me-the-hell-out-of-here sobs. I couldn’t stop. The floodgates had opened. I probably stood there for a good ten minutes just crying. The kind that poofs up your eyes and clogs up your nose and leaves you breathing those awful staccato-y, hiccup-y breaths.
Once I was able to pull myself back to reality, I snuck back into the room, trying to conceal my complete and total meltdown. But it wasn’t long before Brad caught on…those damn hiccup-y breaths. He climbed into my cot and held me and without any hesitation whatsoever announced that we were heading down. I know that he really wanted to get there. That if it hadn't been for me he would have made it. But he didn’t try to convince me to go further. He didn't make me feel one ounce of guilt. He knew I had tried hard and I had hit my limit. We were both tired. We were both sick. It was time to go back.
We spent the next five days hiking down. Back to the towns, back to the oxygen. On day eleven we even got a hot shower. I didn’t care that I had to take it in the basement cellar of a teahouse. Or that it was probably filthier than a women’s prison. I didn’t care that my hair immediately froze into icicles the second the water turned off or that I had to dry myself with a hand towel. For fifteen glorious minutes the hot water had made me actually feel warm and clean. A luxury I hadn’t had since the beginning of the trip. On day twelve we started sleeping again. And god did that feel good. On day thirteen when we crossed back through the gates of Lukla, I didn’t look back. I wasn’t sad it was over, I was just happy I had survived.
In the end we didn’t do what we came to do. We didn't actually stand at the Basecamp of Everest. But we had had gotten a peek at the top of the world. We had seen things that most people only dream of. We had made it through really good days and really bad ones and we had done it together. I will forever remember those monstrous mountains, that bluer than blue lake, those smiling Sherpa women, the stories of the crazy travelers we met along the way. I will forever be thankful for indoor plumbing and unlimited toilet paper and oxygen. I will never take for granted a deep breath, a home cooked meal or a best friend who can make me laugh even when I can’t stop crying.
I suppose it’s true what they say. That it’s the journey and not the destination. We had ourselves one hell of a journey. And it was definitely time for a beer.
-Kenze
