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Jerry Mika — Wed, 11 May 2011 13:45:44 +0000

New World Record, Apa Sherpa, Climbing Leader of Eco Everest Expedition 2011 reached the summit of Mt. Everest for the 21st time – a new world record.

At 09:15am this morning, Eco Everest Expedition Climbing Leader Apa Sherpa and members Chris Shumate(49 yrs) of USA , Bruno Gremior(39yrs) of Switzerland together with three Altitude Slimbing Sherpas, Ang Dawa Sherpa, Phurba Sherpa, and Arita Sherpa, stood on the top of Mt. Everest (8848m). They had left Camp 4 (7950m) last night, 10 May at 10:30 pm.

.Apa Sherpa’s Ascents of Mount Everest

#	Date	Expedition
1	May 10, 1990	International
2	May 8, 1991	Sherpa Support/American Lhotse
3	May 12, 1992	New Zealand
4	October 7, 1992	Everest International
5	May 10, 1993	American
6	October 10, 1994	Everest International
7	May 15, 1995	American On Sagarmatha
8	April 26, 1997	Indonesian
9	May 20, 1998	EEE
10	May 26, 1999	Asian-Trekking
11	May 24, 2000	Everest Environmental Expedition
12	May 16, 2002	Swiss Everest 50th Anniversary Expedition 1952-2002
13	May 26, 2003	American Commemorative Expedition
14	May 17, 2004	Dream Everest Expedition 2004
15	May 31, 2005	Climbing for a cure
16	May 19, 2006	Team No Limit
17	May 16, 2007	SuperSherpas™
18	May 22, 2008	The Eco Everest Expediton
19	May 21, 2009	The Eco Everest Expedition
20	May 21, 2010	The Eco Everest Expedition
21	May 11, 2011	The Eco Everest Expedition

Special Thanks

Jerry Mika — Mon, 09 May 2011 22:21:19 +0000

	Hot Chillys Official SponsorBase Layer Company www.hotchillys.com
	Diamond Mold Summit Banner Sponsor www.diamondmold.com

SD7 Technology Group Official Website Sponsor www.sd7.biz

University of Utah Health Care Go Utes!

Suunto Official Sports Watch Sponsor,

Official Trekking and Expedition Company

Follow the Eco Everest 2011Expedition with Asian Trekking

Jerry Mika — Mon, 09 May 2011 22:14:08 +0000

Sunday, 08 May 2011 08:19

Sun 08 May

Published in Asian Trekking Blog Written by Asian Trekking

Stormy winds and destroyed tents but all is well that ends well. The Brazilians are down in C2 and Apa and the second summit team are heading up to Camp 3 tomorrow, aiming to be on the top on the 11th. The Indian group also leave base camp tomorrow and head up to C2 tomorrow morning for their final summit push, aiming to stand on the top on the 13th.

Follow the Eco Everest 2011Expedition with Asian Trekking

Jerry Mika — Mon, 09 May 2011 22:11:46 +0000

Published in Asian Trekking Blog Written by Wiggy

First Asian Trekking Summit of Everest this year, Apa, Chris and Deke call off summit push due to winds. The Brazilians are going to Camp 2 and try to summit if the winds turn out not as bad as the forecasts.

Apa at camp 2. Summit push is on.

Jerry Mika — Thu, 05 May 2011 01:37:49 +0000

Apa crossing ladder in the Khumbu Ice fall.

2011 Apa Sherpa Eco Everest Expedition

Jerry Mika — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:31:19 +0000

Published in Asian Trekking Blog Written by Asian Trekking

The Summit Team are now at Camp 2, on their way to the summit.

Carlos, Rodrigo and CarlitoEarly morning and the team gathers in the mess tent, slowly equipment is made ready as the climbers go through final preparations for the climb ahead. Breakfast is taken with plenty of cups of coffee and tea; some added warmth against the chill outside. When ready we walk up towards the Puja alter with a fire of juniper and incense burns.

Apa hands the climbers rice to scatter across the alter as an offering. With the gods of the mountain satisfied Rodrigo, Carlos, Carlito, Chris and Deke set off into the Ice Fall. Today they begin their journey to the summit.

Through the pre-dawn gloom we can trace their head torches before finally becoming lost in the labyrinth of the Ice Fall. We return to our tents, monitoring the radio traffic and awaiting the new day. It is not long before the silence is shattered by the sound of a rescue helicopter as it passes above BC and heading up and over the Ice Fall.

Sadly a climber died between C2 and C3 two nights ago and the rescue helicopter has been requested to transport the body back down the valley. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Deke, Apa and ChrisRadio chatter is busy this morning; it is becoming quite apparent that we are not alone in identifying Saturday as a summit day. With multiple teams clambering up the Ice Fall the sheer volume of traffic is slowing the rate of ascent.

Happily we receive confirmation that both the Brazilian team and Americans have safely passed through and our resting briefly at C1 before crossing the Western Cwm and arriving at C2. Excited chatter keeps breaking through over our frequency, static interference maybe, weather possibly, whatever the reason – it’s a bad day for comms…

Arriving back at BC today from C2 was Sunita, Vikas and Sushma. All were looking tired and in need of some rest but had been able to spend time at altitude and can now await the next window of opportunity for a summit bid.

Bruno also arrived back at BC today, his acclimatisation period at C3 had gone well and more importantly he made good progress without supplemental oxygen towards C4. Having completed this he spent last night at C2 before dropping back down to BC this morning.

That leaves Arjun Vajpai; he has been at C2 for two nights and will be resting there today. Tomorrow, depending on how Arjun is feeling, he will either try and reach C3 before returning to C2 and another nights rest, or he will head straight back down to BC.

Heading Off into the Ice fall

Jerry Mika — Wed, 04 May 2011 02:26:58 +0000

Published in Asian Trekking Blog Written by Asian Trekking

Eco Everest Exp 2011- 1st. Wave Ready For The SUMMIT Push

Eco Everest Exp 2011- 1st. Wave Ready For The SUMMIT Push and Media Coverage Links

Written by Ang Tshering Sherpa

Eco Everest Expedition 2011 and International Dream Everest Expedition 2011 Team Members and Staffs

Our first team are leaving base camp tomorrow and aiming to reach the summit on saturday. We are aiming to capitalise on this early weather window.

The weather seems to be the main topic of conversation at the moment with the continued absence of the jet stream and lack of heavy snowfall, all talk inevitably leads to the Summit and the earliest opportunity to venture there.

First up this morning was Bruno at C3 as he and Phurba Sherpa set off towards C4 at 7950m. Overnight at C3 weather conditions had been very calm, light winds and no snowfall hopefully these conditions will enable Bruno to achieve C4 today before returning to C2 tonight and rest.

As for the rest of the group, they enjoyed a comfortable night at Hotel C2. Objectives for today are that the Indian party will climb to C3 before returning to C2 and an overnight stay. The exception here will be Narinder and Pawan who will be leaving C2 and returning all the way back down to BC to rest.

During the daily grind here at BC we see a lot of comings and goings. Just yesterday a small trekking team arrived at BC having walked in from Gorakshep, their guide happened to be Jamling Norgay, son of Tenzing Norgay. Whilst Jamling and Apa Sherpa chatted happily away, we entertained our visitors with Sherpa tea and biscuits. These visits bring a much needed break from the routine and an opportunity to show what Base Camp is all about. Hopefully their return journey was a safe one.

Continual assessmenxt of the Swiss and American meteorological forecasts for the next seven days has highlighted a window of opportunity. This window will allow a summit bid early on Sat May 07. As previously indicated the jet stream will be out the region for the next seven days, this is an incredibly important factor, negative jet stream means less wind and therefore less wind chill!

Potential of snowfall over this period is low and what with the Sherpa rope fixing teams currently progressing towards the summit, all systems are go.

So who will be ready? Who has acclimitised in time for this summit bid? Firstly the Brazilian team will be ready, having arrived back in camp today they are rested and ready. The Americans Chris Shumate and Deke Williams have proven fit enough and acclimatized well enough to attempt a summit bid.

Finally Bruno, Bruno has acclimitised quicker and easier than most but for Bruno it will be a climb without supplemental oxygen and will undoubtedly be a considerable physical achievement. Whilst Bruno is resting at C2, the rest will leave at 0500 tomorrow from BC, good luck to all.

Finally the Sherpas, they will be with the climbers every step of the way and have been carefully selected through experience and strength. Already Naga Sherpa has allocated the Oxygen that will be issued at C3 and C4.

Lead climber for this summit bid will be Apa Sherpa. Apa first summited in 1990 and has carried on to summit a world record 20 times, his experience, knowledge and leadership is unquestionable. Having worked with some of the worlds greatest climbers this will be his fifteenth season with Asian Trekking. Apa only missed the fatal 1996 season due to his wife ordering him to stay at home and finish building their lodge in Thame, this lodge is currently run by his sister in law as Apa now lives with his wife and three children in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Yesterday and today, Members of Eco Everest Expedition team accompanied by high altitude Sherpas reached Camp 3 at an altitude of 7400m and spent the night there and some of the Members are returning to Camp 2.

There are two other expedition teams supported by Asian Trekking, who are also an autonomous part of the Eco Everest Expedition. Firstly we have an American team of Charlie Wittmack, Matt Boelman, Joe Brus and Brian Block. An experienced climbing team they will be led by Charlie who began his trip to Nepal by swimming the length of the Thames river in England prior to swimming the English channel and finally hopping on his bike and cycling all the way to Tibet from Calais In France – now that’s hardcore.

Finally there is a Japanese expedition led by the environmentalist Ken Noguchi accompanied by Jun Hiraga (cameraman) and Mitsuter Kojima (BC manager). Ken is a veteran mountaineer with a fantastic track record in the past of having cleaned Mt. Everest, Mt. Manaslu, Mt Fuji and running many environmental campaigns in his home country. This year, Ken has joined forces with the Eco Everest Expedition and plans to clean in the extreme altitude at and above C4 (7950m). Ken is climbing up to C2 tomorrow for 5 days to clean up at C2.

Eco Everest Expedition Sherpa’s established Camp 3 at an altitude of 7400m on 26 April.

Eco Everest Expedition Sherpa’s established Camp I at an altitude of 6100m and Camp II at an altitude of 6500m and the members did acclimatization trip upto C I. Tommorow 24th April, most of the members (Premlata Agrawal, Sunita Singh, Susma, Vikash Kaushik, Narendra Singh, Christopher Shumate, Deker William, Rodrigo Raineri, Carlos-Eduardo Santalena, Carlos Eduardo Elizeu Canellas are planning to go to Camp I and spend the night there and on 25th April, they will continue to Camp II. Apa Sherpa and Dawa Steven Sherpa will leave Base Camp on 25th April to Camp II. Earlier Bruno Gremior spent a night at Camp II and returned to Base Camp . Pawan Grewal is planning a day trip to C I and return to BC tommorow.

Ken Noguchi, leader of Eco Everest Expedition 2011 Cleaning Initiative by Dawa Steven Sherpa and Ken Noguci and Jun Hiraga, leader Asian Trekking’s International Lhotse Expedition 2011 and some other members are climbing Lobuche East Peak (6119m) for their acclimatization exercises.

2011 Apa Sherpa Eco Everest Expedition

Jerry Mika — Wed, 04 May 2011 02:15:20 +0000

Sunday, April 24, 2011

In Dingbouche Again

April 17. I’m up early. It’s another crystal clear dawn in Dingbouche. The weather pattern so far has been clear mornings, wind rising later on toward noon, then clouds moving in around 1:00 or 2:00 pm, followed by precipitation, possibly–or just cloud and wind. The peaks generally become obscured in the later afternoon. But today’s dawn promises another stellar morning and I am feeling, I’m not sure, it’s an odd feeling as I consider it, looking out the window at Ama Dablam’s northwest side with the sun coming up gradually. I sit up further, pull myself together a bit, and work on convincing myself that I feel just fine, that coming down to Dinbouche was just the right thing, that the Snow Lion lodge is just the place to work off altitude sickness. I climb out of the sleeping bag and head to the dining room for tea. My thought’s are that we need to get ready to go back up to Loboche soon, that I’ve already delayed Apa enough. He’s definitely going to miss the Puja ceremony at base camp now. At breakfast I tell him I am sorry about this, and again he tells me it’s OK, not to worry, that he’s had so many Pujas already that he is full of good luck. Having no choice I accept this, but I am concerned that I’ve become a greater liability for him than the original plan called for.

Philip, the French Canadian from Montreal comments on my improvement. “You look a lot better than last night,” he says, “there’s color in your face,” and Apa agrees. They both remark how last night my face looked pale and ashen, “Not good.” Apa says. “Your eyes didn’t look good,” he says this pointing at the outer edges of his own eyes, “Here,” he says, “your eyes looked no good right here,” and he taps the sides of his temples. I’m not exactly sure what he means by this but am encouraged nonetheless. Today I look better than yesterday and feel better too, This is a good sign. After breakfast I bring out the laptop and hammer away. This is also a good sign; I can write again. Mingma is watching, “No wonder you have headache. You think too much. Too much laga up here,” she says pointing to her own head meaning my head. We all laugh, and especially Philip who is busy writing in his own journal; a small black note book. He has tight, crisp handwriting, very small letters. Philip is old-school, writing by hand, but then so are almost everyone I see. They all keep journals by hand, have tiny, legible penmanship. It must be a European thing, the ability to write by hand. We discuss this and no one agrees with my theory. It’s the weight, they say, why would you carry a heavy laptop? The battery weighs too much. I argue back that my laptop weighs less than most of the big-lens SLR cameras the serious trekkers are carrying. Jums’s camera comes to mind. Justin’s, the Outside Magazine editor, his camera was huge. The Austrian trekkers who came down from the Tashi Lhasa pass and stayed at Apa’s lodge. Their SLR cameras were enormous–weighed pounds. And this is a good sign too. Last night I didn’t have energy for discussion. Today it’s no big deal.

Apa tells me the good news: Mingma has invited me to help after breakfast with a Puja at the stupa built on the hillside several hundred feet above her lodge. The work detail will be five of us: Mingma’s two cooks, Jetta, Mingma, and me, and we’ll string new prayer flags. She is carrying five rolls of the blue, white, yellow, red and green connected flags. These are large long rolls of flags, not the small shorter tourist-size rolls, but hundreds of flags, and when I look up at the stupa above us I can see why she is carrying so many. The stupa is large and its old worn wind-torn prayer flags that we’ll be replacing are numerous. Hiking up is steep, the same hike Apa and I did a couple days ago looking for a cell phone signal. I’m following Mingma, and when we get to the top, actually just a level spot on the slope, the cooks are already climbing the sides of the stupa. On the steepest section mid-way up they haul up a wooden ladder that’s heavy and awkward, but it works.

The stupa looks like it was built a hundred years ago, I have no way of knowing—but it’s very old. It is in the condition of so many stupas we’ve seen, decayed by the elements, the wind and rain, the freezing and thawing. The outer layer of white-washed cement is cracked, entire sections have peeled off, missing. The rock underneath looks stable, but vulnerable. I estimate this stupa to be 25 feet wide each side at the bottom of its square rock base. The traditional dome starts about four feet above the ground and rises perhaps another 20 feet to the upper section with painted eyes, and finally a gold-painted wooden spire is at the top. I notice a foot long piece of the gold-painted spire has broken loose and is stuck on a ledge about five feet above me. I hand this up to one of the cooks thinking he might be able to wedge it back into the space it has broken away from. The whole stupa needs repair, the characteristic blue eyes need repainting, one eye seems to be partially missing so it looks like it’s squinting, blinking perhaps, but in the obvious order of priorities in the Khumbu, this stupa is just fine as it is. Today’s priority is to string the new prayer flags, and fitting the loose piece of spire back into its space can wait.

Mingma assigns me to a station halfway up the side of the stupa. “Terrell, laga,” she says amid huge amounts of laughter. We are all getting a kick out of the pampered westerner actually doing something constructive. It is our new joke, “laga,” which I know means work, and the joke is, that no matter how much laga I do, it will never equate to a fraction of the work going on around me in the Khumbu.

It is my job to unroll the prayer flags and feed them to the cook above me who in turn feeds them to the cook who’s clinging at the very top of the stupa by pinching with his feet. This aerial artist is tying the end of the prayer flag’s cord to the spire. It occurs to me that a fall from this height could possibly be his last, but in Nepal I’ve learned that my American sense of what is acceptable risk would, if implemented as a threshold for action, limit about 30% of all activity, primarily construction. Life around me is being carried out in precarious fashion, and walking the fine line between seeing the next sunset and not is the status quo. Take chances or certain things wouldn’t get done in the Khumbu. It’s just the way it is.

Jetta and another of the kitchen crew are busy taking the four steel flag poles out of the ground. These poles are set about ten feet off each corner of the stupa so that, between each flag pole, there is a span of about 45 or 50 feet. That’s the distance the flags will be strung between poles on each of four sides. Then from the top of each pole to the spire on the stupa another string of flags will be run, these diagonally. In all there will be 8 strings of flags, and I quickly learn that the five flag rolls Mingma has brought are ultimately tied end to end so that when one roll runs out another is attached and the stringing continues. The flag pole raising process is not clear at first, but as soon as one pole is up I understand. First, the end the string of flags is tied to the top of the flag pole which is now laying on the ground. Then four people raise the pole by sticking one end into a foot-deep hole in the ground and doing an Iwo Jima type of flag raise. I am taking lots of photographs in hopes of catching a similar image, but from what I remember of the shutter clicks there will be no such defining digital moment. I’m not quick enough with the camera plus the default auto setting has a half a second focusing delay before the shutter actually opens, or clicks, or whatever it is that digital cameras do to take photos. While the pole raising is gong on I spend quite a bit of time thinking about the similarity between raising these prayer flags and the iconic photo of the US flag being raised on Mt. Suribachi. Both are acts of hope, but in this case no bullets are flying. The wishes connected with this Puja might not be for success in a life and death pitched battle that 66 years ago was being waged on the island of Iwo Jima, but here today in Dingbouche Mingma has timed her Puja to be a send-off for Apa, to bring him good luck and protection in the face of uncertainty and impending risk. She knows he would be at the Puja at base camp, and isn’t, and this Puja is a fine consolation.

“Look,” Mingma says, “Apa laga.” She points down the hill and I can see Apa collecting fresh juniper branches. He collects a bundle the size of a grocery bag and carries this to the entry of the Snow Lion where there is an outdoor fire pedestal. It’s kind of an elevated rock fire place, a column 12” square, scooped out on top, with small rock sides and a semi-lid, also rock. This is the designated incense burner. The wet juniper is lit, burns slowly, and smoke billows through the courtyard just like at Apa’s lodge and all the lodges and monastery’s in the Khumbu. The exact significance of burning the green juniper is something I haven’t learned yet, but Apa has told me it’s a good thing. “We need to burn the juniper,” he has said, and that explanation suffices. Being part of this flag raising Puja and seeing Apa far below doing his part makes me feel a little better for the main Puja he is missing–the one going on at base camp at this very minute.

The flag pole raising and flag stringing continues. As each pole is raised its base is further supported by a rock-pile pyramid, a surround about 3 feet in diameter that the cooks are building. They select rocks and jam and pound them together to hold the flag poles upright. I watch their fingers as they work in unison. Those rocks could crush easily. I ask Mingma if the flag poles ever blow over in the wind. Frequently, she tells me.

We start on the next run of flags. The trick is to have the two converging strings the proper length. Both the diagonal string from the stupa’s spire to the flag pole and the string from the adjacent (previously erected) flag pole need to be the right length. Both need the right amount of sag. Not too tight, not too loose. There is a lot of pole lowering, flag untying and retying, and re-raising to get this balance right. A tape measure would be how we’d do it in the States, but we’re not in the States, we’re in a hanging valley at 14 or 15 thousand feet on the north side of Ama Dablam. This is a long way physically and culturally from anywhere I’m familiar with, and the bundle of incense sticks Mingma has just lit and placed on a ledge of the stupa reminds me of that.

We descend. Back at the Snow Lion Apa calls for a basin of hot water. I need to shave he tells me. From experience I know the hot water will be lukewarm in a matter of moments. I argue the point and try to enlist Mingma’s help in my defense. She is too smart to get caught up in the shaving argument and I’m left to my own devices. Last week in Thame I tried to get out of shaving at Apa’s lodge as well. Back then you could see your breath and the outdoor washbasin made me feel the drag of the razor even before I started. For a while it looked like I might have an escape. Nawang Rapten, Apa’s younger brother, the monk was there. He has a short almost wispy beard on his chin. “Look,” I said to Apa, “Nawang has a beard. He looks good.” Apa’s reply: “Nawang’s a monk. You need to shave.”

Mostly for Mingma’s amusement I tease Apa about being the boss and being my fashion consultant. “Apa, you’re a good boss but a lousy fashion consultant,” I tell him. “Remember, though, when it comes to your taking the ginger, I’m the boss. Mingma’s made me the boss for the ginger so you’d better watch out or you’ll be having ginger tea for the next three weeks.”

When I wash my face the lukewarm water turns brown instantly from trail dust, and this is what I shave with. “Miss any places?” I ask Apa. “There,” he says, “a bit there.” So I work the chin some more. “Good, you look good now,” he says. We sit in the sun in the courtyard and drink tea. “Mr. Park had a beard,” I tell Apa. When we arrived at the Snow Lion three days ago we met Mr. Park at this same white plastic resin table in the courtyard. We are sitting in plastic resin chairs, the nesting type from China that you see all over the US, light and therefore perfect for the Khumbu, they’re twisty when you sit in them, the chair legs getting skewed by the rocks underneath. We had just sat down when Apa and Mr. Park spotted each other. “Mr. Park is very famous,” Apa tells me, “A famous climber.” Being a wise-guy I say, “Is there enough room at this table for two famous people?” I have no idea who Mr. Park is. He sits down and tells me he’s climbed all fourteen of the world’s 8,000 meter peaks. Apa tells me Mr. Park is Korea’s top climber, their national hero. “You’re a strong guy,” I tell Mr. Park, not being sure what to say. “My friend is strong, Apa’s strong,” he says. Apa says, “Mr. Park has a route on Everest.” This is quite the news. Having a route on Everest means Mr. Park has pioneered a route, has laid claim to it. It carries his name. I make a note to look into this later on. I’m hoping to get a photo of Mr. Park and Apa together, but it is another photo-missed. Mr. Park has a half-dozen clients and is busy entertaining. When we enter the Snow Lion lodge itself I see two posters of Mr. Park on the wall. One has a list of his accomplishments, and the dates. I read down the list. In addition to climbing all fourteen 8,000 meter peaks, Mr. Park has climbed the highest mountains on all seven continents and trekked to the north pole, and the south pole. The poster bills this final accomplishment as Park’s Grand Slam. “The Koreans take climbing very seriously,” Apa tells me. “They take chances. Mr. Park makes a lot of money.” I can tell this from seeing Mr. Park’s jacket. He has more than a dozen sponsors, perhaps fifteen, and looks like a race car driver with so many patches sewn on it’s impossible to differentiate one from another. “He has too many sponsors,” Apa says.

By this Apa doesn’t mean too many as in more sponsors than Mr. Park should have. When Apa says too many he means a lot. There are too many prayer flags in the Khumbu, or there are too many shops in Namche he’ll say. He means many. Too many is an expression. Many is good, and too many is that much better. “Mr. Park competes with Mr. Om in Korea. They are two famous people, but Mr. Park is more famous,” Apa says. “Mr. Om contributes to the school in Khumjung. He has adopted that school, so Mr. Park contributes to the Namche school.” Then I say, “That’s good, three famous people, and you each have a school to support. This is a good thing.” A helicopter comes in low and fast. I photograph it. A huge dust cloud rises behind a rock lodge across the trail. “Mr. Park is flying out,” Apa says. “Really?” I ask. “He takes his clients by helicopter, they don’t walk up or down, they only do the walking on the mountain itself. Too many clients, too much money.” Apa says. “I thought Mr. Park was going to Annapurna,” I say. “He is later,” Apa says, “in October. Here he is with trekkers only. Those people you saw, they were trekkers for Island Peak. On Annapurna he will be with climbers. Very dangerous. The route Mr. Park wants to try this year on Annapurna is too many avalanches. I almost got killed there, and the route Mr. Park wants to try is more dangerous. Too many chances, that one.”

Now, with my shaven face in the crisp air, thoughts of Mr. Park at this very table are conflicted by the vivid image my brain has locked on the photo I took of one of one monuments in the valley of death. A bronze plaque on that monument was in memory of a Korean climber whose name escapes me, but it’s in the photograph. The deceased was, and this is the last line inscribed on the bottom of the plaque, part of Park’s Grand Slam when he climbed Everest in 1993. It strikes me as odd, but in 1993 Mr. Park didn’t have a Grand Slam, he was starting what would later become a Grand Slam. So the plaque has obviously been made after the fact. I find it curious that for the deceased climber being part of something that occurs after one’s death is somehow a relevant inscriptiom on your own memorial. But thinking it through I suppose it is a justification of a sort, some solace perhaps for whomever is left behind mourning. It was a death that contributed to a later success. I ponder this and decide that perhaps it’s more of a cultural thing: like our saying in the west “that he died in battle for the cause of driving the Nazi oppression from Europe,” but clearly this isn’t the case. The climber whose name I don’t remember died in the cause of furthering Mr. Park’s ambition, and the ambitions of Mr. Park’s sponsors. There is a disconnect here, and it may be my western philosophy, or maybe not, but I am reminded of just how peripheral mountain climbing is to the grand scheme of things. What really counts is not how many peaks you’ve climbed, or how many times, but who you are as a person while you take on whatever it is you do. I do not know Mr. Park so I make no judgments, nor should I if I did know him, but I have gotten to know Apa over four years, and it is one of Apa’s greatest strengths that the person he is is independent of climber he’s become. Having Diamond Mold sponsor his 21^st attempt carries with it the weight of a paradox. Our sponsorship is a good thing and a bad thing both at the same time. To promote a dangerous activity is not good, but the leverage success allows us, and Apa, should he succeed is arguably the equal counter balance.

But right now at the Snow Lion we are sitting in the sun, not waxing philosophical. We are amusing ourselves with tea and banter, and I am not feeling at all well. The exertion of the flag raising Puja, and it wasn’t much exertion, has taken a toll on me. Actually, an hour ago while on the hill at the stupa I noticed the dizzy feeling was still with me, and that it bounded back, intensifying, but I attributed this dizziness to an adverse reaction to the Diamox (acetazolamide) I’d tried half a tablet of first thing this morning. My theory with trying the Diamox now is this: to experiment with half a tablet to see if I tolerate it well or not. With more time in the States before our departure, and with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I can see a year of preparation for a Himalaya trek during which time, among other things, one could try Diamox in various settings and pre-screen the drug for side affects. It does carry an allergic warning among other warnings, and knowing one’s tolerance in advance would be a good thing. But I didn’t have a year to get ready, it was 50 days I think, and that with 12 hour days at the office. Trying Diamox was not on my priority list back then, but it is now, and I’ve tried it, a half tablet of it. Not being a fan of medication, I’d previously avoided the Diamox hoping I could do the climb without relying on a crutch. That said, I do have the prescription for just this purpose—in case of issues with altitude, and issues are what I’m having.

Since I felt remarkably better last night and early this morning, it seemed the altitude sickness had been thwarted, but that it made sense to ease into the Diamox in preparation of our return to higher elevation tomorrow: the trek back up to Loboche. According traveldoctor.co.uk/altitude.htm the literature says, and I paraphrase: Acetazolamide, unlike dexamethasone, does not mask the symptoms of AMS, but actually treats the problem. It seems to work by increasing the alkali excreted in the urine, making the blood more acidic. Acidifying the blood drives ventilation, the cornerstone of acclimatization. Studies have shown that prophylactic administration of acetazolamide before and during ascent results in fewer and/or reduced AMS symptoms such as headache, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, fatigue…

Translated, I read this to mean that Diamox is designed to facilitate greater oxygen absorption thereby staving off the effects of altitude in advance, the very thing that decked me near Gorak Shep yesterday. But now, sipping tea in the Snow Lion’s courtyard in Dingbouche, the half-dose of Diamox doesn’t seem to be causing the dizzy problem at all. It seems the problem is really something already going on with my head. The vertigo, if that’s the right word, the dizziness and headache have come back, not quite as strong as near Gorak Shep, but still with enough force to be frightening. It feels a little bit like looking through a haze but there is no haze, just the idea of haze, and yet the haze is real and has a clamping force. I have no choice but to tell Apa I don’t feel well again. “Apa,” I say, “I’m afraid I have to go lower again. My head is hurting. The dizziness is back.”

This is a crushing blow for me. At best it’s a setback for Apa, but Apa displays no emotion one way or the other. It’s his bedside manner, all business, no sugar coating the situation, no crying and whining either. He thinks the idea is a good one, the right decision. He tries to console me, “We will check your condition tomorrow,” he says, “if you are good we come back up. Tomorrow we decide. Today we go down.” I appreciate his efforts, but they don’t change the immediate reality—it is a disappointment to be going down, not up.

We were planning to wash socks at the Snow Lion but now that we are descending again Apa says we won’t have time to wait for the sun dry them. I’m not completely incapacitated so I fish around in my repertoire of thoughts and say, “Apa. no worries. Let’s wash the socks and let them dry as long as it takes. We’ll pick them up when we come back up tomorrow.” Mingma also thinks this is a good idea. “See,” I say to Mingma, “that’s why I get to be the boss in America. Good ideas,” and I tap my head as if it is working. “Terrell, laga,” I say, and we get a good laugh out of that, but it’s a trivial comment. I’m trying to stay upbeat in the face of a larger dark cloud of thinking. To keep things light I ask Mingma about the origin of the name of her lodge, “Why is it called Snow Lion? Are there snow lions or snow leopards around here?” Both Apa and Mingma agree that there are. “Have you ever seen one?” I ask. They haven’t, but they’ve heard them. “Really?” I inquire, wanting to hear more. “The snow leopard, it makes a loud growl, something like an elephant,” Apa says, “but different, more like a loud cry.” This description leaves a range of sound possible. “When you hear one you know you’ve heard it,” Mingma says, “they’ll carry off cows lower down, not so much near Dingbouche, but lower in the forest.”

The plan is a descent to Deboche which is near the river in the valley below Tengbouche. Deboche is probably 600 feet lower than Tengbouche. “Better oxygen there,” Mingma says, “lots of trees.” Apa thinks this is a good plan, better than going to Tengbouche because of Debouche’s lower altitude, plus we don’t have to climb the opposite side of the valley to get to Tengbouche. The only question is whether we can get a room. There is only one lodge in Debouche, that and a monastery for nuns. We’ll just have to take our chances.

We arrive in Debouche around 5:00 pm and secure a room at the Rhododendron lodge, probably the last available room. There is a group of Czech trekkers, 20 in all, who have already taken up residence. Jetta is setting down our two duffle bags and, since I’m feeling better, it occurs to me to try hefting his load to get a feel for the 95 lbs I estimate he is carrying. This load is considerably lighter than the corrugated steel roofing load I tried carrying near Khumjung, but it is still heavy. I could probably carry Jetta’s load 500 yards, maybe more if I had to, but I take only a few steps. “Apa, quick, a photo if you can—Jetta and me…thanks.” A good number of the Czechs witness this bizarre display, and once again there is wonderment on every westerner’s face as to how the Sherpa are so strong and carry such heavy loads over uneven ground for such great distance. If there is one indelible memory I’ll take from Nepal it is viewing the feat of human endurance that every porter displays on the trail while carrying loads we would use a forklift for in the west.

Around the iron stove that night the Czechs are playing a rousing drinking game of a musical sort. Charles, you would be proud. Your countrymen take turns drumming a rhythm on the table and the rest of the group has to guess what song it is. The person pounding the table to the beat in their head has to keep going until someone gets the right answer. Between the laughter of 20 people and the table pounding I am content to peck away on the laptop, to photograph one of the cutest Sherpa toddlers yet encountered who is playing with Apa, and crushing and chewing on my Everest region map. I’m enjoying feeling good once more. Emphasis on feeling good—it is remarkable how good normal feels. Descending to Deboche has been a positive setback in a sense; we’ve limited our lost ground to just 3 days. Tomorrow I’m convinced we’ll climb back up to Dingbouche.

It’s dark now. Apa finds a cell phone signal and we make calls to family in the US from the rock-lined yard of the Rhododendron lodge. The stars are out and I have sandals on it is so warm in the dining hall where the Czechs are still at it, pounding and howling away, background music of a sort to the sounds of the forest and the river as it roars on the rocks in a relentless fury trying to get to India as fast as it can, the opposite direction of where we are trying to go—up—toward Tibet actually, and literally in Apa’s case. If he can stand on top of Everest for the 21^st time he’ll once again enter China without a visa. We are planning an early start in the morning. It is time now for a good night’s sleep. All is well. Our trek is back in order. I am feeling optimistic.

April 18. Dawn in the rhododendron forest. After breakfast we are on the trail heading back up to Pangbouche. Gossamer films of a light green moss hang indiscriminately from the branches of all the trees. The birches, the fir trees, all the trees are covered in something like a short version of Spanish Moss. We discuss the possible sources of this stringy green stuff but have no answers. It’s something about a foot long carried by the wind, a stringy spore that some vegetation has chosen for a method to propagate. It’s spring in the Khumbu, Apa reminds me, although it feels more like winter. “The yaks are tired now,” Apa says, “in October they are well fed and healthy, but now they are weak from not enough food.” In the winter the yaks forage the hillsides when they’re not carrying, but the pickings are scarce. I ask Apa if the grass grows again as the spring turns to summer. It looks so short and munched over and brown that I can’t imagine it would spring back to life. There are even square sections of the hillside grass cut out like sod harvested. “Flooring,” Apa tells me, “Some Sherpa use it for the floor, it is warmer than concrete, less expensive that wood.” I haven’t seen a dwelling yet that hasn’t had a wooden floor. “Not a rich house, only a poor, house,” Apa says, “You haven’t been in a poor house.” He then goes on to say, “There is no summer. Only monsoon. In the monsoon the grass grows and the yaks can eat all they want. Right now they have to eat what dried grass their owners carry for them. This is not a good season for the yaks, they are very hungry and tired.”

Not far from Debouche is a fantastic wall of prayer stones that’s at least a hundred feet long. I haven’t described the prayer stones before, but they are carefully chosen rocks, flat, like slate, but not smooth, and about a foot wide, two feet high, a couple or three inches thick. Onto each flat stone are carved by hand in half inch or three-quarter inch high letters line after repeated line of the omane prayer, the lotus blossom. The rocks look to me to be a hundred or two hundred years old—there are never any new ones, only old weather beaten stones, and they are stacked like a long minature straightened-out Stonehenge with none of Stonehenge’s massiveness. Really, the prayer wall bears no relationship to Stonehenge at all other than rock, and old, and stone cutting, and huge effort. Those qualities are all consistent. I could have likened the waqll of prayer stones to the Easter Island statues–another bad analogy. But incredible dedication and laborious work are similar—each prayer stone must have taken a week of chiseling, and there are literally thousands of prayer stones in the Khumbu.

This being my third trip past this prayer wall I am seeing it more closely each time. Suddenly, on the opposite side going in the opposite direction to us, is Puli. She has come down from base camp and is on her way back to Thame. She and Apa are talking but each can only see the other’s head so they move to a break in the prayer wall and it strikes me that this is just like the scene in Kurosawa’s movie Dersu Uzala when the Russian capitan meets Dersu and they are on opposite sides of a massive fallen tree, trying to find a way to reach each other. A classic movie if you are interested in classics. I try for the Dersu photo-moment but again doubt my picture will do justice to the idea, I doubt that it will match the pathos portrayed in the movie. For some reason I have made a practice of not looking at any of the photos I’ve taken. Probably a throw-back to the old days of film rolls when you had to wait until weeks after an adventure to see what story your developed photos turned out to tell. But I digress…

Not far above the prayer wall on the way up to Pangbouche I notice the ground sway and my head feels light and achy. The pressure and haze continue to build. It just has to be a negative reaction to the Diamox. I’ve taken a full 250 mg tablet last night and another again this morning as prescribed. Surely this, being four times what I had in my system yesterday in Dingbouche, is making me dizzy. I work on the logic to support this theory. Why not the Diamox? I was feeling good last night so it can’t be altitude sickness, if it was AMS and it went away, why would it come back? I’d have acclimatized already. Why would AMS come back at a lower and lower altitude every day? There is something not making sense here. The altitude sickness seems to go away when we descend, but as soon as I go up even a little, it seems to come back. But my blood-oxygen levels are so high. Mid-90s and higher in Debouche. No shortness of breath. Heart rate just fine on the steep sections, in the mid-130s. Legs fine. Left knee, fine. I seem physically just terrific. But something is clearly wrong with my head.

This time on the ascent we bypass the monastery above Pangbouche and instead take the easier more gradual trail to Pangbouche itself. This is the town mid-way to Dingbouche that we passed through yesterday about 3:00 in the afternoon. Today it looks brighter since the sun is out, and I am sweating from the uphill climb, glad that Apa suggests a break for tea. I am feeling wobbly.

We order hot lemon from another tea house owner Apa knows—he knows people in every town and hamlet we’ve passed through. I haven’t mentioned it before, but when on the trail out of every 30 or 40 Sherpa who pass by 2 or 3 will know Apa personally and stop to talk with him. When we left Lukla for Phakdang Apa ran into a German film producer who knew him and who was making a documentary. He filmed Apa on the spot and half hour later Apa was finally able to catch up with our group. “Too many hands to shake,” Apa has said more than once, “It’s no wonder I have the Khumbu cough so soon,” he says.

Now, at the tea house there is no question. Diamox is not causing my discomfort no matter how hard I wish to convince myself it is. The headache and dizziness are so pronounced and so similar to the Gorak Shep experience that it just can’t be an allergic reaction to the acetazolamide. It’s the damned altitude sickness all over again, but this time at even lower altitude. I just can’t seem to win against this opponent. Going down helps, but only temporarily. The original descent to Dingbouche eased the pressure for a while, then the dizziness came back while there yesterday. The descent to Deboche helped last night, but this morning the headache, mental haze and profound weakness I feel intensifying at the tea hose in Pangbouche are swirling in me with a vengeance. I have no choice but to tell Apa. “I’m dizzy, Apa,” I tell him, “I’ll have to turn back again. I have to go down even further. I think as low as Namche.” He is completely understanding, assures me this is OK, more than OK, he says it’s the right thing to do. “People die from the altitude sickness,” he says, and there is no glint around his eyes, nothing of the imp in him coming out. He is being completely serious. So I suggest: “You go on up, keep going, I’ll be fine. Jetta can go down with me,” but Apa is having none of that. “We’ll all go down together,” he says, “It is better that way.”

First we have to make sure Jetta hasn’t passed us by, he could already be higher up the mountain. We can’t just descend and have our porter headed in the other direction unaware of our change of plan. Apa’s pretty sure Jetta has run into friends and has stopped lower on the trail to talk. He’s confident Jetta hasn’t made it to Pangbouche yet so we sit nearer the wall so Jetta will see us, or we’ll see him, as he comes up the trail. I’m not able to watch for Jetta. The tea house fading in and out; it’s like looking through a lens with Vaseline on it, and then not, and then again. And my head hurts. I can feel it is pressure from the center out, not the outside in, a kind of backwards dizzy headache like something crawling outward from the center of the brain, and the skull not being there so much to contain it as just a sense of expanding pressure with loss of equilibrium, like a balloon stretching as if my head is elastic but fighting back.

This feeling has now been with me for three days and I am beginning to be alarmed. What is the solution if descending hasn’t worked twice now? All I know for sure is that I have to get down and Apa is in complete agreement. Jetta comes up the trail and Apa lets him know we are turning back. I scan Jetta’s face but he betrays no inner thoughts. Does it bother him to be going up just to go down? Or does he see it all as the same thing: up or down, the daily pay being the same? I am not able to speculate further. This time walking down is not easy. I have to force myself to take steps and fear is starting to creep in. What if I can’t drive this cranial plague out of me? What if this torture gets worse?

We get down to the bridge in an hour and cross the river quickly. I’m not interested in photographing the drop into the ravine or the surging water carving the granite bolders. I have these photos already. More won’t help. I need legitimate diversions to get a break from the percussion in my head. At the prayer wall, my fourth time past it, Apa points out that the prayer stones are all set on a foundation of rock about two feet high. “To keep the prayers off the ground,” he says. This makes so much sense I wonder why I haven’t noticed it before, why someone has had to point it out to me. It’s good to know this and I say to Apa, “There are no new stones, only old stones. It doesn’t look like anyone carves new stones anymore. Why is that?” “Cell phones,” he says, and it’s true to a point even though he’s being facetious.

All the porters have cell phones, and when there is an area with a signal they’ll stop with their loads and make calls. With a little imagination they look like semi trucks lined up in the truck stop, diesel engines still running, the drivers are grabbing coffee inside, making calls, buying cigarettes. Inevitable change has come to the Khumbu. Kami Temba thinks 2007 was when cell coverage first started to gain serious ground. It was satellite phones before that, but those were too expensive for most people. Now, the ubiquitous cell phone, it’s everywhere. I have been trying to capture this phenomenon: change in the midst of centuries of tradition. The incongruity between global communication making access to anything available to anyone, and the daily need to heft hundreds of pounds of cargo with a sling around the forehead is a mind-boggling contrast. It reminds me of a photo of an indigenous Papua New Guinea tribesman I saw in 1983, naked with a penis sheath, bones through his nose, red swaths of clay decorating his forehead and cheeks, he’s sitting on a green and white 125cc Kawasaki with a big grin on his face. “I’ll tell you why there are no new prayer stones,” I say to Apa, “It’s because people’s efforts now are going toward preserving your heritage. Look at the foundation those prayer stones are sitting on. It’s brand new rock.” We stop and sure enough the whole foundation and inner structure can’t be more than a few years old. The outer layer of prayer stones has a new support structure holding it up. “What people are doing now,” I say, “is putting their efforts into protecting the culture, perpetuating it in the face of technology. You’ve got to build up a buffer not to lose your uniqueness to western ways. But you have to accept change at the same time. It’ll be an interesting balance to juggle over the next 20 or 30 years.”

Apa says, “At the Thame school we have seven teachers. Three are Sherpa educated in Kathmandu. Four are Nepali from the low land, and brought in to teach. But of the three Sherpa teachers one is for cultural studies specifically. We teach a class in Sherpa ways at Thame School.” “A good decision by the school board,” I say, “It’s important to develop the right curriculum.” Apa wants to know what curriculum means and 500 meters of trail pass by while we pin down the subject. “The Thame School teacher we met on the trail on the way to Khumjung?” I ask, “What’s his name again?” “Lhakman.” Apa says. I have taken a photo of Lhakman and Apa together on the trail to give to University of Utah Health Care so they can see the teacher they’ve sponsored for a year. “What subjects does Lhakman teach?” I ask. “Apa says, “Lhakman,” then pauses, “he’s an administrator not so much a teacher.” “Ahh, administrative, like a principal?” I . “Yes, principal, exactly. Lhakman’s the principal of Thame School,” Apa says smiling. “Well then,” I say, “University Health Care can sponsor the principal for a year. How about that?”

Diversions like this are good. They make the steps feel easier and the distance covered goes by faster. I notice the birch trees have red bark. “Look at that, red bark birches,” I say to Apa. He says, “Male birch trees, the female trees have black bark.” There are large groves of dark gray birch trees with rough peeling bark tinged black at the edges. In the middle of these dark trees are much smaller pockets of red barked birch. “Like a bull in a field of cows,” I say, “Doesn’t take so many red birch.” Whether this is true or not I don’t know, but it passes the time. We come to Deboche. An eternity ago we were just here but it’s only been 4 or 5 hours hours, maybe less. The plan is to leave Apa’s bag at the Rhododendron lodge. He will take only what will fit in the pack on his back. No reason for Jetta to carry Apa’s gear down to Namche just to carry it back up. Mine, however, will have to go down.

There’s the chance I won’t be coming back up. Apa makes this more than clear at Deboche. “We will see what your condition is tomorrow in Namche, then decide.” he says. Apa’s the boss and I’ve been quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune before we left as saying, “If Apa says I go up, then I go up. If he says I go down then I’ll go down.” Words to that effect. Now I’m getting a chance to taste the right hand side of those words, a bitter taste like they’ve come back up from my stomach with an acid burn to haunt me. The going down part. That part isn’t fun, but it is all part of the experience and that’s what I’ve come to Nepal for. To experience something new, not to achieve specific goals, but just to let the Khumbu waft over me and reinvigorate my psyche. The paper also quoted me as saying: “My Everest is right here in Salt Lake City trying to create jobs.” And that is true. Apa’s Everest is here, mine half a world away. But now, in the shadow of Apa’s Everest I’ve been humbled by forces greater than I have any control over. My head is like a pressurized fog generator and Philip’s terse French Canadian words come back from the other day in Dingbouche: “You have to respect the mountain.”

Getting down to Deboche has been the easy part. Now we have to climb the opposite side of the river valley to Tengbouche. An hour uphill, not more, but it makes my head swim. While we are on a particularly steep section my heart rate on the Suunto display shows 54 bpm, then it drops further, 52 bpm, 47 bpm, then 46 bpm. This can not be. A falling heart rate. If I’m at 46 bpm under full exertion then I’m dying a slow death. Maybe it’s a heart attack in addition to cerebral problems? I have to stop beside a tree and hold on just to discard this thought, sort out reality from paranoia, and get a mental grip. When I look at the Suunto next it shows 137 bpm and this is a tremendous relief. The 46 bpm had to be an electronic anomaly. Roger can isolate the data later on in Salt Lake. If you see a 46 bpm flicker on April 17, Roger, I’ll show you a photo of the section of trail I was on while trying not to lose my mind. It’s not a real-time photo taken at the 46 bpm instant because photography wasn’t on my mind just then, but it’s a photo of the same stretch of trail taken on April 13 when we descended from Tengbouche. It may even have the same worn tree in the center of the trail because I am grabbing onto that tree, still, trying to muster energy to keep going uphill. We have to make Tengbouche before we can head down the other side to Phunagi Thanga on the way to Namche.

At Tengboche I remember there is an internet café and a connection might be possible. I ask Apa if we can stop to post to the blog. He says this is fine, we’ll have tea, and milk tea is brought out. I can do the post because it is a mechanical operation, no thought required. Insert the thumb drive in the café’s computer, open Word, copy the text, login to the blog, paste into the rectangular box, and click the post button. It’s usually as simple as that, sometimes complications, but this time no problem. The post has gone through. Moments earlier while the internet was connecting it started to hail outside. The steel roof makes a pinging sound and then a drumming sound as the hail turns to rain. Last time we were in Tengbouche there was rain too, but this is a downpour. We open our packs and dig out the rain gear. Unfortunately Jetta has none. He only has a sweatshirt. Incredibly, in addition to carrying loads of 100 lbs, Jetta travels without a winter coat or rain gear. He has a green and red scarf made of connected pom-poms that looks like something an ice skater might wear for a costume in the Olympics. Luckily I have Apa’s spare rain jacket in my duffle bag and Jetta puts this on. It’s too small for him and he can’t zip it up, but it’s better than nothing.

We pull a plastic garbage bag over the duffel bag Jetta is carrying and set out in the mud. Jetta is a Hindu and doesn’t pass stupa, omane rocks, or prayer walls in a clock-wise direction. He passes in any direction on whichever side presents itself as the shortest route. The Hindus and the Buddhists get along fantastically in Nepal, they coexist peacefully and with respect for each other. It’s a very healthy dichotomy. Apa is still talking with a Sherpa he knows lower in the village but has almost caught up. I am a hundred yards ahead of him in a sloping field in front of the Tenbouche monastery. I realize that by following Jetta I’ve passed the stupa in this field on its right, counter-clockwise, the wrong way. Bad luck that, from Apa’s perspective. I stop immediately. Apa is following me. I turn around and go down to where he is. “It’s OK,” he says, “we can pass this one right side.” The rain is beating down and it’s cold. “No way,” I tell him, “Rules, Apa.” So we argue a bit. Finally he says, “Ok,” and we turn around, walk back downhill, and go clock-wise around the stupa. Apparently even in the Khumbu one has to argue with their boss on occasion. It’s proof I’m feeling somewhat better, and I think on the inside Apa’s is pleased that we’ve detoured back and walked around the stupa clock-wise.

The trail to Namche has a series of descents to rivers followed by painful ascents to ridge lines. There’s as much uphill as downhill in each valley we pass through–less about 500 feet since in net elevation we are descending. The downhill sections are slippery and the uphills are steamy and sweaty. After Phunagi Thanga we come to the fork in the trail to Khumjung, “Fork in the road,” Apa says having picked up that phrase. We drop down to the tea house near the army barracks where a week ago I photographed a soldier through the trees reading his book on a large rock, his rifle next to him pointed down the valley. A guard caught off guard if that photo comes out. This time at the tea house we have the same hot lemon, but the fascination with my surroundings has evaporated. The next stretch is a vicious uphill to a ridge in the middle distance. It’s still about three hours to Namche, and while my head has plateaued in dizziness and aching, the hillsides haven’t. We set off uphill, one small step at a time.

In the next valley there’s a large suspension bridge and I cross this oblivious to its height and the view. Right now getting to Namche is all that counts, the scenery can wait. Photos can wait, but no, as we near the top of the next ridge there’s a porter with an enormous load, the largest in terms of cubic feet that I’ve seen. A photo has to be taken. He’s carrying what looks like rolls of building insulation wrapped in white polypropylene. His entire load is literally the size of four small refrigerators side by side: five feet wide, five feet deep, six feet high. It probably weighs no more and no less than the average porter load of 50 to 60 kilos, but its sheer bulk is amazing. “Bad if the wind comes up, that load,” Apa says.

After what I’m calling the huge porter-load valley we come to a greener, warmer valley. More trees here. The rhododendrons are blooming. I know we are getting lower. There is a cove in the hillside like Olympus Cove in Salt Lake, but smaller, narrower, and we are on the left side of this when we hear the strangest, loudest, penetrating sound. It’s like a cross between a bellow and a bark and a howl. Jetta and Apa stop. I stop. We all peer into the forest in the direction of the sound, and it comes again, a unique deep throated growl. “Snow lion,” Apa says. This can’t be. We were talking about snow lions in Dingbouche two days ago. A woman comes down the trail with a nervous look on her face, converses with Apa, moves on quickly. “She is worried the snow lion might have taken her calf,” he says, “It’s down where the sound has come from and she cannot find the calf.” We wait a while longer. I don’t feel sick now. All my senses are tuned to any movement we might see in the trees. I would love a photo of a snow lion in the wild, but it’s not to be. We don’t hear the noise again. We see no motion in the stillness of the forest. It’s time to move on. When we are on the other side of the cove Apa says, “The snow lion will take down horses and cows…” and he trails off. I can see that he’s shook up, even a little nervous. “And people, I would imagine,” I say because I know Apa wants me to say this rather than him. “People?” he asks. “It’s possible,” I say, “we are smaller than horses and cows.” We walk on through the canopy of trees and pretty soon the forest ends and we break out into the late afternoon sunshine.

Around the next ridge the wind picks up and we can feel evening is not far off. A stupa is perched above the trail. “This is the Tenzing Norgay stupa,” Apa says, “It was built here because of the view of Everest. It’s the best view of Everest from this part of the Khumbu.” And he’s right. I take photos and the view with the low sun angle outlines the mountain. You can see the South Summit and the ridge with the Hillary Step. “Not a good day for the summit,” I say, as if I know, but the snow trail blowing to the right off the top looks like a telltale sign. “Not a summit day,” Apa says, “Too much wind, that.”

We leave the Tenzing Norgay stupa behind us. It’s getting colder now, but not too cold, it’s the wind and dampness that makes it feel colder than it is. We round the next bend and a small hamlet comes into view. “Look,” Apa points, “There…!” A wild bird with rainbow colors is unearthing potatoes from a field and eating them as fast as he can. A ten year old boy is chasing him and tossing rocks to try to drive the bird out of the field. His aim is not very good and the bird seems to know this, keeps pulling the potatoes out of the ground, eats them, and runs some more. Apa and I give chase on the trail higher up paralleling the field. We have our cameras out and I can hear Apa’s clicking and see his flash going off over my shoulder. He’s taking as many photos as I am. The light is low, but it’s not dark yet. We’re chasing the most marvelous bird I’ve ever seen in the wild. “Pheasant,” Apa says, “It’s a male and has nine colors.”

The trail loops around the ridge and comes in above Namche on the east side, high above the town. Apa points out the Namche clinic. It’s the highest building on the hill, nothing has been built higher. “Why build a clinic at the top of the hill?” I ask, “What if someone has a bad leg? How do they get there?” These are basically rhetorical questions, not something Apa can answer. I don’t pursue it further. We walk down the steep rock stairs and come in right above the Camp De Base lodge where we stayed 11 days ago. I recognize the internet café and the wooden portal into the De Base compound. Sleep can not come soon enough. “Dinner first,” Apa says, “You have to eat.” So we eat, and I have to drink lots of water too: “Drink as much water as you can,” Apa says. I’ve been drinking so much water for two weeks I feel like a fountain. We buy two liters of bottled water that I’m supposed to consume overnight. All I remember from that point on is waking up sometime in the night to discover I’ve fallen asleep sitting up in the sleeping bag, not even in it. I’m just propped up against the wall, no down coat on, just Dana’s Rowmark fleece, shivering. I crawl lower in the 40-below and am asleep again immediately.

April 19. Namche. No travel. The day is a blur of nothing, a foggy haze of headache and dizziness and sleep. We eat breakfast and I tell Apa immediately afterwards that I need to take a nap. He insists that I make calls home to speak with Carolee and Dana and Mr. G. I have vague recollections of conversing with Carolee, of her saying that I should go to the clinic, what she’s read about altitude sickness, Diamox, and have I been taking the Diamox? It is too much for me. I can’t follow the conversation or hold up my end. It’s hard to hear parts of what she’s saying and I become irritable about the specifics of a Diamox discussion. I’m half way around the world for hell’s sake. I don’t want to talk about altitude sickness or Diamox, or anything anymore. I just want to sleep. In the end I wish I hadn’t called because I’m sure she’s alarmed. Apa was right to insist though. My family should know I’m alive. Carolee likes to hear my voice. It’s understandable even though I’m not in an understanding mood. It’s 7:30 in the morning in Namche. Night time in the USA. I’ve been sitting on the ground leaning against the building, unable to stand, talking on the cell phone and putting as much good humor in as I can which hasn’t been much. The calls have completely exhausted me. Apa brushes white chalk-like cement dust off my jacket that’s rubbed off the wall of the De Base building. I go straight back to bed but not before telling Apa that after I feel better I want to go back up, to at least try to make base camp. He tells me we will check my condition later on, then we’ll decide.

Apa wakes me up every couple of hours with tea to make sure I am still with us. He’s talked with Dawa Steven at base camp and the decision is that tomorrow Apa will head back up to base camp with Jetta. Khanchha, a Sherpa Apa has climbed with before, is coming down from Khumjung today and will take Apa’s place guiding me. Asian Trekking will pay for Khanchha whether he and I go up or go down. I like this arrangement. Apa will not be held up any longer, he can get started acclimating at higher elevations, and I won’t become an even greater liability to him. It also allows for the possibility that Khanchha and I can retrace my steps and head back up if I’m feeling better.

The next time Apa wakes me up it’s with news he’s located a pharmacy with a nurse lower in the town. “You don’t have to climb to the clinic on the hill,” he says. “This one is close to here.” It’s now 3:30 in the afternoon and hearing the good news I dredge up the energy to make a try for this nearby clinic. It takes me about 15 minutes to sort out my boots and laces, coat and hat. I am moving very slowly, but Apa is ever so patient.

Rhita Doma Sherpa’s Mountain Medicine Center in Namche is about 50 meters below the De Base lodge and easy to find. She tells me she is a nurse and that she will take my vitals. Temperature, normal. Blood pressure, normal. Oxygen saturation, excellent. I ask her about the oxygen saturation which seems at odds with a continuous headache and dizziness. I tell her that descending doesn’t seem to have helped. Does she have any ideas why I can’t shake this altitude sickness? She thinks for a moment, “I don’t believe you have altitude sickness,” she says, “I think you may have cerebral edema. It’s a swelling of the brain caused by fluid leaking out.” She gives me Panatol tablets for the headache and a laxative to clear me out. “Take these half an hour after eating she says, not on an empty stomach. Check back with me at 8:30 tomorrow morning and we’ll see how you’re doing.” “I need to pay you first,” I say. “You can pay me tomorrow morning when you come back,” Rhita Doma says.

Apa and I make it back up to Camp De Base. It has taken all my effort to climb the alley stairs to reach the lodge. Apa can see how weak I am. I’m moving like an old man. When we get to the last steps the lodge’s restaurant is to the left, our rooms to the right, I have to sit on the stone stairs and rest. The late afternoon sun is behind the ridge line of mountains and its after glow is moving slowly across the buildings behind us. “What about a helicopter?” Apa says. He isn’t asking as much as telling me. “Your insurance covers the heli doesn’t it?” I haven’t wanted to think about the helicopter evacuation as an option. I’ve tried to stay positive and optimistic about returning to where the action is—higher up. I look at my watch, it’s 4:38 pm on April 19. If I go out on a heli the trek to Everest will have finished me off in just two weeks.

In the Khumbu they call a helicopter a heli, but I don’t want a heli. A heli’s the end. Trip finished. A period at the end of the project. Done. Over. Any way I think about it exiting by heli isn’t what I had in mind. But I am feeling so weak, so dizzy, so much head pressure, and it’s getting worse each day. It was Einstein, I think, who said the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Today I can’t even muster a lame worn out joke. I haven’t got the energy to tease Apa. I have only enough energy to let his heli suggestion penetrate my psyche. I have to agree with him. The heli is the right choice. With Apa having brought the helicopter up, and with Rhita Doma delivering the sobering news that I may have cerebral edema, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. No wonder descending hasn’t cured the altitude sickness, I have a larger complication that can have severe repercussions. The list isn’t pretty: headache, weakness, disorientation, loss of coordination, decreasing levels of consciousness, loss of memory, hallucinations, psychotic behavior, coma.

Nothing about that list is promising and the further one reads down it the grimmer it gets. I don’t have the list in front of me, and don’t need it. I know the gist of it and that’s sufficient. “OK,” I tell Apa, “I’ll go for the helicopter.” He makes a call to Asian Trekking in Kathmandu and talks for a few minutes. “Pasang says it’s too late for a heli today, they haven’t been flying this afternoon. The weather’s not been good. Pasang says he can schedule it for first thing in the morning.”

This is a hard pill to swallow. For the few moments until Apa finished his conversation with Pasang I’ve had visions of miraculously being lifted skyward while leaving the crush of headache and dizziness on the ground in Namche. The helicopter was a ticket to freedom from pain and worry, and now this salvation is a long night of dread away at best. Accompanying Apa to Everest has turned into quite a saga, but I haven’t given up completely. “Maybe by the morning I won’t need a heli,” I tell Apa. “What if I’m feeling OK in the morning and can walk down?” “We have to let them know now so they can schedule it,” he says, “You have to decide now.” The weight of the decision is intense. I feel like I have a porter’s strap around my head and a load of corrugated steel dragging me toward hell. But then I devise a plan. The brain is still working after all. It’s a simple plan, but sufficient, and I say to Apa, “OK, please tell Pasang to schedule the heli.”

This does two things: it keeps the heli option alive for the earliest possible evacuation—I may need it, and it gives me the whole night to get better and possibly work out an alternative to the heli before it takes off from Kathmandu.

Khanchha arrives at dusk. He’s wearing a green New Hampshire Forest Service jacket and looks like he’s just stepped off the tram in Franconia Notch. I am weak and unresponsive. I feel bad for Khanchha. He’s walked all the way from Khumjung and the person he’s come down to guide (me) is listless, not entertaining at all, a drag on conversation, and sick besides. I apologize for not being very good company, and Khanchha takes this in stride, tells me it’s not a problem.

After dinner I’m exhausted, achy, tired. The sore throat and runny nose that came on in the middle of last night have gotten worse now. I need to be in bed in a desperate way. We agree 5:00 AM will be the wake up. This will give us time for a short hike to check on my condition. It seems we now have until 6:00 AM to commit the heli. Pasang will be standing by at 5:45 AM on his cell waiting for the final decision. I take my leave of Apa and Khanchha and am asleep in no time.

2:11 AM. I wake up, still in Namche, still the same nightmare. But these are the wee hours. It’s April 20, and no question about the time. The Suunto t6d works perfectly now with a layer of blue duct tape on its pancake battery, i.e. on the battery inside the watch housing. A week ago, in Khumjung, when the face went blank again I did a brief run down of the possibilities: dead battery ruled out since Johann’s external duct tape fix was a good, although temporary fix. It has to be a battery contact issue. In fairness to Suunto, this may not be a general problem with all the t6d models. Apa’s has been working fine with none of the issues mine has, or that Johann’s has had. Still, and granted a small sample size, 2 out of 3 heart monitor watches have been suffering battery connection problems. Johann’s is an older model, I’m not sure which, maybe his is just a t6, I don’t know the model numbers, whereas Apa’s and mine are t6d.

Apa’s signature watch, his own Everest Edition orange bezel Suunto which he wears daily, has been working flawlessly more than a year, two years possibly. The way I remember it he was given this watch by Suunto in Copenhagen at the World Conference on Climate Change in 2010, or it could have been 2009. There’s a story behind his receiving the watch that I don’t recall right now, but his is serial number 0001 of only 8,848 made. One watch manufactured for every meter of Everest’s height. Apa’s signature is etched on underside of each one. I have serial number 0023 which Apa has given me, and I thoroughly enjoy. It works great. I have left this watch in Mr. G’s care so I don’t scratch it up on the Everest trek. Besides, I don’t need two watches on my wrist at the same time. There’s also the pulse-oximeter’s watch to deal with.

In any event, the solution I’ve devised in Khumjung for the t6d, and which has worked great since, is to razor-blade a ½” diameter round circle from a strip of duct tape. This duct tape circle is just a hair smaller than the size of the innermost diameter of the circular ridge on the inside of the watch’s backing plate, and the circular ridge is what contains and positions the battery side-to-side when it’s in the watch. Sticking this duct tape disk on the battery surface makes the battery just slightly thicker. This in turn makes for more pressure of the watch’s back plate against the battery when the back plate is closed, and this keeps the battery in touch with its contact surfaces 100% of the time.

At our lunch break in Thamo the week previous, Johann and I discussed and even practiced opening and closing the watch’s backing plate. It is possible to close it in an unseated position, i.e. not pushed far enough into the watch housing. This was more of a problem on Johann’s watch than mine, and that may account for why the external duct tape solution has worked well for him. On my watch, the back plate when closed properly nests a good .050” below the watch’s back proper, and even when the back plate is good & snug and depressed properly in the closed position it has not been able to maintain the display’s readout. Since Khumjung, however, with the duct tape shim on the battery, no problems.

I’ve taken photos of this duct-taping operation thinking Roger F. will get a kick out of the food chain that relates tangentially to his electro-cardiology. I am the downstream element using duct tape to keep the t6d heart monitor running to collect data for Univ. Health Care, whereas Roger is upstream using far more complex electronics to track catheters on their path as he manipulates them to the heart. That said, Roger, wouldn’t it be useful for you to keep a roll of duct tape handy in the cardiology lab during your pacemaker insertions? Please consider this my official recommendation from 12 time zones away for advancing the state of medicine in the United States.

It may turn out the duct tape suggestion is my only contribution to U. Health Care since the data collecting for HR and oxygen % have fallen on hard times: collateral damage from the altitude sickness fallout. I didn’t collect higher elevation data like we’d hoped, and the data recorded at lower elevations may be fragmented and inconsistent since Apa and I were still working out our system for wearing the chest belts. Putting them on in the mornings in the cold takes some nerve, so I started to sleep with mine on just so it would stay warm, Apa’s bothered him when sleeping…and so on.

Enough on watch repair and data. It is 2:11 AM. There are dogs barking. The “free dogs” as Apa calls them. Not wild, but not attached to anyone either. Just dogs. The free dog ruckus is not a novelty anymore. My thoughts are of extricating myself from the dilemma of massive head pressure, dizziness, chronic weakness, and concern, intermixed with an almost but not quite equal number of thoughts for how to get well quickly by descending even lower. With nothing to do but wrestle with these conflicting thoughts I rough out a calendar in my head and later on a scrap of paper to see if it is mathematically possible to descend, to get well, to return upward in the number of days I have remaining. By my calculations given the 18 days that remain, it would be possible at my western pace to descend to Phakdang, which is even lower than Lukla, rest for a day, then retrace my steps back up with rest days interspersed, with the goal of reaching EBC (Everest base camp) by the 29^th of April. Then descend on May 1st, and each day thereafter. If this schedule worked I’d still have a two-day buffer for bad weather, delays, etc. built in before the flight departing KTM for Bangkok on May 7.

Reaching base camp is a theoretical possibility. So much for the positive side of things, and I realize in the darkness of the Namche night while listening to the free dogs bark, huddled in my down coat and Apa’s 40-below sleeping bag, that this my mind trying to hang on to its sense of being OK, to its desire to seize some sort of moral victory from what has become a meltdown of the physiology. Reality, however, is considerably different. I’m drinking as much water as I can swallow and this doesn’t help. I ate not one but two garlic steaks for dinner and that didn’t help. I went to Rhita Doma Sherpa’s Mountain Medicine Center in Namche and she gave me Panatol and a laxative, and that hasn’t helped. I’m feeling weaker and weaker and more and more dizzy, and this is in the face of having descended further and further. After 3 days there is no correlation between descending and regaining equilibrium and strength. Quite the contrary, I am feeling worse. Making it up the ladder-steep ten or twelve steps to the room earlier tonight was a huge challenge.

Sitting here now I’m seized by a feeling of dread and despair. Something is definitely wrong with my head. Rhita Doma said she didn’t think it was altitude sickness; she thought it was cerebral edema. A swelling of the brain caused by leakage of fluid. This potential diagnosis is not a pleasant prospect. Weaving my way to the loo on shaky weak legs is proof of my debilitated state. So why even let thoughts of trying to make EBC enter my mind? Well, in part because my physical condition seems so promising: heart rate is running 59 to 65 bpm at rest and my blood-oxygen saturation level is fluctuating between 91% and 96%. Plus nurse Rhita’s blood pressure readings of 110/80 were normal too. All these vital signs being normal is encouraging, so that’s one reason for staying in the goal-oriented frame of mind, but physically I’m experiencing something quite different, something like sea-sickness without the nausea, like my head’s in a vise, like my ears have rods pressed in them. The analogies can go on and on, but it’s the list of cerebral edema’s symptoms that is so frightening, especially the last one: coma.

The problem with drowning in self-pity in the darkness is that it’s not coming just from what I’ve read. Apa’s words to me that altitude sickness can kill are a chilling reminder that I am not sea-sick on the way to Hawaii, I’m stranded on a mountainside in Nepal in a hanging basket of nightmares squeezed like eels through the wicker sides by cerebral edema, and fluid is leaking out everywhere. With these flitting thoughts the idea of resurrecting another effort to achieve base camp seems perverse. I sit up straighter and turn instead to the task at hand which is to feel better first and foremost. Everything else, if there is anything else, can follow from that.

Suddenly it occurs to me that I have the Global Rescue’s US phone number in my wallet and we need to call them. We can’t just have the heli pluck me out of Namche and expect Global Rescue to pay US$ 6,500 after the fact. Pasang has confirmed the cost. We know that much. What I need to do at first light is ask Apa to call Pasang. Pasang in turn needs to call Global Rescue and sort the details out. We’ll have to establish cell phone contact at 5:00 AM, definitely not later than 6:00 AM. If the heli takes off before Global Rescue is notified it may be too late. Global Rescue’s number is laminated between two pieces of clear packing tape. It was a last minute thought in Salt Lake before departing to tape over the paper printout with Global Rescue’s phone and my membership number. I’d cut the printout down to 2” x 3” with just the pertinent info, and taped both sides of that—just in case I might need it later on and wish it were legible, not dog-eared or smeared from water.

There’s a knock on my door. 5:00 AM arrives early even when you are half-sleeping half waiting for it. Apa’s head appears around the corner first. Immediately he asks, “How are you?” I give myself about 8 seconds to consider his question. My head is a pressure cooker, the room semi-distorted, like looking in funhouse mirrors. “Not well,” I say. Khanchha comes in carrying a thermos of milk tea and glasses. I can see my breath but what I’m really interested in is the weather outside. Apa pulls the curtain. It’s only dawn but I can see a clear blue sky above the mountains. This is good. The heli can fly in this weather unlike yesterday afternoon. “We have to call Global Rescue and clear the heli with them first,” I explain. Apa agrees, this makes good sense even though in his experience Asian Trekking and the hospital will provide the requisite paperwork for the insurance company. But I insist. “Let’s try the Global Rescue number. I’ll feel better if I just let them know before hand.”

The voice at Global Rescue turns out to be Matt. He wants to know what number he can call back if we are disconnected; he wants to know all my symptoms, the efforts at self-rescue made so far. I explain that Pasang at Asian Trekking has the helicopter scheduled to take off at 6:00 AM. Matt wants to know what heli company Asian Trekking has contacted, “some of the companies run the price up,” he explains. “In the Everest region we use Mountain Helicopter,” he says. “Apa, do you know what heli company Pasang contacted?” I ask. Apa doesn’t know this. We’ll have to call Pasang and ask him, or better yet, have Matt call Pasang. Problem is Pasang’s cell number is in Apa’s phone, the phone I’m talking on. I explain this to Matt. “Ok,” he says, “You try Pasang first, see what company, and call me back with that info and Pasang’s number.”

Apa rings Pasang, says a few sentences, hands the phone to me. “Hello. Pasang,” I say, “my insurance company wants to know what company you have scheduled the heli with.” “Mountain,” Pasang says. “Good, that’s good,” I reply, this is excellent news. “They’ll take off soon,” Pasang says, “I have to tell them whether to fly or not to fly. I you’re your confirmation. You have to tell me if you want the heli–with or without the insurance company’s authorization.” This is a US $6,500 predicament I’d hoped not to be in, but the pressure in my head, the dizziness, the total weakness of being…making a decision based on monetary issues pales in comparison to the alternative: what if I decline the heli? What if communication with Global Rescue causes a delay and the heli goes elsewhere, can’t return for me for another 24 hours? What if 24 hours from now the weather is bad and the heli can’t fly? Can I hold out for 2 or 3 more days? I need this heli right now, not in an hour or 24 hours, or two days. I need it right now. Sooner if possible. “Ok, Pasang, yes, tell them to fly.”

With that call made Apa dials Global rescue. When he hears the phone ringing he hands it to me. An automated attendant answers but it sounds like a disconnect message. The call hasn’t gone through. But it has. The message is saying all calls will be recorded. I recognize this. I’ve heard it earlier. So far a live person has always picked up immediately after. Now it seems to take forever. I know this is my mind screaming that time is standing still. A voice. I hear someone say something. “Is this Matt?” I ask, and I wonder if I’ve got it backwards. I’m not Matt. Are you Matt? Would that make more sense? My friend Ken in Washington, DC will answer the phone: “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?” But I can’t unravel that right now. The voice in Boston says, “This is Matt.” So it is Matt that I’m speaking with.

Getting to this stage in the conversation has taken an effort. I’m trying to contain my anxiety which wants to escape but has nowhere to go. I say to Matt, “The heli Asian Trekking has scheduled is Mountain.” This is good news from Matt’s perspective too. I’m relieved to hear that. I read Matt Pasang’s phone number which I’ve transcribed from Apa’s phone onto the same dog-eared paper I’ve been carrying in my pocket for two weeks. The numbers are thin and light. Is the pen running out of ink? 9851020738. but is the 3 a 3 or is it an 8? Apa and Khanchha agree the 3 is a 3. Matt wants to ask more questions. He wants to know on a scale of 1 to 10 the variousness of this and that: headache severity, pain threshold, and so on. “Look,” I say, “just having this conversation with you is about all I can do. This conversation is a huge challenge for me.” “OK,” Matt says, “I have all I need from you.” He agrees he will contact Pasang and confirm the Mountain heli. “I will call you back,” Matt says, “If you don’t hear from me in half an hour or 45 minutes you can call me back.” “Which?” I ask him, “Half hour or 45 minutes?” I’m not comfortable with the a time frame could possibly expand to include open-endedness, but Matt remains non-committal. “Either,” he says. It’s clear I’m not going to be able to squeeze time down to a smaller increment and inject into that compressed space the desire for the heli to show up instantly. This is going to be another opportunity to practice patience.

What follows is a blur of fragments, but I know it is gotten later by angle of the sun. “We will have tea and wait inside,” Apa says. There are double sets of wooden doors which keep out the cold. The same door that only opens part way jams the uneven floor boards, wedges to a stop. We have to squeeze past. “When the heli takes off they will call,” Apa says, “Milk tea or lemon tea?” but I want to know who will call, and to whom. I’m grasping, clinging to details as a way to stay connected. I know it must be irritating to Apa to answer every trivial question, but I ask anyway. He is patient and calm. I need to hear the answers and layer the details on each other to build a platform of reassurance. It’s like a craving, wanting to construct a framework of certainty that this will work out, that it will end. “Pasang, will call,” Apa says, “to the kitchen desk here.” I look at the phone on the counter. It will ring at some point. For now, sitting, waiting, time has slowed. The clock on the wall is 5 or 6 minutes ahead of my watch. The big hand seems stuck, doesn’t seem to move, but maybe it has. It’s 6:58 on my watch. “After they call, the flight will take an hour, maybe an hour and a half to arrive,” Apa says. I can feel the tension of waiting and work to control it.

The call comes through. “The heli is in Lukla,” Apa says, “they are off-loading fuel. They’ll call again when it takes off.” I don’t ask questions this time. I can figure this much out: the fuel is being siphoned or pumped out, and stored in containers to lighten the heli for the flight to Namche. I like this. It brings specificity to what previously was only the idea of a helicopter. Now it is a specific machine in a specific place doing a specific thing, and it will be here soon.

We take care of last minute details while we wait: I give Apa 1,500 rupees to go toward what I’m guessing Rhita Doma might charge. I won’t be able to go in person and pay her so Apa will cover any shortfall. We’ll settle up later. The photos we were hoping to take from Kala Patar: Nuptse would be at right-center, the Khumbu glacier to the far right, the ice fall slightly left, above the ice fall and in the background the peak of Everest, and the western shoulder of Everest stretching to the left. Apa and Arita, his brother, will pick a clear day and go up Kala Patar, and take the photos. I draw a couple of sketches on a napkin showing Apa where I think he might stand holding the CathWorks banner, the company we’re hoping to launch in June. “If you’re to the left, here,” I say, and I draw a small stick figure holding a rectangle “that’ll be the wide-angle shot. We’ll also need a few shots closer in so the banner shows larger.” These, along with summit photos if Apa achieves the summit, are what we’re hoping will be a nice backdrop for the trade show booth. “Best to take all the same photos with the Diamond Mold banner too,” I tell him, “just in case.” Apa doesn’t ask what just in case means and I’m glad he doesn’t, it would require more explanation than I have energy for. “Do you want the tripod?” I ask. He does. Roger’s tripod will go higher on the mountain than me. A souvenir for you, Roger, that and your Leatherman knife which is already at base camp. They’ll both come back to you in June certified for use at altitude.

Another call comes in. “The heli will be here in 15 minutes,” Apa says, “We have to move fast now.” Somehow my reddish-orange duffel bag is already on Jetta’s back. “I’ll carry your laptop,” Apa says, but I decline his offer. I want the satisfaction of doing one thing with consistency. The helipad is at the uppermost left of the bowl shaped hillside Namche is terraced into. Jetta is way ahead of us, already on the trail heading left above the town. Kanchha, Apa and I are still climbing up through Namche’s buildings. The narrow rock stairways wind and weave upward, and their steepness fatigues me to exhaustion. We’ve only gone two hundred yards and I’m forced to stop and lean on my trekking poles. Apa and Kanchha are behind me, waiting patiently. It has to be a darkly comic sight. The businessman from Salt Lake almost brought to his knees in the surging metropolis of Namche. I start up again.

The steps I am taking are so small and my pace is so slow that I realize just making the helipad is going to take everything I have. It reminds me of what I’ve heard over and over again: that the top is only halfway, the other half being the distance back down. The way I feel right now if the helipad was the summit of Everest, and I had to reach that, turn around and walk back down to Namche, as if it was camp 4, I wouldn’t make it. I’d have a memorial in the valley of death above Pheriche along with so many others. This sobering thought actually gives me the impetus to plod on. I’m not on the top of Everest and I don’t have to go back down—as long as the heli arrives.

At the helipad I lean against a large rock and look at a cloud to my right that’s hanging at the mouth of the valley to Thame. I’d rather see no clouds, but this one does not look like it would ground a heli. The wind is stiff, blowing in our faces up the valley where we’re peering for the first sight of the heli. “Let’s move over here out of the wind,” Apa says, and we descend twenty-five feet behind an outcrop of rock. “Can the heli fly in this wind?” I ask Apa. He laughs. “This is nothing,” he says, “the heli can fly in much worse. Even if they get caught in the clouds they can go down and fly along the river bed and follow it out. This is perfect weather for the heli.”

My watch says 7:45 AM. I take a photo of it thinking the heli will arrive in the next minute or two, but it doesn’t. Ten minutes go by. Fifteen. Still no heli. Apa and Khanchha are busy packing my hiking poles into the duffel bag, but the lower sections won’t telescope. I can see the difficulty they’re having. It’s a purely mechanical thing. I walk over to them and loosen the sections which telescope immediately. “See,” I say, “the westerner can still do something.” We all laugh. It will be my last joke with Apa. The sound of the heli has come up the valley and Khanchha sees it first. He points but I can’t see it. “Where?” I ask. “There.” But I see nothing. Then I see it–not at all what I was looking for. It’s just a mosquito speck almost indistinguishable from the brown rock mountain behind it. The sound has funneled up the valley so far in advance of the heli that it’s fooled me. I was looking for something much closer. When it’s large enough to photograph I click two pictures. Then the heli disappears behind the ridgeline. This isn’t right. It’s supposed to be coming over here, not heading toward Everest, but look, it is heading toward Everest, it’s not coming this way at all. We’re left with the sound of the wind. I feel a bit discouraged. “Where’s that heli going?” I ask, but no one has a good answer. Fifteen, twenty minutes go by–an eternity later, and the same heli comes racing back into sight. The sound doesn’t precede it. Now it’s headed in the opposite direction down the valley on its way to Lukla. Maybe a rescue from higher up I think to myself.

Suddenly the heli banks to the right and makes a big loop back in our direction. This is my heli after all! It’s at eye level heading directly at us since we’re perched on a ridge and the heli has thousands of feet of airspace between it and the river below. I’m surprised at the speed of the approach, one instant in the distance, the next hovering right in front of my face. Sheets of sand blast me. I duck and point the camera down too. The lens is still open and has taken a direct hit. Nothing I can do about that now. The sand stings and it occurs to me that I should have anticipated this, I should have crouched lower, sooner, but now I can hear the engine slowing down, or maybe it’s just the pitch of the blades that’s changed. We are running toward the machine in a crouch, all of us, as if the heli might take off before we can get there. Apa and I give each other a hug and yell words of encouragement tghat neither of us can hear. The right-side door opens and a Nepali jumps out with a small backpack. Explains why the heli went higher first: brought down a passenger. Khanchha stuffs my duffel bag inside. I climb in after him. He motions me back out. He has to get out first before I can get in. This heli’s only a four seater, more like two seats in the front for the pilot and someone next to him, and a bench seat behind. I’m sideways on the bench leaning on my blue Kelty pack. The door slams shut. I see Apa running around the front of the heli then off to the left-side, to the spot we just came from. The pilot flips a couple switches overhead then puts his right hand on the stick, his other hand is on a device lower down to his left. We’re lifting off and I can see Apa waving. I wave back. Twenty feet in the air, maybe 30 feet, and the pilot dips the nose, turns right, and the heli’s sheet-metal skin slides over my view of Apa like a curtain closing. Six or seven seconds is all it took. Apa and Jetta and Khanchha have disappeared from view just like that. There’s nothing Hollywood about it; no long parting shot of three figures getting smaller and smaller on the screen as we fly into the rising sun. There’s only noise and vibration, and the ground dropping away below us as the pilot guns the ship and we’re on our way to the hospital in Kathmandu.

When Lukla comes into view the pilot makes a wide arc and brings the heli onto the same approach as our original arrival on the Agni airplane, a Dornier 233 I’ve since figured out. We fly down the runway and it’s just like the plane landing except we don’t slam into the ground, we don’t even touch down. We just keep flying down the runway and even make the hard right turn at the end right in front of the terminal, but we’re still in the air. It’s the oddest floating sensation. It’s no wonder some people love to fly helicopters, they are truly fantastic machines. The pilot sets us down near four or five army soldiers standing guard over half a dozen, maybe eight plastic jugs of aviation fuel lined up against a rock wall.. The off-loaded avgas that now needs to be poured back in. I ask the pilot if I can get out and he says yes. We both climb out. I take photos of the workers pouring the gas into the tank from the jugs. Someone brings the pilot a bowl of ramen soup. Another worker brings a bucket of water and douses the tarmac where the fuel has spilled. We climb back in the heli, but this time the pilot offers me the seat next to him. He hands me a set of head phones and shows me how to trigger the microphone so we can talk back and forth to each other. It’s a clever system. I can hear the control tower exchange, but if the pilot talks to me, or I talk to him, it will override the other communication and stay internal to the heli. I learn that the pilot’s name is Capt. Hira Dahal. We lift off and zoom down the runway twenty feet off the tarmac. The ground slopes away sharply, then completely. If we were a plane it would probably feel like taking off an aircraft carrier, a momentary drop into the void before the wings offer lift.

Visibility from the cockpit is superb. We fly high and low, not changing altitude so much as letting the valleys fall away and the ridges rise toward us. Hira points out Manaslu, the Anapurna range, the border with Tibet. I ask him if he’s flown into Tibet. “Oh no,” he says, “They will shoot at you if you cross over there.” To our right is a verdant valley with a cluster of houses. Hira says this is site of of Hillary’s lowest camps. In 1953 he had to trek all the way from Kathmandu. Closer to KTM we fly so low to the ground that Hira shows me a cluster of new blossoms in a grove of rhododendrons that he’s particularly fond of. When we skim over some of the smaller hamlets I can see cooking pots and fires, shirts drying in the sun, the faces of people in doorways.

Ahead of us is a ridge and we climb slightly to clear it. “On the other side is the Kathmandu valley,” Hira says. “You’ll see a wall of pollution and we’ll fly right into the side of it.” The extent of the smog is shocking, and the way it is trapped in the Kathmandu valley is more apparent from the heli than it was from the Airbus when we first flew in. Perhaps I’ve just become accustomed to crystal clear air in the Himalaya, I’m not sure which, but the smog is a blatant reminder that certain conditions on our planet need attention. We fly over dozens of tall smokestacks that look like coal fired electric generating plants. “What are those?” I ask. “Brick factories,” Hira says, “I call them the pollution factories. They’re worse than the cars.” There are literally twenty brick factories spewing smoke into the air just in the corridor we are flying in. Off to the side I can see still more. Kathmandu obviously has an insatiable appetite for bricks.

A half-size minivan belonging to Mountain Helicopters is waiting when we land. I thank Capt. Dahal for the flight. It has served two purposes: foremost, Hira got me down off the mountain, and as a temporary respite for an hour at least, the heli flight has helped pull my mind off its inner troubles. In the van we bounce along a rutted road skirting KTM’s main runway. The potholes have water in them. Soldiers are milling about, and off to the side the carcasses of wrecked airplanes. I take one or two photos but don’t have the energy for more. We are headed for the edge of the airport where an Asian Trekking representative will be waiting with another truck to take me direct to the hospital. It’s hot in the long underwear and down jacket, and when we stop and I transfer to Asian Trekking’s truck I forget to grab the nice hat Apa has loaned me from the backseat of the minivan.

Kaju asks me if I want to go to CIWEC or to the main hospital. Clearly I have no idea, so I ask him the difference. “CIWEC is not far from Thamel,” Kaju says, “and the main hospital isn’t either.” The heat of Kathmandu is surprising. It feels so much hotter than three weeks ago, and maybe it is. I roll down the window further. “Which is better?” I ask Kaju. “CIWEC is more expensive,” he says. We are crossing a river I recognize. The banks are lined with garbage and lean-to shacks, and a black cow is rummaging in the mud. “Ok,” I say, “let’s go to CIWEC.” Apparently satisfied with my decision Kaju says, “CIWEC is better, they will take good care of you there.”

Nurse Jharna checks my vital signs. Temperature, normal. Blood pressure, normal. Blood-oxygen saturation, excellent–97%. She draws two vials of blood and hooks me up to wires for an EKG. I ask Jharna if she will take a few photos of me all wired up, and hand her my camera. She tells me she took a photography class in college in Syracuse, New York, and likes to take photos. I tell her about the EKG I had in Salt Lake City just before leaving, how they shaved two stripes on my chest. “We don’t do that here,” she says, “these leads will stick on almost anything.” The EKG wires run to small suction cups and those definitely feel attached. They have small levers which seem to actuate them. I tell Jharna I’ll email her the photos after I get back to the US.

Doctor Betty is from Indiana. She asks me a barrage of questions. Has me do a series of coordination tests. I fail two key tests. Standing upright with my eyes closed without weaving. I sway to the right. And I’m not able to touch my finger to her finger when she places it here and there. I keep missing to the left. Her diagnosis: HACE. High Altitude Cerebral Edema. With HACE the cure is time, not medication, Dr. Betty says. “You’re not dehydrated,” she says, “We won’t need to start an IV. We had someone here yesterday with a severe case who needed an IV, but you’re lucky, you don’t need to be checked-in. You can rest at your hotel.” So I’ll just have to wait for the headache and dizziness to go away. “It could take two, even three weeks to feel completely normal,” Dr. Betty says. I can see this is going to be another opportunity to practice patience.

It makes me think of Apa and his ability to take each moment as it comes rather than sum the past into a collective frustration to lever his immediate emotions. I remember on the trek to Phakdang a particular instance when Apa came across a guide who knew him. The guide introduced Apa to his group. “Awesome,” a woman says, “That’s totally awesome. You’re Apa Sherpa. I can’t believe I’m talking to Apa Sherpa. I want to know the biggest thing you’ve learned from climbing Mount Everest Mr. Sherpa. I want to hear the biggest thing you’ve learned. Tell me a big thing.”

Posted by Terrell at 10:21 PM

2011 Apa Sherpa Eco Everest Expedition

Jerry Mika — Wed, 04 May 2011 01:04:28 +0000

Monday, April 18, 2011

Trek to Gorak Shep

April 16. We are in Tashi’s lodge having club sandwiches and French fries. This is a surprise because Loboche is 4,980 meters elevation, about 16,000 feet, and everything is carried in. Damian Vegas comes in (last name uncertain). He’s an Argentinean guide Apa knows from years of climbing. Apa tells me his twin brother is also at base camp and is on the ski patrol at Snowbird in the winter. Apa thinks they are both American citizens now, but he is not sure. To me Damian looks every bit the mountaineer: long wild hair, chiseled features, ageless. Damian is searching for his group which is from Spain and seems to have misplaced them. Clearly they can’t be far away because all of Loboche is about 500 feet long and the number of hiding places is about six.

He says to Apa, “Base camp is completely different than last year, you won’t recognize it.” He is speaking of the topography, the shift and melt of the glacier. Since I haven’t been to base camp before whatever it looks like will be just fine. No expectations, no disappointments. Damian doesn’t elaborate on whether the changes are good, bad, or indifferent, and Apa is curious but not concerned. Furthermore Damian goes on to say that the weather this year isn’t like last year either. This year he says it is cold. Snow every day, and frigid temperatures. This news doesn’t bother Apa, but it does me. What gives Apa pause is when Damian says the ice doctors have set the route through the ice fall “left side.” Apa wants to know how far left side. Damian says as far left as you can go, “That’s not good,” Apa says, “I don’t like a route left side. Too dangerous.” Damian mentions a name I don’t catch and says he is also voicing complaint. Apa agrees. Left side is not good. Damian says there are fewer seracs overhanging the left side this year; most of them crashed down the southern slope of the western ridge onto the ice fall the past two years, but Apa doesn’t find this reassuring. “We lost a Sherpa left side last year,” he says. When Damian leaves Apa goes on to tell me that fewer seracs above the ice fall isn’t a guarantee of anything. “Fewer avalanches don’t help. It only takes one avalanche at the wrong time. That’s all that counts. The ice doctors should move the route as far right as they can. I don’t like it.” It’s as long a monologue as I’ve heard him give the entire trip, but then, as if he recognizes it himself he says, “Nothing we can do about it today. Forgeddaboutit.”

The trail to Gorak Shep follows the left side of the ridge containing the western side of the Khumbu glacier. On the map the ridge looks like a straight line all the way to the intersection of the Khumbu with the Khangri Nup glacier which feeds in from the west. Walking alongside this ridge on the valley floor it does feel like a straight line. There is only a gradual increase in elevation but at the end of this valley there is a fairly steep wall the trail zig-zags up. We climb the wall and crest a rise, the trail takes a left turn in about half a mile when it gets across the Kangri Nup. I imagine that after making that left bend that Gorak Shep will come into view. There is a stretch of sand with large boulders the size of small houses strewn every which way. We weave through these boulders and I notice the sand at my feet shifting a little to the left as if under me the ground is sloping away, but then it shifts to the right and I’m not sure of my footing. I put my right hiking pole out to stabilize myself and the boulders and ground seem to all move in unison in several directions. This can’t be right. I stop. It seems like my knees have gone weak yet my legs feel strong. Puli and Jetta and Apa are in the vicinity but I don’t see them just at the moment. I try to get a grip on myself and stand motionless but the shifting, whirling feeling continues, and I notice my head has started to ache. Apa comes along and I say to him, “Apa, I’m sorry to say this, but I’m dizzy.” That’s all it takes and he is onto me in a flash: “Not feeling good?” he asks. “No, I’m not,” I say, “I need to turn around and go down.” The feeling of dizziness and headache are so unique, and so unmistakable, that even in my debilitated condition I know I’ve fallen victim to the dreaded altitude sickness. I have an overpowering desire to just flee downhill, but somehow I hang on and go over the possibilities with Apa. I’m trying to talk him into continuing on even though I’m going to head back to down to Loboche. Tomorrow morning about 10:30 is the Puja ceremony at base camp, and we are trying to get there this afternoon so we don’t miss the Puja. I know attending this is very important to Apa, but he assures me that his going down to Loboche won’t jeopardize his going to the Puja ceremony. We’re that close.

“If you feel well in the morning,” Apa says, “we can take it easy and come back up to Gorak Shep and I’ll go up to the Puja quickly, then I’ll come back to Gorak Shep and meet you.” This line of reasoning removes any doubt I had. It does sound workable—he won’t miss the Puja and I can get down to a lower elevation quickly.

While we’ve been discussing this I’ve put on the pulse-oximeter and my blood-oxygen percentage is 85%. This is quite puzzling. We all look at the wrist read-out and let it sit and hover for a few minutes. It floats around 84% to 85% and this seems completely adequate since it’s been at that level for some days now. The curiosity wears off quickly as I’m incredibly uncomfortable. The four of us start the descent to Loboche. Understanding the onset of AMS (acute mountain sickness) and its correlation to the oxygen saturation in blood will have to wait. I give no further thought and concentrate on placing my feet going downhill as fast as I can, half running. “What are you doing?” Apa asks skipping alongside me, “Trying to set some kind of record to Loboche?” I slow down, but not by much. All the previous goals: base camp, camp 1, camp 2, any goals at all have suddenly vanished. Only one thought remains and it isn’t so much of a goal as a change of status. Getting rid of the grip this altitude sickness has on my being is paramount. Loboche is the promise of relief and the word Everest doesn’t even cross my mind anymore. “Keep drinking water,” Apa says as we speed along, “drink as much as you can.”

At Loboche I race into the lodge and straight to the toilet hoping that somehow relieving myself will expunge the devil that’s got me. Nothing doing with that; it doesn’t help. The dining room in the Eco-lodge we stayed at last night reverberates with the conversation of those not suffering. Laughter and the drum of normalacy pound the outside of in my head, but inside is a swirl of uneasiness and fear, and I’m starting to be concerned for my condition, and also to feel sorry for myself. Apparently descending to Loboche isn’t the panacea I was hoping for. I can see Apa out the window searching for a cell phone signal. I know he is trying to reach Naga Dorjee to let him know we won’t be arriving at base camp this afternoon as planned. When Apa returns I have no choice but to tell him I need to go down further. “Let’s go down to the bottom of the pitch that’s above Pheriche, to that tea house by the bridge. Dugla or Thugla,” I tell him. But he’s not buying into that. “If you need to go down we go all the way to Dingbouche,” Apa says. “I don’t want you to miss the Puja,” I tell him, but he says he doesn’t need the Puja, we’ve had more than enough Pujas already, he says. “Give me a few minutes to decide then,” I say to him.

Apa is holding a two-way radio with direct contact to base camp that seems to haqve come out of nowhere. “The Asian Trekking Sherpa are leaving now. They need their radio. You’ve got to give me your answer soon,” he says. “How about in 15 minutes?” I ask. “Not more than 15 minutes, sooner is better,” he says. “I just need a brief nap,” I tell him. “No nap,” he says, You can try walking around outside.” I do this but it doesn’t calm my head; it doesn’t make it worse, but it doesn’t help either. Nothing is working. It’s clear I’m going to have to descend further. “Ok, Apa, radio them that I’m going down.” “We’re going down then,” he says, and he presses the call button.

The clouds move in and the wind comes up as soon as we drop below the ridge. There’s a little corner of Loboche that is semi-protected, but down by Russell Brice’s camp the wind has some teeth in it. By the time we cross the river it’s cold and I have my down jacket’s hood pulled tight around my face so the wind doesn’t blow it off. The prevailing afternoon wind is up-valley so we’re descending into a head wind, but none of this matters to me.

Lower elevation is a powerful craving, an almost instinctual urge. The reading on altitude sickness I’ve done is a rationale for action, but absent that knowledge, going downhill is about like seeing a rattlesnake: it doesn’t take a book to know it is a dangerous snake, and it doesn’t take much knowledge of AMS to know that down is good, up is bad. There’s something in the human psyche that kicks in, and going downhill is an attempt to flee whatever it is that causes altitude sickness. Lack of oxygen perhaps, who knows, right now I don’t care. Dingbouche is all that matters.

In less than 3 hours we arrive at the Snow Lion lodge and Mingma has a puzzled look. As soon as Apa fills her in on my circumstances she knows just what to do. Hot tea, and fresh baked apple pie. It is amazing how much better I feel already. “How about a nap?” I ask, “Is a nap ok?” I’ve craving sleep and warmth. “A nap is ok,” Apa says, “but only for one hour. I will wake you up in one hour. Make sure to keep your hat on and stay warm.” I am asleep in 5 minutes and wake up 55 minutes later just as Apa knocks on the door. It is amazing how much better I feel already. In the dining room a French Canadian named Philip is reading a book. He inquires about our trip and we swap stories. He is acclimating in the Khumbu but then is headed west to climb Choyo Oyo, one of the fourteen 8,000 meter peaks in the world. After hearing about the recent turn of events in our trip Philip says, “You have to respect the mountain.”

Posted by Terrell at 1:03 AM

2011 Apa Sherpa Eco Everest Expedition

Jerry Mika — Wed, 04 May 2011 00:59:21 +0000

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Namche-Thamo-Thame-Khumjung-Tengbouche-Dingbouche

Namche to Thame. Only Apa and I will trek to Thame. The rest of our team is going part of the way, about half the distance, to Thamo. We will all eat lunch there, but then the team will return to Namche for the night and Apa and I will continue to Thame. Dawa explains that Sushma hasn’t been feeling well, is still cold, and he doesn’t want to push it. The Thamo to Thame leg has some uphill in it. Dawa’s philosophy is to go at the speed of whoever needs the slow pace at the time. I like this idea since later on it may well be me who needs the slower pace. Dawa wants to keep the team together, but Apa and I need to be in Thame by 4 pm for the Puja ceremony. We will catch up with the rest of the team in ten days or so at base camp.

On the way to Thamo Apa teaches me about the omane stones. These are actually huge bolders the size of cars on which prayers have been carved by hand. We are to walk to the left of the omane stones, clockwise. The second omane stone we come to I don’t see, most of it is buried in the hillside to the left of the trail. Apa has the location of all the omane stones memorized; he has been walking on this trail for most of his 51 years. To go clockwise around this particular stone we have to detour off the trail and down what looks like a rock stairway leading to a hut 20 feet below. Apa goes first but I have to wait for a cow in front of me to descend first. The stairs are only 2 feet wide. This is an amazing sight. Cows on steep stairs are not something I have seen before, let alone threading themselves between rock walls 2 feet apart. A second cow closes in behind me and I’m sandwiched. I’m not sure whether to be concerned or not, but the cows go at their own pace down the stairs with no concern for me one way or the other. Just before the entrance to the hut the stairs end and a path veers to the right, wraps around the backside of the rock, then climbs back up to the main trail. Where the cows are headed I have no idea. “We should always go clockwise around the omane stones,” Apa says, “For good luck,” he adds. I’m all in favor of good luck.

At Thamo there’s a steep rise and we break for lunch at the highest tea house. I sit in the sun with my back against the rock wall of the building and take in the view down the valley. We all drink Hot Lemon which I learn is Lemon Tea without the tea. Hot Lemon is basically lemon-flavored powder in water, served hot. Lemon Tea is the same lemon powder base, hot, but with tea leaves added. The conversation of the team drifts across a range of topics including the war in Afghanistan, the fate of gays in Nepal, and the rules to a card game Wiggy says is the staple of base camp. I am describing our University of Utah sponsorship and pointing out that the Suunto watch I’m wearing has gone blank. Last night it was bizarre pixels that plagued the display, now it’s a dead battery. The team discusses the possibility of buying a P3 battery in Namche and having it ferried up to base camp to rendezvous with me there. This is a nice offer but I’m concerned we won’t have HR data collection for ten days. Johan from Spain notices that his watch is the same Suunto model as mine. “Look,” he says, “I’ve had to duct tape the back plate on mine to keep pressure on the battery contacts. My watch goes blank without the duct tape like yours.” He takes his watch off and underneath it has silver duct tape holding the battery cover in place. At breakfast this morning Dawa kindly surprised me with a roll of blue duct tape he purchased in Namche to replace the one I had confiscated at the airport. We try a piece on my watch and sure enough it comes back to life. “Good watch, bad design,” Johan says, “I’ve worn it for years.” I ask him if he has the heart monitor belt on now. “Only for training,” he says, “but I like it very much. Very helpful.” When the food has been cooked we move inside to get out of the wind. Spaghetti and tea. “Right,” Dawa says, “World capitals.” He proceeds to name off countries and the challenge is to name the capital. Our group is diverse enough that someone has the answer every time. Johan is strong on Europe. Chris on South America and Asia. Wiggy on South America. I’m good at the Pacific Islands and Central America. Actually, just listening to Dawa name off countries is interesting in itself. Of people I’ve met, only Gerhard Arndt from whom I purchased Diamond Mold is as geographically savvy as Dawa.

The team heads back to Namche, Apa and I up the trail, but not before Kusang, the manager of Apa’s lodge in Thame comes along. He has been down to Namche and has supplies in his pack. He walks with us for an hour or so but then picks up the pace and disappears. He has work to do and can’t crawl along for the purpose of acclimating. Not long after Kusang has gone, Apa’s nephew Nima, comes up the trail behind us. He is about 13 and continues with us all the way to Thame. Apa actually lives in Lower Thame as opposed to Upper Thame. The two towns are separated by a ridge that’s 400 or 500 feet high. As we walk Apa and Nima show me the devastation the 1984 flood caused on the river valley. Entire hillsides have disappeared, bridges destroyed, hundreds of homes swept away, and countless people drowned. The evidence is not easy to see, but wherever they point out the scars I can see the work of a wall of water 100 deep and a quarter mile wide. It takes me a while to understand that “floods” in the Himalaya are caused by lakes bursting. When the monsoon dumps large amounts of precipitation and/or glacial melt fills the lakes faster than natural runoff can tolerate, natural lakes can burst. We’re not talking man-made dams breaking, but the actual earth that retains a naturally formed lake just letting go. The lake ceasing to be. This is exactly what happened in the Thame valley in 1984. No warning, just a wall of water racing down the river gorge taking out everything in its path. Lower Thame was spared, but Upper Thame and all the downstream towns suffered life changing damage.

After a long two hour uphill and a spectacular suspension bridge river crossing we turn a corner and there is Thame just like in the photos. Apa’s lodge looks just as I envisioned it, blue roof, two buildings forming an L-shape, the potato fields to the sides. Yaks are grazing along the stream, and the neighbors all stop on the trail to say hello as we enter town. “It’s been ten months since I was home,” Apa says.

Kusang is there with tea and has assembled Apa’s immediate family. There are Apa’s mother, Yangin’s mother and father, Apa’s brothers, sisters…over the next three days his aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, friends, neighbors, monks, hired help from the lodge, children, toddlers, school board members, and passers-by all of whom have know Apa for years, drop in. After I’ve met 25 or 30 people and failed miserably with their names I make a list on the back of a paper napkin with Apa’s help. “You need a list like Mr. G makes,” Apa says, and it works. The list is a good one. I have a good portion of Apa’s family tree on a torn napkin folded carefully in my wallet. I’ll try to sort it out into something more substantial when I get back to the US.

We put our bags in second floor rooms 15 and 16 respectively, and the whirlwind of greetings continues in the main room of the lodge. The Puja ceremony starts in an hour and beforehand Apa is directing Kusang where to hang the framed memorabilia he’s carried from Salt Lake. The frmed Guiness World Record for ascent number 20 goes on the wall nest to eight others. A couple of new summit photos from number 20 need a place. We discuss options and Apa likes my idea to move the Everest panorama to a different wall and use that space for the two new photos. The nails are already in the right place to hold them. The living room will hold 20 people or more with a wood burning stove in the center. Kusang’s assistant fuels the fire and I am fascinated by the yak dung she is putting in. “It’s better to mix the uyak dung with some firewood,” Apa explains. “It burns better.” Apa’s family is plying us with chang, fermented rice beer, kind of like unfiltered sake. We make toasts and as soon as we have sipped our glasses are refilled instantly. We are both trying hard to stop them from refilling the glasses but it is a losing proposition. “We won’t drink any alcohol after today, right?” I implore Apa. Hiking the Khumbu is hard enough without a hangover. “Nothing after today,” he says, and I know he knows we are in for a non-stop festival, and there’s really nothing he can do about it. The extended Sherpa family is the most cohesive unit I’ve seen and the immediate family is the nucleus of that. Tradition and culture have expectations of us for our visit. Apa does his best to keep me from being overfed and overserved, but a lavish party is in the works and there is no turning back. We manage to limit the Everest beers to two between us, but then Kusang brings out the San Miguel. Fortunately Apa is able to plead the Puja ceremony and the San Miguels stay un-opened.

So much transpires in Thame I will have to recount it at a later date. Originally we were to stay for two days but it was clear two wasn’t going to be enough for all we had going on. Apa was stressing: we had the Puja ceremony, Yangin’s sister’s funeral, and all the visiting, plus Apa had to sort his gear and pack. “Let’s stay three days,” I suggest, and Apa takes me up on it. “I like your decision,” he says as if it was a decision I had made. It was just a suggestion, but it turns out to be a good one. Details of the Puja ceremony, the funeral and visits to the monastery and the Thame school that Hillary built will hopefully show up later in another post. I am not fond of flashbacks, but Kusang’s two sons Pasang 13, and Payma 7, have been assigned to take me to the monastery. “Today you will have two sidars.” Apa says. When I return Apa has all his gear spread on a blue tarp in the front yard. The tarp is 20 x 40 feet. That’s how much gear he has. Inside of an hour he has it pared down to the essentials and consolidated in two duffel bags, plus a 3^rd bag for the bulky foam sleeping mats. Included in this is a red and black 40-below Marmot sleeping bag that I will use.

We depart Thame about 11:00 am on April 12. There are four highlights of the trek to Khumjung.

1. A visit to the hydroelectric plant constructed in 1995 and financed by the Austrian government. Mingma gives us a tour of the inside. He is the plant manager. I was first introduced to Mingma at Apa’s house two days ago. Mingma is also one of the four members of the Thame School Board. Apa is another, and the remaining two board members I didn’t meet. In the plant we get right up close to the spinning steel flywheels that are 5 feet in diameter. I take some great photos. We can see the 15” diameter pipe the water flows through all the way from the reservoir 500 feet above in Thame. Must be a lot of pressure in that pipe. The spinning generators don’t look large enough to power Diamond Mold, but this plant supplies electricity for Namche Bazaar, Thame, Thamo, Khumjung, Tengbouche, and a smattering of other towns. Shows what I know about electricity.

2. After a few hours we stop at a teahouse and warm up with lemon tea. Out the window we see a paraglider hovering in the wind a few hundred feet in the air. Could this be the Brazilian from our team practicing? It isn’t we find out, it’s a local Nepali, but he’s fun to watch as we drink our tea. Tashi Dungbu who is a friend of Apa’s and owns a hotel in Loboche just happens to walk in. “Apa,” he says, “I heard you were in Nepal. It is good to see you, but you know what the people are saying about you: no one recognizes you anymore now that you have turned into an American.” We have a great laugh about this and from that point on wherever we go we call ourselves American tourists. One of us just happens to be a successful mountain climber of some renown.

3. Toward the top of the climb before we descend in Khumjung I spot a porter carrying steel roofing on his back. When he takes a rest break I ask Apa if he’ll ask him if I can try lifting his load. It is so heavy it takes me two tries to get it 2” off the ground. I try to walk a step and falter, almost losing the load backwards if the porter hadn’t braced it. I try again, this time managing two full steps. Apa gets a photo of this, and all the porters resting at this rise get a kick out of the westerner being humbled. The load must have weighed over a 120 lbs, maybe quite a bit more.

4. Ama Dablam is sighted. Apa says it is one of the two most beautiful that he’s seen in the Himalyaya. The other being Pumori. “It’s beautiful but it’s awfully steep,” I say to Apa. “ A very technical climb, that one,” he says. I ask him what Ama Dablam means. Ama is mother and Dablam is necklet. He explains that the mountain used to have more snow on it and received its name because it looked like the white cloth a mother would wear. In 2007, he tells me, a huge cornice broke off and Ama Dablam now no longer has the necklet look. It is beautiful to me all the same, a spire rising into the mist. Kim Wirthlin who is the Marketing Director (might not be the exact title) for University of Utah Health Care, is sponsoring part of our trip, plus a teacher’s salary for a year at Thame School. She is going to climb Ama Dablam in October. Knowing this we spend quite a bit of time analyzing the probable route, the ridge, the difficulties one would face achieving that magnificent summit.

April 13. Khumjung to Tengbouche. An uneventful trek. I seem to be holding up ok.

That night we count 24 Finns in the dining hall. “Large group,” says Apa. The group leader recognizes Apa. He has climbed Everest before, not on Apa’s team, but at the same time. Phir isn’t going up Everest this year; he’s leading a trek of his Finnish countrymen in the Kumbu which helps him acclimate for his own climb which is coming up: Dhalaghari. He is going to try to solo the ridge just east of the route Apa was on in October, 1998. After Phir goes back to sit with his group Apa says to me, “I didn’t tell him, but that route is dangerous. Two Sherpa from our group died on that route when I was there. Avalanche.” This is pretty sobering dinner conversation. I force myself to think about other things. Pretty soon the cameras come out. The Finns all want their photos taken with Apa. While this is going on I tinker with the pulse-oximeters. The Sherpa who work at the lodge are interested. We all try the finger-tip sensor and laugh about the readings. I have the lowest percentage at 85. The Sherpa are all in the low 90s. When the photos are over Apa tries the pulse-oximeter. He is at 92. Puli, my porter, is also captivated. She tries the finger-tip and is at 90. We amuse ourselves watching the numbers fluctuate, but the range is clear. Under just about every circumstance Apa has at least 5% more oxygen saturation. Jetta, Apa’s porter, comes in. The fog has given way to snow and the wet flakes are clinging to Jetta’s short-sleeve shirt. “Does Jetta have a coat?” I ask Apa. “I don’t know,” Apa says, “I will ask him.” There is something surreal about the evening. The darkness and snow outside makes me feel like we’re in a lifeboat floating alongside the monastery, which itself is like a ghost ship moored a hundred yards away. We’re sitting around an iron stove with 24 Finns eating Sherpa stew and fiddling with Chinese-made electronic pulse-oximeters. Oddly, the Suunto watches we have on are made in Finland. Several other guests are from England and their wonderful accents are fabulous to listen to. “Not many Americans this year, “Apa says, and in this room I am the only one. The Finns give a rousing toast to each other. It occurs to me that the inside of this lodge looks very much like the one featured near the beginning of Speilberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.

“Where will Jetta and Puli sleep?” I ask Apa. We have been lucky to get the room we have and it is only because of Asian Trekking’s influence that we are not in a tent tonight. The rest of our team is two days ahead of us. They will leave Dingbouche for Loboche tomorrow, and two days prior have stayed in the lodge we’re now in. “I don’t know,” Apa says, “Jetta can stay with the porters in the porter’s lodge, but Puli is the only woman. Perhaps she can get a room here.” I have seen some of the porter’s accommodations and they range from an overhanging rock with a fire pit, to a one-room rock barn with dirt floor. I’ve also seen rooms adjacent to ours with beds wall to wall, no floor space whatsoever. Those are the lap of luxury but tonight they are taken. The trail we’ve been on is the highway to Everest, and the porters heading up and down are like semi-trucks in the US plying the interstate. Base camp in April and May has an insatiable appetite for food and supplies, and the towns along the way are, in essence, the preliminary camps. Logistically, the whole Everest economy is like supplying and feeding an army that plans to lay siege to a foreign city. The Sherpa are in their homeland but I am feeling very far away from mine. It is odd to think of Utah 8,000 miles straight below my feet. Kind of like the darkside of the moon, this is, or Utah is, I’m not sure which. For a while I let my homesickness percolate, but after that bit of indulgence simmers it seems overdone.

Outside in the dark the snow is melting off the corrugated steel roof and falling in rivulets which we have no choice but to walk through. I cover the camera with my hand, and go up stairs as steep as a ladder to our room which is tacked on like a plywood afterthought, almost like a tree house really, it projects out toward the valley. I’m not sure what is under our room but it feels like cold air. Ama Dablam is to our right. “You will see it tomorrow morning when the fog clears,” Apa says, “but get up early for your photos. This is the best view of Everest between here and base camp. Take lots of photos in the morning. Early. Just as the sun comes up.”

My first priority is getting through the night. “What are you worried about.” Apa says, “You have a 40 below.” Sleeping bags are referred to by their temperature ratings. “I used that bag at camp 4 last year,” Apa says. This reminds me of the agreement Apa and I made at the start of the trip. The Rules of Engagement for Complaining. ROE for short. Carolee does not like acronyms so please disregard that.

A parenthetical note here, and I think I may have written this earlier so apologies as necessary for the repetition: Mr. G and Apa are a team at Diamond Mold. Together they comprise two of the longest-winded titles in our organization. Mr. G is Vice President of Esoteric Affairs, and Apa is Goodwill Ambassador/Director of Outdoor Product Development. Since those are a mouthful we just refer to them as Mr. G and Apa. Apa gave Mr. G his name, and Mr. G calls Apa by his given name: Lhakpa Tenzing, but no one else does. The rest of us just call him Apa. Since Mr. G and Apa have worked together 8 hours a day for almost 4 years now it is no wonder that Mr. G figures heavily into this blog.

Re the ROE for Complaining, I actually came up with the rules even though Apa is the boss. The reason for my doing so was strategic, a matter of self-preservation. There is nothing that undermines faster one’s ability to keep going in the face of adversity than complaining, or as the Australians say, windging, so I’ve vowed to myself not to windge once the entire trip. Except. The exception being rules 1 and 2 of the Rules of Engagement. The first rule, Rule 1(a), states that if Apa complains then I can complain. There will be a one-to-one correspondence in complaints, but this can only be triggered by Apa since he’s the boss. Rule 1(b) states that a reciprocal complaint does not have to be exercised immediately; it can be stored. If Apa complains on, say, Tuesday, I can note the complaint and save mine like a coupon to use on Thursday, or any later date of my choosing. Rule 2 states that either of us can invoke the Mr. G clause anytime we want, under any circumstance. The Mr. G clause is like an asterisk. It is the fine print that says that either of us can say what it is Mr. G would say if he were here. The Mr. G clause is also known as the Complaint in Absentia which I explain to Apa. For instance, when Kusang was pouring us can after can of Everest beer in Thame, a legitimate use of the Mr. G clause would be for me to say to Apa, “Mr. G would call this being overserved.” It’s technically not a complaint because it’s what someone else would say in a given situation as opposed to what either of us would say. There’s an argument that the Mr. G clause is a loophole, but any carefully crafted legislation usually has something in it for the party in power. Neither Apa nor I are above working things to our advantage. So we like Rule 2 of the Rules of Engagement. “A good rule, that one.” Apa says. Back in the US, Apa is in charge of rules. “Seat belt, Mr. G,” he will say, or “No socks in the back seat Mr. G. Bad karma, that one.” Here in the Khumbu since Apa is boss, and we have role-reversal, I am in charge of rules. For instance when Apa wants to skip shaving I say, “Rules, Apa. You know the rules.”

Clearly the difficulty getting through the night at this stage are the trips to the loo. With all the milk tea we’ve been drinking, and Sherpa stew and nak butter pancakes, there is no choice but to wake up every 3 or 4 hours and brave the elements. The loo at the Tashi Delu lodge is rustic at best, a breeding ground for disaster at worst. For ten days I have been training myself not to be overwhelmed by the facilities, but the facilities in Tengbouche are just that—overwhelming. After gymnastics in the loo to avoid falling in, the ice water in the blue bucket is no big deal. Mind you it’s dark and cold and snowing. The hand sanitizer I bought in Kathmandu is running out fast, but who cares, the faster I can get back into the 40-below and warm up the better. First, careful not to fall in the mud, then up the stairs and through the gauntlet of water sluicing off the roof, then into the dark hallway. Boots and coat off, I’m back in the sleeping bag. Now to fight off the chill. Feet are ok, but hands are frozen. This is only 13,000 ft. What will it be like at 17,500? Or, if I can actually make it higher than base camp, what will simple tasks be like at camp 1 or camp 2?

April 14. 5:28 AM. I wake up. A layer of snow on the ground, everything is frosted, it’s colder. I toggle the Suunto to Display 2, and is says 77 degrees F. That’s on my wrist. Clouds of breath, it must be 30 deg. F. in the room. It would be interesting to see what the ambient temperature is, an experiment I’ll have to perform at a later date with the watch off for 5 or ten minutes. A glint of sun on the east face of Ama Dablam, likewise the ridge leading up to the south summit of Everest. I open the window and click a few photos. Yesterday when we arrived I asked Apa, and the south summit is the right-side knuckle clearly visible. The Hillary Step to its left, the summit higher up, the dark triangle. Apa is still asleep. It turns out he can go to sleep anytime, anywhere, and sleep through anything. I am making a list of the reasons why I think Apa is the most prolific summiter to date, and on this list is his ability to sleep—to stay rested. I remember when we were in Peggy Battin’s living room after a trial run with the Apa Sherpa Carry Chair, and while the Carry Chair team was tired, our idea of resting was to take refreshment, beer and a cheese tray; Apa’s idea of resting: to fall asleep sitting upright. I’ve watched Apa sleep 5 minutes here, five minutes there. It is an amazing skill. Mr. G will give him the elbow in the ribs when Apa falls asleep in the passenger seat of Mr. G’s truck. “Hey, no sleeping,” Mr. G will say. “Rules. Apa, rules.” This is technically a violation of who is in charge and who isn’t, but one of Mr. G’s skills is to usurp authority so he tends to get away with a variety of indiscretions that no one else could.

After Kusang overserved us Everest beer in Thame, and simultaneously overserved us a Nepalese knock-off of Red Label whiskey (we’d already finished the real Red Label that Apa brought from Bangkok with the monks after the Puja), and then when Kusang unlocked the phone from it’s box on the counter, we called Mr. G to find out why he wasn’t in the Kumbu being overserved with us. “Watching the college basketball finals on TV,” Mr. G said. That was his excuse for not being here…the kind of guy he is. Mr. G, among other things, is a world champion waffler and hedger-of-bets. Lots of people would claim his waffling to be a form of excuse making, but Mr. G has taken the excuse to a higher level so that it is often hard to tell if it’s an excuse or a verbal sleight-of-hand. Try to pin Mr. G down and he’ll come up with the most elaborate side-steps imaginable. Invite him on a trip to Everest and he’ll play the “Just had my knee operated on” card. Or ask him to go next year and he’ll say, “Let me take that under review.” Try to get him to commit to a training climb on Mt. Olympus two weeks before our departure to Nepal and he says “When I decide I’ll have my people talk to your people.” He ultimately had his people say yes, but then he showed up at the trailhead half an hour late with a McDonald’s egg sandwich in a bag looking like he was late for the office. “You look like a cowboy,” Apa told him. “No hiking in cowboy clothes.” On the spot Mr. G. had to reconsider his wardrobe for the Olympus practice hike, and he did leave his Tommy Bahama shirt (or maybe it was a different brand), in the truck. To his credit he did really well on Olympus for 11 hours soaked to the bone in blue jeans while post-holing in snow up to our hips. That said, next year when you are in the Khumbu with us Mr. G, you’ll need better togs. You’ll also need what they call a “buff.” No worries though, you can buy your buff in Kathmandu after you arrive. Be forewarned though, you’d better start getting in shape now–and no waffling.

The night before the Tengbouche to Dingbouche trek I was up until half-past midnight when the laptop battery gave out. The laptop seems to last more than an hour now, almost hour and a half. Perhaps its lifespan is temperature dependent. Apa slept through all my rummaging with the computer, the head lamp adjustments, and my ups and downs to the loo. In retrospect I needn’t have worried about waking him up the night in Namche when I couldn’t sleep. Other accomplishments in Tengbouche: checking the pulse-oximeters for consistency. I may have mentioned this already, but I did the same thing for the pulse-oximeters as for the heart rate monitors: wore them both to see if the results with each were the same on me. The pulse-oximeters were easy to test. One on the left index finger, one on the right. They were within 2% of each other 50% of the time. And the other 50% they were within 1% and sometimes identical. They will record 30 hours of data, and after the 30 hours they will write over the oldest data. This will be good since the “last” data will be from the highest elevations. Downloading onto this laptop will be problematic: earlier it was all I could do to get the parameters set on each device so the date/time stamps, etc. are the same. I took a photo of my right index finger to show how mangled the nail is from trying to get the ID button to cooperate. Broken over way back to where it stings (I kid you not). Roger, when you review the graphs you should see a really good correspondence time-wise because we start and stop the pulse-oximeters at the same time and I think I have the time synchronized within about 15 sec. of each other.

9:00 am. A later start than Apa would have liked. I’ve been fidgeting with the thumb drive transferring off the laptop and onto the computer in the Tengbouche “internet café.” Posting to the blog seems to work well, at least on this end it looks like it’s working.

We descend 600 feet, maybe 800 feet, through thick forests of rhododendrons to the river below. The rhododendrons cover the mountainsides like aspen do the Wasatch, and they are huge, I mentioned this before, but they are worth mentioning twice. You actually walk through them they’re so big. I hope the photos do justice to them. In the US the rhododendrons I’ve seen are bushes that you have to be careful not to break. Here we’re steadying ourselves by grasping the trunks as we slide down the trail in mud from last night’s snow. It’s raining and my raincoat is in the bag Puli is carrying about 2 hours ahead of us on the trail. “You can get away with that today,” Apa says, “but tomorrow you need to carry your rain jacket with you for when it starts to get cold.” This is a bit disconcerting because it is cold right here, right now. A porter with a huge load of food for the yaks is having difficulty in the mud. He is about 5 feet tall and the load on his back is at least 7 feet high. I have a good photo of this, and it is amazing. He grabs the rhododendrons and steadies himself. I can only imagine how excruciating his day is. “There is a good side to this mud.” Apa says, “no dust today.” This makes me think of the half-full/half empty discussions I have with Mr. G. Often there are two sides to a situation, two ways to view it, the positive and the negative. “A silver lining,” I tell Apa, “no dust.” He hasn’t heard of a sliver lining before so we pass the time going over the meaning.

We cross the river and on the ascent of the opposite slope the wind picks up. “We don’t go to Pangbouche,” Apa says, “we go next left to the monastery,” We are going to take a side trail higher on the mountain to visit the monks. “Left at the fork in the road,” I say to him. He doesn’t know what a fork in the road is. I describe using two fingers like a peace sign, but there’s something lost in translation. He’s stuck on the knife, fork, spoon connotation. When the trail forks he smiles, “Fork in the road. It’s like the silver lining.” We take the left fork, and climb higher to the monastery. There are a lot of “bouches” I say to Apa. Tengbouche, Pangbouche, Dingboche, Loboche. Some are spelled with a “u” and some without. It seems the spelling is not really the point. It’s bouche or boche, and the pronounciation is somewhere between boo-shay and bow-shay. “Means higher,” Apa says. So each successive town has its name and the word higher attached to it. Makes sense since we’re going higher and higher. It occurs to me that a better descriptor might be colder. Tengcolder, Pangcolder, Dingcolder… My back is sweating and the wind is full of spitting snow and frozen rain that stings the face. Each town has been colder than the previous, and the cold seems to be the factor that grips me more than the altitude. As we pass what looks like a cedar tree I touch it, knock on wood so-to-speak, the cold versus the threat of altitude sickness. We’re still lower than the top of Whitney and there’s plenty of real estate left to test my resistance to AMS (acute mountain sickness). So far I’d rather this cold than AMS. A baby yak is rooting around on the trail and I get a few good photos. By the time we reach the monastery I am chilled to the bone. The damp and wind together have taken a toll. We enter through a new entry under construction. The woodwork is exquisite, all done by hand. Nice joints and flourishes. I take a number of close-up photos. Inside the old part of the monastery it’s dark. Lit candles illuminate the shrine but I tell Apa I have to put on my down jacket on before I can do anything else. I didn’t put it on sooner because of the rain and how much I was sweating. There seems to be a paradox. Too much clothing, more sweat, and you freeze; too little clothing and you keep the layer you’re not wearing dry, but you freeze. Shivering, I watch Apa wrap an offering in the khata he’s carrying. I have one in my pack as well and do as he’s done. The monks are sitting in a row lotus style on a balcony. We climb up steep narrow stairs to the balcony and present our offerings wrapped in the khata we’ve received in Thame. In return we receive khata back from the monks. Ceremony and ritual are important but I’m still too cold to really care. We go back down the stairs into the dark shrine. We place offerings of paper rupies in small bowls of uncooked rice on what I would call an alter, but I don’t think that’s the correct term. It occurs to me that the bills are awfully close to the candles. There are so many candles and they are so close to the rice bowls, but I don’t voice this opinion. “This is the last monastery,” Apa says, “there are no more from here on up.”

We continue uphill. Shomare is the next hamlet but Apa suggests we go higher before stopping for lunch. He points out a trail leading to a camp on the other side of the valley. There are four tents and about two dozen yak a half mile in the distance. “That’s way is the approach to Ama Dablam,” Apa says, “Kim will go across that bridge down there,” I look down about 1,000 feet, “and then she’ll climb up to that camp there.” Is that the base camp for Ama Dablam?” I ask. “Oh no, just an approach camp, the base camp is way up there to the right in the clouds,” Apa says.

About 1:00 pm we come to Orsho and stop at a tea house. I have learned the difference between lodge and tea house. The latter is food only. A lodge you can sleep and eat at. There’s a mirror on the outside of the teahouse and it occurs to me to take a photo of myself. It looks like I haven’t shaved since Thame which means Apa is letting me slide for a while on the shaving rule. We order Lemon Tea and Mixed Fried Potatoes. The mixed means with fried vegetables, mostly onions, and a green chard of some sort. There is a side plate of tiny green chili peppers that look lethal. Apa shows me how to bite off about a sixteenth of an inch and dip the exposed end of the chili into a tray of salt. By repeatedly nibbling and salt dipping we put these chilis down in short order. They are fabulous. It isn’t five minutes before we are gasping for air and searching for more tea trying to cool our throats. My tongue is on fire and nose running. These are hot little buggers. Apa has eaten three of them and I’m well into my second, but he stops me. “That’s too much already. Your stomach will get sick later,” he says. “Can we buy some of these and take them to base camp?” I ask.

After Orsho the trail dives down to the river. We cross and climb back up to regain our altitude. There is a lot of up and down on the way to base camp. The down has the advantage of taking less energy, but there’s a steep price to pay afterwards. Huge landslides have avalanched on the opposite side of the valley. “Lakes,” Apa says. Meaning the glacial lakes above the ridge several thousand feet above us have burst and torn down the mountainside. The gash on the left is bigger than the right. The debis pile at its base is at least a quarter of a mile wide. The power of the water crashing down in one fell swoop must have been incredible. It puts a new light on the 1984 flood that devastated the edge of Upper Thame and the towns lower down. We walk past a smaller version of the landslides on the opposite side. “Two Sherpa were killed here a couple years ago,” Apa says. They were walking with the tzopios and the lake burst above. No warning that one.” This gives me another pause for reflection and the trek once again brings home that we are venturing into wild territory. Ten minutes later Apa says, “Go fast here,” and we scramble over a stretch of trail 100 feet above which a landslide gash has left towering exposed bolders partially embedded in a dirt cornice just waiting to break loose and fall on the trail.

We crest a rise and in front of us for miles stretches an incongruous flat. It’s a plateau in the valley intermittently strewn with bolders, scrubby deadwood, and wispy juniper. We’re walking in a worn path a foot deep in packed dead-brown grass that’s still somehow alive. It looks like this is the same grass the yaks have been walking on for centuries. I tell Apa this valley looks like the moon, which of course it doesn’t, but it is such a foreign plain of flat expanse that we are surely somewhere other than the Khumbu. After a mile or two Apa says: “Pheriche to the left, Dingboche to the right. Fork in the road,” He is clearly pleased with himself. “We go to Dingboche on the way up. It is larger and warmer, less wind. On the way down climbers go Pheriche. It is colder but shorter that way.”

Apa points to a brown hummock of rock ahead of us that the trail goes over. “That hill is where Roger got sick in 2007. The porters had to carry him over the ridge to the hospital in Pheriche. The doctor looked him over and said, ‘get him outta here,’ He was on the next helicopter out. Dangerous, that one.” I’m not sure what to say, “Not good for Roger,” is the best I can do. Maybe cold isn’t the worst enemy, maybe it is altitude.

We keep a slow, steady pace. Charles, if you are reading this in the Czech Republic I’d like you to know that I am starting to learn the small steady steps you were trying to teach me way back when. They make perfect sense here, and I should have caught on sooner to what you were showing me. It’s no wonder you were able to power up Aconcagua with those small steps and consistent pace you’ve mastered. We are trying to do the same here, to go up as slow and steady as possible to mitigate the effects of altitude. “Too fast and you get sick,” Apa says. “No rush.” We take our time. The small steps are so small the heel is literally placed no further ahead than the toe of the other foot. Another trick Apa has taught me: when we stop for the day at the lodge we put our packs in the room and have a cup of tea. Then, instead of climbing into the 40-below to keep the warmth of the tea alive (like I’m tempted to do) we go back outside for another hike. “We go higher anywhere,” Apa says. “Keeps you from getting the tick-tick. If you go up just a little and come back down you avoid the headache. Go to sleep right away after stopping without hiking higher and you get the tick-tick.”

April 14. Rest day in Dingbouche. Puli who is Yangin’s cousin and my porter has taken an interest in my typing on the computer. We are sitting around the iron stove at the Snow Lion lodge drinking tea and I invite Puli to type her name. She is uncertain what I mean at first so I point at her and say Puli, I point at me and say Terrell. You, Pouli, me Terrell. Pretty soon she’s got it. So I type the words “Your name is” and then I point out each key for her to press: P, U, L, I. We point at each other and the others in the room, and we type there names. Puli is thrilled to see the names come up on the screen. we put each name on a separate line so there’s less confusion. Puli types her name again. Apa and Mingma, who owns the Snow Lion, help out. The lesson is underway amid much laughter. Definitely a highlight of the trip so far: Puli’s reading lesson:

Your name is Puli. My name is Terrell.

Puli

Terrell

Apa

Puli

Jetta

Terrell

Puli

We are in Dingbouche. Puli is from Thame.

You are Puli, you are from Thame. Yesterday, you Puli, Thame.

Thame. Thamo. Khumjung. Tengbouche. Dingbouche. Today we are in Dingbouche.

Tomorrow we go to Loboche. Four of us will go to Loboche tomorrow. That is called reading.

Warong shi sala Loboche. We are four tomorrow to Loboche.

Puli mic knee computer iggy ro. Puli uses two eyes reading. Warong is we are going. Shi is four. Sala is tomorrow.

Puli laga aring iggy ro. Puli works today reading. Laga is work. Aring is today. Iggy ro is reading.

April 15. 8:38 am. Am posting to the blog. We have just come from the Snow Lion where we returned after a night at the Moonbeam lodge. I had forgotten to pay Mingma for the hot shower at the Snow Lion and we find her washing clothes out back. There is a skim of ice on the standing water and it is cold, but the sun is out. “For you 350 rupies,” she thanks me for remember to pay her. Apa has developed a sever Khumbu cough. Last night it was bad enough that he went to sleep at 7:30 pm. This morning he is hacking away and Mingma fills a plastic bottle with shreded fresh ginger and hoiney. “You are the boss today,” she says to me. “Make sure Apa has a teaspoon of ginger to a cup of Hot Lemon every time you rest.” Apa tries to take the jar of ginger to carry in his pack. “No way,” I say, “I’m wise to you mister. It’s ginger and hot lemon for you from here on out. Mingma says I’m boss today and you’re in big trouble.” Mingma looks at Apa, “Terrell laga,” and she points to the ginger. Laga is work. My job is to make sure Apa gets the ginger into him no matter what.

We are off to Loboche…

Posted by Terrell at 8:03 PM