Everest Trail!

3300 m up to 5400-5600m high... which is about 10 000 steps!!!

The Everest Trail is one of those indescribable journeys. The journey was what it was truly all about for me. Day by Day, moment by moment, was all I wanted to concentrate on. It was a mind game I was playing with myself. If I let my mind think about the 6-7 hour day ahead of me or the 12 km up hill I knew I would feel more exhausted than necessary.

The beginning of the trail passes through various mountain communities. THese communities are simple rock/wood homes with wood burning stoves and outhouses. Replacing trucks are the strong backs and poor soles of the porters. SOme of these super human men can carry 200kg on their back. The cargo is often put in a woven basket base and tied tall (often taller than the men themselves) and a belt goes around their head for support. They often carry one short wooden walking stick is duel purpose and used to rest their heavy load on when they stop to break. The path itself is quite neavigateable. It goes from stoney brick at times, to horendous stairs, to dirt paths to boulders upon boulders.

During the first part of the journey the communities are broken by amazing views of valleys and flowing rocky rivers/waterfalls surrounded by lush fir tree mountains. Some of these rivers are crossed by strong suspension brideges or heart racing wood planks. The best bridge by far was the one we were escorted across by marroon robed monks in tennis shoes. All along one side of the bridge prayer flags (yellow- Earth, Red- Fire, blue- sky/watter, white-air, green - wood) blew into the fresh mountain air. Besides prayer flags we passed many buddhist stuppas, rocks with carfed or painted prayers, and prayer wheels. One morning Roberta and I were grumpily awoken by monks gonging around. hahaha

Sometimes one has to remember to take their eyes off the rocky path to enjoy thte spectacular views. Day 3 revealed snow capped peaks and trees that looked mystical with thin green hanging moss. "Eyes down" is a safety precaution. I think I tripped about 400 times a day but when I think about the flowing streams I crossed... I think my mom would have been pround of her klutz child. Loose rocks are not the only reason to look down. Mudpies of yak crap decorate the path and cause a great obstacle. of course I stepped in it but it was also a game of sorts to try and avoid it. On the yak note if the smell did not warn you they were coming (aside = sasha loved the smell) the bells around ther necks did. We let the big curly horned Yaks pass on the dangerous cliff side. They also had heavy loads. In all honesty, It seemed everyone on the mountain worked harder than us. That doesn't mean we didn't work hard, we did huff and puff up stairs, hills and over boulders.. The hardest part wasn't necessairly the steep areas but the high areas where oxygen was low and made one dizzy/ nauseous. I was so thankful I had 2 poles for balance and to push off of. When lifting one's leg became torterous. I thought of everyone I loved and took a step for them. I had the most positive atttude because of it but can't take any credit for it. All the people I know truly got me to Base camp.

Base Camp

The day of Base camp was horrendous!!! We trekked 4 hours to our lunch spot over huge boulders up and down with no grande views. We got to our place for the night ate some lunch dropped our bags and optimistically set off for our goal. 3 hours over what Roberta deems a boulder factory or a scene from the Flinstones Rock quarrey... we arrived.

Well Ram, our guide, told us we arrived. Basically, we would have had no clue. Black crushed earth that looked terrestial mixed with boulders. THe only aesthetically pleasing thing was the "Khumbu ice fall" which was a valley of white or aqua blueish ice triangles. Ram wanted to turn back as it was getting lated and it did seem like it was going to snow. I was mad though I came all this way and wanted to see a tent of an summiting expedition.

This is when Ram lied to us. He said there was nothing to see it was too early in the season. I was so MAD I turned to my porter friend, Dawa, and said that is a LIE! I have talked to others who siad there was an Italian team settign up and we walked up with a lot of the Korean team's equipment. Dawa laughs and says to me "Ok ditti (Nepali for firend)We will go I will tell the others they can turn back.

Then Dawa proceeds to run (5464 m we are at) over these boulders mixed with ice and slippery crushed rock and expects me to follow! Of course I do and make it to the tents. The italian team had about 7 tents I could see - one orange dome, a tall skinny green tent whuich was probably a bathroom, 2 blue tents, a yellow, and a large blue one for the dinning room. I met the italian man, Miguel or Manual, and shook his hand, wished him good luck climbing.

I felt silly what does one say to someone who is about to Summit Everest! I think I asked to shake his hand so I could say I did when he was famous. God only knows... he probably already is famous and I am too ignorant. He invited me in for tea but with the storn approaching I politely declined. After a couple weak pictures for such a momentous experience I went to turn back but then told Da wa to wait. I just couldn't leave without seeing the dinning room tent. I tood a picture and then got a picture of myuself the italian man and his many porters in the tent.

The momentous life experience only lasted about 6 minutes and we ran back to where Roberta, Sasha, and Ram were waiting.(Spencer was too sick to come-- he had the worst cold of his life with a little altutude sickness... he should have an award for what he did)To be honest I am not sure why we couldn't all run to the tents I know Roberta and Sasha were exhausted from altitude but I feel like they were jipped by Ram who never gave them the option. In all truth it wasn't realy fair. SO this momentous experience I haven't talked about and is a solitary joyl. Us three girls all made it to base camp so we DID IT!!! but we didn't all get to shake their hands... which is not the point... but sucks a little.

The next day we were up at 4 am and started to climb kalapartha 5600m to get a great view of Everest while the sun was rising. All four of us were teamed up. Sadly Sasha had to turn back because of altitude sickeness. To add insult to injury or in our case sickness the clouds rolled in and it began to snow. THe Elusive Everest would not be seen. How Ironic we had been hiking for 9 days and all the while the one mountain we came to see, Everest, stayed hidden behide a cloud. This mountain in some ways mocked our headaches, nausea, sweat, and tears we went through to climb it's shoulders. We only walked to 5400m to day we went higher than base camp and climbed down defeated. We then continued walking another 6 hours down starting our decent. The journey had reached its strange climax. We were proud of what we accomplished and what e pushed our bodies thorugh and reconciled with the idea that we earned that picturesque postcard of Everest.

And then it happened... the last day of hiking down we woke up early to cath a glimpse of Everest's peak. Surrounded by his protective clouds, his black face with white snow wrinkles smiled at us ... "Job Well Done Flatlanders"