It turns out Erin and I weren't the only ones who wanted to see Everest. Thousands of other tourists did too. The place is swarming. The place is an amusement park.
The ride begins on the rollercoaster flight to Lukla. The airport at Lukla has been called the most dangerous airport in the world by some dolt who ranks things like that. He or she is probably right -- it is entirely deserving of this dubious distinction. The airstrip is about 200 yards long and perched on the steep southern-facing slope of a 6000-meter mountain. It's gradient is somewhere around 20 degrees. One end of the strip is a wall of mountain, the other is a three-thousand foot drop to the bottom of the valley. The airport is rarely open due to fog and wind. If a plane misses the strip -- and apparently it's happened quite often in the past -- there is no possible way to recover. In fact we've been told (after we were safely in Lukla) that there is youtube video of a plane crashing at Lukla.
In the air the views of the Himalayas are mind-blowing -- we were able to see the entire rampart of giants rising out of the earth, dazzling in the early afternoon sunlight, rising like stone and ice behemoths from some other world, all the way into Tibet. The plane flew at a low altitude skimming the tops of lesser mountains, the big mountains looming to the north, the jungled foothills and plains stretching out to the south. Then as it flew over the last pass into the Lukla valley the plane all of the sudden dropped, diving towards the strip which, thanks to no curtain between the cabin and cockpit, we were able to see through the cockpit window. I remember thinking there is absolutely no way in hell we were about to land on what appeared to be a driveway to someone's upscale cabin in the mountains. As we descended into the valley, at uncomfortably high speeds, the mountains towered all around us. I stopped looking at the strip. Erin had taken a pill and she was surprisingly collected, though slightly adrift. Then all of the sudden we slammed into the runway. I looked out the cockpit window and the wall of mountain approached fast and furious. The plane literally had about 100 hundred yards to stop and turn. It did this time. One plane -- still parked at Lukla, its nose smashed in -- didn't a couple weeks ago. It couldn't stop in time and crashed into the wall of rock at the end of the runway. No one was hurt apparently. 20 or so tourists on another flight a month ago didn't share the same fate. The plane was unable to land because of fog, got lost on its way back to Kathmandu and crashed into the side of a mountain. All were lost.
The Lukla flight has become the preferred mode of transportation for nearly all trekkers visiting the Everest region. It wasn't always like that. The airport was built 15 years ago; the runway paved only 10 years ago. Before the airport you had to walk in from Jiri, a village in the foothills. The walk from Jiri to Lukla is brutal, going up and over 4 passes, never flat, always rising and falling. It historically served as quality control -- you had to be fit and determined to get to the Everest region. Not so anymore. Now anyone with money and a camera can board a Lukla-bound flight and try their luck at walking to basecamp. And the unfit come in droves. It's quite shocking. The age of the average trekker in the Everest region is about 50, their experience in the mountains virtually nil, and their determination to reach basecamp despite clear symptoms of altitude sickness is indominatable. I have untold amounts of respect for those folks in their 50s and 60s and 70s walking up Kala Patar (a viewpoint of Everest near basecamp). We met a 72 year old canadian woman who spent 29 days in the Everest region, hiked to 5500 meters, and had a ball. What is irritating and irresponsible are those who show a complete and utter disregard for the risks of altitude. As I mentioned before, helicopters fly up and down the Khumba valley all day long, at great risks to the pilots, to save ailing trekkers suffering from high altitude sickness or to carry dead ones out in body bags. Same in the Annapurna region. One guy died at Muktinath the day we were there. We heard from an American couple that another woman died at Tengboche in the Everest region after ignoring protracted symptoms of high-altitude sickness. And another dreadful story -- while we were on the trail a helicopter crashed trying to save a group of climbers on Ama Dablam, killing the pilot and one of the climbers. In sum, the irresponsibility of some trekkers visiting the Everest region (and the Annapurna region as well, but not to the same extent) is astounding.
The amount of trekkers in the Everest region is astounding as well. They come in big groups. Very few carry their own stuff. The big groups, because they have so much stuff (and most of whom carry everything they would bring along on a trip to Aspen), need yaks to carry their bags. Yaks are insufferably slow on the trail, and they steadfastly refuse to walk in a line. They have big horns. If you are behind them it is impossible to pass them. If they are coming towards you it can be risky business letting them pass. I nearly got gored several times; at least twice I was smashed between a boulder and yak blithely swerving too and fro on the trail.
If not gored or pushed off the trail by a yak (or its less handsome and less hairy hybrid cousin the "dzo") then there is the constant risk of being trampled under foot by a herd of Frenchmen or Koreans or being thumped up against the side of the head by a 15-foot long telephoto lens being carelessly brandished by a giddy Japanese tourist taking photos of rocks on the side of the trail.
If you are getting the impression that our time in Everest wasn't enjoyable you would be half right. It was frustrating. At the risk of sounding corny, when I visit the mountains -- rather when I make pilgrimages to mountains -- I do so mainly to scrub off the distractions of everyday life; to strip life down to the bare essentials. It's a cathartic place for me. There was nothing cathartic about the everest trek. The teahouses are swarming, the trails are like clogged arteries, the helicopters are constantly buzzing overheard, the mountain flights for wealthy tourists soar above the peaks -- its an amusement park with no respect for what it is.
Having said all that, Erin and I did have a sublime moment. It was on the day when our dysentary was in check, near the village of Khumjung. We traversed a set of hills off the beaten path, sat down in a tuft of soft tundra, skies a perfect blue, and stared in awe at the mountain panoramic of Everest and Lhotse at the end of the valley, Ama Dablam across the valley, and host of other 6000 meter peaks surrounding us. Erin and I have since queried whether that moment was worth it all. I think it probably was. Ama Dablam has got to be the most handsome peak on the planet. It is worth a google. Lhotse looked like the head of a gorgon engulfed in white flames. Unfortunately the view of Everest was not all that impressive from our vantage point. The Lhotse Wall and Nuptse (another wee peak standing some 7500 meters high) eclipse the base of Sagarmatha (the Nepali name for Everest), so the only part of it we could see was the top 1000 to 2000 meters of the south face, which is all rock. Nonetheless I could sense, from where we sat, what draws trekkers and climbers alike to the tallest mountain on the planet. It has a magnetism. The mountains of the Everest region (including Lhotse and Nuptse) are the realm of the gods -- at least according to the Sherpas. For me they appeared to stand with a cool indifference or outright defiance to the heavens, I can't say which. Or perhaps it is a humble supplication. In any event they are bewilderingly massive and I can see what attracts thousands of people every trekking season to gape in awe at their altar.
I also had some really special moments on the hike out (between Lukla and Jiri) on the stretch of trail that has now become desolate of tourists due to the Lukla flights. It was difficult, yes, largely because we were moving over up-and-down terrain at break-neck speed -- but that didn't detract from the enjoyment of the hike; in fact it added to it -- the slog and exhaustion induced in me a meditative state I'd long been craving. The pastoral Sherpa villages we passed through were nestled in idyllic nooks, among the tiered millet fields and orchards of orange and banana trees and rhodendron groves, the universal smells of third-world village life wafting on the breeze -- the sweet, foul and acrid -- the small, dirty children standing in the doorways of small huts with their hands pressed together chirping "Namaste" (which means "I salute you" in Nepali), the women in the fields harvesting their crops and carrying infants on their thick backs, the men at work weaving mats or hauling firewood, radishes and cabbage and carrots and potatoes drying in flat baskets on the slate rooftoops. While the big mountains certainly hold an allure, the village life in the foothills is really intoxicating -- and for me probably the best part of our treks.
What also made the trek out so enjoyable was the caravan of folks we were traveling with. As I mentioned before we had hired Ram in Lukla to carry a bag. He, like every Nepali we've met, was delightful to be around, sporting a hearty laugh. And he, like every other Sherpa we spoke to or heard about on our travels, had interesting life experiences. Ram is a marathon runner -- he took 2nd last year in the annual Everest base camp to Namche marathon. Another sherpa we met is the son of the ice doctor -- the dude that puts up all the ladders and fixed ropes on everest. Most other sherpas have either climbed everest anywhere from 1 to 10 times or want to climb everest. Unfortunately a famous sherpa who had climbed everest 20 times (19 officially since on one successful summit bid he did not have permission to be on the mountain) died on a lesser peak while we were in Annapurna under a deluge of avalanche snow. But I digress -- back to our caravan -- before we set out we stopped in Ram's village so he could get his things, say goodbye to his wife, and pick up his sister who wanted to go to Kathmandu. Then on the second day Ram ran into a friend of his (who happened to be an upstart photographer who had amazing photos of snow leopards in the wild) and he joined us. That same day we also picked up 2 other sherpas heading to Kathmandu. By the last day we were 7 in all. We took our rests breaks together, eating oranges on stone walls alongside the trail, and ate dal bhat in a small hovel by the warm, buzzing glow of a kerosene lamp. We also road the bus together. That is for another blog. This one is long enough.
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