Everest Base Camp trek

Day 9– To Lobuche, EBC Trek

Stats: Dingboche (14,460′) to Lobuche (16,347′) . 5.9 miles. Lunch at Thukla. Overall elevation gain= 2320′. Net= 1,887′.

Once again, we are graced with bluebird skies as we trek uphill to a flat ridge. Mountains rise above us with snow-capped peaks in every compass direction. I turn in circles, filled with awe. We pass deserted stone crofts where trekkers stop to rest. The walking is easy in this section. For a bit.

Ahead there’s a hard slog up to the stupas that honor lost Everest expedition members. Mountainers such as world renown guide, Scott Fisher who died descending Everest in 1996 during a blizzard. Fisher refused to leave his weakened client and when his lead Sherpa radioed that a rescue was being mounted, Fisher threatened to throw himself off the precipice rather than endanger more lives. Eight people trapped in whiteout conditions were hammered by snow flying at 75 miles-an-hour. Temperatures plummeted and they died.

Too many climbers were on the mountain that day, slowing ascent. This is a frequent story and the main reason so many are dying at Everest. Too many permits. Too many people rushing to ascend. Delay’s eat up oxygen. This leads to many questions: What kind of drive makes such risks worthwhile? What do surviving parents, wives or husbands, and children feel about this? Climbing is an addiction of sorts.

In many relgions, the visual reminder of a stupa means inmortality. Prayer flags flap in the wind, gentle pleas for peace, rememberance and perhaps forgiveness. Here we are, standing on the rooftop of earth, not only experiencing the raw power of creation under our feet but feeling the spiritual creator in the surrounding air.

Leaving, we wind our way down to the river, where yaks stop to drink milky aquamarine water.

White boulders fill the lower plain, remmants of last monsoon’s flood. Now we climb back up and where the ridge levels, we stop for lunch at Thukla/Dughla. I sit drinking lemon-ginger tea and smile. The most difficult part of the day is behind us.

After lunch, we pass Lobuche base camp where orange tents dot the flood plain and a line of colorful trekkers dressed in rainbow colors cross to the start of the upward trail. It’s amazing to me that Everest is not the queen in the crown of technical mountaineering. There are many other peaks to conquor in this region that are more difficult. Our walk continues along the ridge line, with gentle elevation changes before we drop down to the small settlement of Lobuche. Tonight we’ll stay at Oxygen Altitude tea house. Appropriate name, since tonight we’ll sleep more than 3 miles above sea level.

To The Widow’s Village, EBC day 5

Namche Baazar (11,286′) to Phortse (12,598′)

Nepalise society doesn’t treat widows with compassion. Before 1970, a woman left alone was required to dress in white, drained of color and life. She becomes invisible and of the untouchable class. Of course, a man is allowed to remarry, a woman is not. Today, if a single man were to fall in love with a widow, his family would force them apart. In the moment of her greatest despair, any marital property can be taken away, unless she has a male child to inherit. With few resources for survival, many widows become prostitutes.

I am a widow and this abuse of women rips me apart. I want to scream from the mountain tops in anger. From the moment we are born until the day we die–everyone deserves to be wrapped in love. Today’s trek to the widows village of Phortse is very important to me and I’m so thankful that Himalayan Wonders arranged this stop.

Leaving Namche and walking uphill, I am rock solid and steady. My body rebounded overnight from yesterday’s altitude problems. Pacing is slow, more to take in the glorious views of Kongde Ri, Ama Dabiam, Taboche, and brilliant views of Mount Everest, Thamserku, and Nupste.

This is my church. This is pure meditation, as the route changes from rock cut steps to winding dirt paths. We arrive at a beautiful stupa, and I raise my hands, chanting om mani padme hum. Transform my impure body, speech and mind.

Unfortunetly, the place is crowded with trekkers and the holy epiphany I crave blows away on the wind. Turning my back I step down the trail, but glance over my shoulder. That’s when I see the partial sun-dog, a rare natural occurance that always makes me gasp with delight. God heard me.

The only disconcerting noise comes from endless clacking of helicopters as they zip past like pests in the narrow valley next to me. Every switchback holds joy. Eagles soar overhead and long haired Thar (Himalayan mountain goats) cling to steep hillsides. Yaks look on with blatant curiousity.

Our tea and pee break is at Kyangjuma and lunch at the packed Kulung teahouse, perched high above the snaking river with surrounding views of icecaps.

Far below, I can see Phortse and after lunch we will decend 1,300′ to cross the river….and then climb back up to the village. By now, we are resigned to the Nepalise fate of continual gain and loss. Sounds like life, right? The Buddhist lesson is vulnerability, perserverance, acceptance and grace.

The Widows village below and across the river.

Phortse is a Sherpa village of great importance. The world’s best climbing school as well as the greatest expedition climbers come from this Khumbu region of Nepal. How did this place become the village of widows? Because 3 times as many Sherpas die in mountain accidents rather than their clients. In 2014, sixteen Sherpas died at Everest. In 2015, another seventeen perished. That’s a lot of widows struggling to survive alone in a daily avalanche of hardship. Everest isn’t the most dangerous mounain in Nepal. It’s simply the one you hear blaring from international media.

Because Phortse is internationally recognized, these widows have been protected and charitable funds were gifted to help build trekkers tea houses and accomodations. This community has been given a beneficial hand.

Reaching the stone walls of town, I see several women planting their most famous and yummy potatoes– the best in the entire world. They look at me, and I become cognizent of their freedom and space. I observe them, confused by the projected negative emotions flooding over me. Tourists are a blessing and a curse. Right now, my intuition tells me that their patience is worn thin with daily disrespect. My camera remains anchored in the holder strapped across my chest. They are too far away to ask permission and I have too much respect for them.

EBC–Day 2–We Are Family (Phakding to Namche Baazar)

(This post is out of sequence. Look below for day #3)

Stats: 8 miles. 2,700’ elevation difference with 4,600’ gross overall elevation change.

We’d been in Phakding less than 16 hours but an important lesson is learned by the careful observer. Family is a priority of Nepalese life. Grandma takes care of the baby so the rest of the family cares for trekkers. It’s constant work at the tea houses, cooking and washing for every meal; cleaning rooms and washing sheets every day. They do so with such grace.

Boldly, I interfere in their inner sanctum–the rough kitchen–to get water from the kitchen tap for our groups filltration needs. Steam rises from battered pots and several family members (male and female) chop vegetables plucked from the garden. Amist the clacking of knives on wood cutting boards, easy conversations bounce around the room.

I envy the benefit of extended family living and working together and imagine that my life growing up would have been enriched with daily access to my grandparents or by having my siblings children raised in an extended family. Instead of one set of parents, we could have had many. It does take a village.

Our newly formed trekking family hit the trail. There’s peace in my heart as we weave through the day, the trail a literal warp and weft moving up and down with our feet firm as a wooden shuttle. Now, we are bound tight in the fabric of this experience.