Life on the trail

"In mountaineering perhaps more than most other activities, it is a golden rule to press on and on no account be dismayed by unfavourable impressions - to rub your nose, as it were, against the obstacle"

John Hunt, The Ascent of Everest

Maybe I’m getting old.  Maybe I’m getting soft.  There was a time when I could have easily metabolized the multitude of discomforts and vexations that accompany a trek of this nature.  Yet far from home I found I was easily spooked by even the smallest of them.  Has modern domesticity become so bloated with contentments that even the faintest shade adversity has the power to darken the moment?  Yet the fact remains - there is much that is foreign and even hostile about the Himalayan trekking experience.  Let me reflect for a while on these things.

First there is the cold – a chill with which those who live at sea level are completely unaccustomed.  Indeed, when it hits you are driven into a complete panic.  Take for example our first night in Phakding, a picturesque hamlet situated deep in the forests and terraced farmlands of the Dudh Khosi Valley.  The town lives in the almost permanent shadow of the great Tamserku peak and, nestled so close to the river, shivers permanently in a dank and slippery chill.  No sooner had the sun dipped below the valley rim, than the cold stole up from the river like a bandit, restraining me in the strait jacket of almost every warm item of clothing I had with me.  The temperature in my room dropped to 4 degrees.  An icy breeze shrieked through the Junipers and whistled into our living quarters through a bad join in the plywood paneling.

I dozed off only to awake just after midnight in the grip of a mild panic attack.  Clad in all my warm gear, I was overheating and could barely move my legs so tangled had they become in the lower reaches of my sleeping bag.  I tried to calm myself down by regulating my breathing but the heat persisted and I could not escape the sensation that somehow the treacly blackness was trying to strangle me.  Regaining my composure was a matter of extricating myself completely from the bag, ripping frantically at layer after layer of clothing until I was down to my underpants – and then returning to my bed. 

Yet sleep remained elusive – not just in Phadking but also in the towns that followed.  Was it that there was just too much stuff on my mind?  Was it sensory overload?  Or was it just a function of a lousy bed and the thinner air?  I suspect it was a conspiracy of all four variables.  Simply put, the higher we went, the worse the sleep.  It did not help that outside temperatures dropped to well below minus 10 Celsius – so cold in fact that a water bottle placed beside the bed would freeze over. 

Next there were the living conditions themselves.  The poky bedrooms of Himalayan trekking lodges and teahouses are primitive affairs that generally bear the humid funk of damp mattresses and stale urine, a signature smell that seems to pervade regardless of how well the place is maintained.  So spartan and gloomy are the bedrooms that unless you are incapacitated by diahorrea or mountain sickness, much of your downtime is spent in the lodge’s central eating area – usually a dimly lit hall with benches and tables lining the periphery.  These common areas are generally quite comfortable and can be fairly absorbing, the walls often bearing the autographs and pictures of famous adventurers who have passed through before.  Though not adventurers, our lodge in Namche Bazaar had once hosted Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Lama.  Amidst all that distinguished history, one felt caught up in the bloodstream of a creature far greater than oneself.

Another discomfort was, of course, the thin air which is easy to downplay until you consider that most of your horizontal walking (not to mention your actual climbing) is done at altitudes higher than Mt Blanc, Europe’s highest peak.  At lower altitudes, lodge dining rooms are usually a hub of cheerful banter as folk from all walks of life cast aside language and cultural barriers to congregate around hot food and the common quest for adventure and discovery.  In the lodges and bars of Namche Bazaar, Everest bound travellers can, in between mouthfuls of popcorn and beer, be seen chattering excitedly about the road ahead.  Here in a place called The Liquid Bar, we watched a movie about the 1996 Everest Disaster while chugging copious amounts of masala tea.  The Liquid Bar was a cozy place so despite the movie’s rather harrowing storyline, our spirits remained undampened.  The last time I heard such merriment however was at Tengboche where, at 3600m, the air still contained enough oxygen to buoy the spirits.  It was Thanksgiving in the USA and our American friend bought a round of beers to toast his new companions.  It was all very congenial indeed.

But things took on a very different complexion a night later at Dingboche where, at 4200m, there seemed to be a palpable dividing line separating buoyant excitement from bewildering exhaustion.  The race to multiply red blood cells – (so crucial to the process of acclimatisation) had begun.  However, as with all races, there would be winners and there would be losers.  About an hour outside Dingboche, the American succumbed to the rarefied conditions and continued to decline alarmingly until his evacuation the following day.  It began with diahorrea and ended up with a splitting headache and vomiting that not even the drug Diamox could fully control.  That night he lay like a mummy in his sleeping bag, unable to move and only capable of the most simple conversation. 

For those with milder symptoms such as headaches and shortness of breath, conversation waned markedly, the dining room suddenly as hushed as a public library.  While porters and guides sat around the communal stove talking in subdued tones, dazed and disorientated trekkers stumbled through the doorway, slumping onto the benches where they sat in a stupor, heads bowed, until the evening meal was served.  A Malaysian trekking party consisting of 8 people arrived 4 hours after us having endured a torrid day on the trail.  One of their number had been jostled down a slope by a yak and now lay in bed resting a sprained ankle.  The rest of them sat for most of the evening in almost total silence, thawing only slightly after supper.

While the American lay swaddled in his sleeping bag upstairs, our guide regaled us with stories of some of the more serious AMS cases he’d encountered.  In 2013, after arriving in the settlement of Lobuche with a team of American trekkers, one of his clients began exhibiting the symptoms of cerebral edema.  After instructing the man to take a dose of Diamox, Madan escorted him to his room encouraging a short nap and promising that he would be back in a few hours time to check up on his client.  Two hours later the man’s symptoms were dire, being unable to see the guide or recognize his voice.  Since a nighttime helicopter evacuation was out of the question, Madan and a porter decided to carry the man down to the hospital in Pheriche.  This didn’t mean a whole lot to us until we walked that very path a few days later on our own descent from base camp.  Our hike from Lobuche down two steep passes and an ancient moraine took a full 4 hours – and we didn’t have a fat American on our backs.  Exhausted, caked in sweat, grime and vomit, the trio arrived at Pheriche just after midnight where the man was stabilized before being evacuated at first light.  He was admitted to a Kathmandu hospital two hours later where he remained in an induced coma for 5 days.

Altitude is indeed a serious adversary not just because it can inflict horrible illness on people but because it has the potential to wreak havoc on one’s emotional disposition too.  And when it does the latter, it often affects relationships. 

You often see couples hiking in the Himalayas.  In the beginning they strike you as cheerful souls, united in their commitment to a great walk in the mountains. Days later however, the faces tell a very different story.  The fairer partner will often look haunted – sometimes even shell-shocked while the man, aware of the suffering his decision to bring her along has caused, looks sheepishly guilty.  “Of course it will grow us as a couple” he might have said when selling the trek to her three months before.  The following proves just how dangerous this logic can be.

For some days we’d been walking in the general orbit of an American couple and their support staff.  I didn’t warm to them, particularly to the man who, when we first met them on the Larja Bridge, answered my friendly greeting with little more than a grunt.  At first I thought he was just scared of heights but it’s probable he was just an ass.

Late in the afternoon after reaching Base Camp, I took a short stroll to the periphery of Gorak Shep’s great chalky basin.  In the rarefied air, even the slightest sound travelled down the rocky couloirs with piercing clarity.  To my left, I could hear laughter from the summit of Kalapattar, about 400 metres higher than where I stood.  The cause of the laughter turned out to be the unusual conduct of an Aussie trekker who, in response to a dare, had removed all his clothing (except for his boots and socks).  So cold was it that at first no one could make any firm pronouncement as to his gender.  Suffice it to say however, that when the news reached the Sherpa community at Gorak Shep there was an outcry.  As with all mountains so close to Everest, Kalappatar is holy ground and it was feared that the Aussie’s antics might have offended one or other of the deities that dwell up there.  He’s lucky to have gotten away with it but that’s another story.

Gorak Shep from Kalapattar

As I stood savouring another exquisite Himalayan dusk, an eruption of invective surged from the direction of the glacier.  I made my way towards it and then abruptly discerned the source.  About three hours earlier that day we’d met the American couple on our return from base camp.  They seemed more cheerful than usual with the woman giving us all high fives in congratulation for making it.  Now in gloaming about 200 metres away, she was sitting sullenly on a rock and refusing to move, all the while berating her porter and guide for a multitude of perceived indiscretions.  About 50 metres away sat her partner, head in his hands, now and again coughing up phlegm and spitting loudly.  He’d clearly given up on her.  I stood and observed the impasse for a while but eventually, as the real cold descended, decided it was none of my business anyway.  The next time I even thought of them was when I saw the man at the Sagamartha Park entrance near Monzo on our last day of the trek. 

“Where’s the lady” I asked the guide with a knowing wink. 

He smiled as though he knew I’d witnessed the meltdown at Gorak Shep. 

“She’s in Kathmandu” 

Registering my surprise, he informed me that the woman had requested an emergency evacuation the first thing the next morning – leaving her surly partner to walk home alone.  I saw the man a few days later in Thamel – still alone.  Clearly his lady friend hadn’t just flown back to Kathmandu but had made every effort to return stateside as well.  The relationship, I was sure, had irretrievably unraveled and while it would be simplistic to blame it all on the altitude and physical hardship, it suffices to say that there are certain holiday experiences that need to be declared out of bounds to couples.

As a final note on hardships, would any commentary be complete without even the smallest of excursions on the state of the toilet facilities?  In the interests of brevity, toilets in this region are always cramped contraptions…cramped, dark, smelly and almost invariably several degrees colder than the one’s sleeping quarters.  Since most of them required flushing by hand, a slippery patina of ice surrounded toilets at higher altitudes such that on more than a few occasions I almost took a nasty spill.  In towns like Lobuche and Gorak Shep, the bowls themselves had often frozen over and great padlocks were placed on the doors to prevent people using them.  A hastily scribbled sign affixed to the door encouraged people to make use the long drop outside.