Death in the Mountains

But not all trekkers are as lucky as (or is it as tough?) as Miles.  Which brings me to the subject of death in the mountains.  Much of my trek felt faintly morbid as I encountered signs and stories of how the mountains always have the last word.  While climbers might love the mountains, the mountains don't always reciprocate.

On three separate occasions, I saw “missing” posters that chilled me to the marrow.  The format was pretty much the same on all of them – some wraithlike, hollow-eyed figure stared out from the bill – a photo from when the person was last seen alive – with words below to the effect that he had last been seen in the vicinity of village x heading for village y.  Since then no word had been received nor trace of him found.  Any information leading to his recovery (living or dead) would be greatly appreciated.  I shuddered when I considered such cases – of the lonely, freezing demises they must have suffered.  Of heartbroken parents sitting at home waiting desperately for news.

Then there was a chat I had with my guide Madan the night before we left Kathmandu.  This was his 91^st  outing to the Everest region and he had recently returned from a trek on the Annapurna Circuit.  Nearly six weeks after a cyclone had killed over 42 people in a single night, Madan and two clients had discovered the body of a Nepalese herdsman behind a rocky outcrop on the Thorung La.  The route, which had seen so much tragedy, was still littered with jettisoned gear – a chilling reminder of the terror and tragedy that accompanied that panic- stricken retreat from the summit.

Yet the most piercing reminder of man’s utter vulnerability to the whim of the mountains (and, I suppose, to his own unfettered ambitions as well) came 6 days out from Lukla when we arrived at an exposed outpost called Thukla.  Wedged between a trio of 6000m peaks and with sweeping views of the Lobuche Khola, Thukla boasts a single lodge with a tearoom.  We stopped there for a glass of lemon tea before undertaking a tortuous climb up the pass to the village of Lobuche.

The climb comes to an abrupt end on a serene meadow whose grassy expanse is heavily punctuated with cairns and memorials to mountaineers who have died on Everest.  I’d read much about the Mountaineers Memorial and was looking forward to seeing it.  But now that I was there, things didn’t feel right.  You could argue this is all part of the mountain’s history – that for decades a lot of very brave and sometimes reckless adventurers have accepted the risk that comes with climbing and that such risk all to often results in death.  Yet Deaths on Everest – certainly the ones I’ve read about – have a tendency to be almost tabloid in their ability to capture the public’s imagination. I couldn’t fight the feeling that I was somehow bingeing on the misfortune of the dead not to mention intruding on the collective grief of the loved ones who’d been left behind.

View east from the Mountaineers Memorial atop the Thukla Pass

When I came to the memorial stone of Scott Fisher, a one time commercial guide on Everest and, some would say, one of the greatest climbers of his generation, I couldn’t bring myself to take a photo.  If you have read John Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air”, you’ll know all about Scott.  His death in a killer storm on May 10 1996, as well as that of his friend and competitor Rob Hall, serves as a reminder of all that is wrong with Everest.  Rampant commercialism, reckless ambition and a desire to summit no matter the cost or moral compromise. 

I also came across the heartbreaking epitaph for the legendary Sherpa mountaineer Babu Chiri.  His epitaph remembers his achievements three of which are records (and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future):

·      Reached the summit of Everest 10 times

·      Reached the summit twice in 2 weeks (record)

·      Spent 21 hours on the summit without oxygen in 1999 (record)

·      Fastest summit on Everest – 16 hours and 56 minutes (record)

Babu Chiri died after a fall into a crevasse on 29 April, 2001.

For the remainder of the walk to Lobuche I pondered whether mountains like Everest were supposed to be climbed in the first place.  At very least, I thought, Ed Viesturs’ famous admonition to climbers should be immortalized alongside the other cairns in that lonely meadow:  “Getting to the top is optional.  Getting home, mandatory”

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.

Everest Trek - the Flight to Lukla

For the trekker flying from Kathmandu to Lukla - starting point for treks into the Everest region - the experience is not unlike a military operation.  The deciding factor in its success is the weather and when that fickle window opens, it’s a mad rush to get as many planes into the air and boots on the ground as possible.  Between the aircraft taxiing to a halt on the apron at Lukla and its takeoff no more than six minutes later, the plane disgorges 18 passengers and their gear; bundles of mail, bags of rice and other oddments – and then re-loads with an outgoing consignment of passengers and their gear.  A minute after that plane is airborne, the next one is inbound.  When the weather is good (“good” meaning at least 5000m of visibility), Lukla Airport receives and dispatches over 60 flights – most of them before lunchtime (which is roughly when conditions begin to deteriorate).  When it’s not, I’m told the resulting bottleneck can last for days.  Everyone obsesses about the weather when it comes to flights in and out of Lukla: at the start of one’s trek because one can’t wait to start the trip of a lifetime, at the end because one can’t wait to get back to civilisation. 

Lukla Apron - pic courtesy of Himalayanworkshops.com

The journey to Lukla begins at 5am amidst the darkened, moldering tenements of Kathmandu’s Thamel District.  The city sleeps late so the streets are eerie and deserted - only the occasional stray is witness to the nervous huddle of travellers waiting on the pavement for their taxi.  The experience progresses to the heavily congested domestic terminal of Tribuvhan airport and, weather permitting, concludes an hour or so later on the gloomy, windswept apron of, (according to the History Channel), “the most extreme airport in the world”.  It is a transformative experience:  the senses, still reeling from the chaos and filth of Kathmandu, are now besieged by the sheer immensity of the Himalayan massif not to mention the landing itself which, even in professional circles, is regarded as audacious.  Then of course there’s the clamour of porters jostling like an army of impatient fishermen hoping to hook a client.  There’s the crisp, thin air and the rolling green hills of the lower Khumbu valley, which, anywhere else, would easily qualify as mountains.  Here they are just hills.

Tenzing-Hillary Airport, gateway to Everest and the staging area of high adventure.  But also of great tragedy.  Built in the late 60s and only tarred in 2000, the place has seen its fair share of accidents.  Seven of the 10 recorded on Wikipedia took place between 2005 and 2009, the worst of which led to the deaths of two Yeti Airlines crewmembers and an entire party of German trekkers.  Only the pilot survived.   They are remembered on a chorten beside the path to Phakding just beyond the town gate.

So it was with relief that we exited the Tara Airlines De Havilland Twin Otter and stepped out onto the apron – relief and extreme exhilaration because the landing eclipsed even my wildest memories of roller coasters I’ve ridden.  As I paused, I noticed an outgoing group of trekkers being buffered in the propwash.  Unkempt and with the faces of one or two of them bearing a vaguely haunted look, the moment reminded me of that opening scene in Platoon in which the new recruits disembark on the runway at Saigon – all clean and innocent in their drab combat gear - only to encounter a detachment of hollow-eyed, battle-hardened grunts.  “What horrors lie in store?” they wonder.

But there was little time to think too much about it – no sooner had we stepped up onto the high street, we were ushered into a cozy lodge where a hot cup of tea awaited us.  Half an hour later, after a few final adjustments to our gear, we hit the trail – destination Phakding – a small village 2.5 hours walk hence and a descent of about 300 metres into the Dudh Khosi Valley.  We would spend our first night there.