IN THE SHADOW of MOUNT EVEREST
From landing at dangerous airports to rockin’ to a Queen legendary song, author BILL ZLATOS recounts his experience in Nepal
TKHUMBU REGION, NEPAL he helicopter whizzed through the mist over foothills — considered mountains in other countries — and landed at Lukla Airport.
We may have completed the most dangerous part of our trip.
As if to emphasize the point, the twisted wreckage of a small plane lay beside the runway. A week earlier, the plane veered on takeoff and slammed into a parked helicopter, killing three people and injuring four others. Such incidents give the airport, with its short runway ending in a nearly half-mile plunge, the title as most dangerous in the world.
“Namaste,” greeted our guide Subash Ghimire and his uncle, our porter Arjun Ghimire, of Malla Treks.
David Edgerton my significant other’s son-in-law, and I were beginning a 73-mile sojourn over 12 days to see Mount Everest, highest mountain in the world at 29,029 feet. We would hike 9,134 vertical feet, testing our endurance and soaking in the spirituality and beauty of the Himalayas.
Although we were not climbing Everest, we wanted to reach Kala Patthar, elevation 18,517 feet. That’s more than a half mile higher than anywhere between Maine and California.
To hell with my respiratory infection, my bum back and the stroke I had seven years earlier, I thought. I packed a small pharmacy of pills. It’s onward and upward.
Buddhism reigned
The first two days were overcast and drizzly but afterwards, blue skies and sunshine. In the peak season of springtime, trekkers crowded the trail. In compensation, blooming rhododendrons and lilies-of-the-valley splashed some color.
Buddhism reigned everywhere. We passed manis, huge boulders painted with Buddhist inscriptions. Stupas, dome-shaped shrines festooned with prayer flags, and cairns dotted the trail. We walked by prayer wheels on the left and spun them clockwise as is the custom. Families burned juniper outside their homes to ward off evil spirits.
We soon met our biggest danger. Cowbells rang the arrival of packs of horses, dzos — a cross between a yak and a cow — and yaks. Half-ton dzos and yaks could easily knock unwary hikers down the canyon to their death.
Without roads or vehicles in the villages, these shaggy creatures are the yak of all trades. They are the truck of the trail and the tractor of the farms. Yaks provide meat to eat and milk to drink. Their manure is dried on the roofs of homes to be fuel in stoves for heat.
We crossed eight steel suspension bridges and more fixed bridges on the way to base camp. The suspension bridges, four feet wide and a football field long, hung over boulder-strewn rivers hundreds of feet below. Sometimes, gusts of wind swayed the bridges so violently that I gripped the cables as I crossed.
Sherpas worked fields of potatoes and barley or performed construction jobs along the trail. Slightly built men and women stooped under heavy loads to deliver supplies. Still, they passed me on the trail.
Indomitable
On our first night in a lodge I met the indomitable Chris Arthey, who also was hiking to base camp.
On May 16, 2008, Mr. Arthey, an energy engineer in Texas, and his wife Denise, took a road trip on their Harley-Davidson Road King. A drunken driver going 80 mph crossed into their lane and struck them and a trailing truck.
All five persons were injured. The Artheys lost their left legs below the knee.
Within months, they learned how to walk with a prosthetic leg. Using a carbon fiber blade, Mr. Arthey summited Mt. Kilimanjaro and has run two marathons. He is awaiting publication of his autobiography.
On three occasions, the Artheys, who are originally from England, met the driver who injured them. Each time, he begged their forgiveness. Each time, relying on their Christian faith, they forgave him and did so without bitterness.
“Because we were able to forgive him, that freed us to get along with our lives,” Mr. Arthey explained.
They still keep in touch with him.
‘Healing trip’
We also met Luann Tammany of Big Sky, Mont., and Sally Darlin of Orlando, Fla. The two health care executives had met just once when Ms. Darlin divulged that she was grieving the unexpected death of her husband. Ms. Tammany invited the widow to join her trip to Nepal.
“I thought it would be a healing trip for both of us because she had been through a divorce,” Ms. Darlin said. “I immediately looked up where Nepal was.”
Ms. Tammany supports Tsering’s Fund, a charity that educates Nepalese girls to prevent sex slavery
After the hike, the ladies visited some of the charity’s schools and orphanages. They each sponsor a girl’s education.
When the girls arrive, Ms. Tammany said, “they are shells of human beings. After they’ve been in the program, they are new girls.”
We hiked into picturesque Namche Bazaar. My favorite village in the world, it rests in a bowl hemmed in on three sides by mountains.
Along the trail, we caught occasional glimpses of Everest or Sagarmatha, “Peak of Heaven,” as the Nepalese call it. But like the Nepalese, David and I prefer the twin peaks of Ama Dablam, which locals say resembles a mother protecting her child.
On the fourth day, we arrived at the Buddhist monastery in Tengboche. Inside the inner sanctum, burning incense cast an overpowering scent. Having removed my shoes, I padded through a curtained entrance and sat on the wooden floor.
Five monks in burgundy robes conducted the ceremony. The lead monk prayed in a low guttural voice while the others clanged cymbals, beat drums or played horns. Above the altar rested a golden statue of Buddha. The experience was otherworldly.
The markers
We reached Luklah pass where memorials draped in prayer flags honor those who died on Everest. The inscriptions on stone monuments ache with love and grief like the one for 25-year-old Trevor Eric Stokol of Dallas.
“May his soul be bound in the bond of eternal life,” his plaque said. “We love you and miss you.”
I felt a connection with the fallen though our dreams differed. I longed to see Everest. They longed to stand on it. I touched the markers of lost souls for their families who could not be there.
The bravery of these climbers inspired me; their deaths diminished me.
On the eighth day, we skirted Khumbu Glacier, a river of ice coated with gray stones. The thunder of falling rocks alerted us to miniature and harmless landslides.
The glacier eventually became the ominous Khumbu Icefall crisscrossed by crevasses with towering seracs. Crevasses could swallow climbers, and blocks of ice could fall and bury them.
The colorful tents of base camp finally appeared. We walked 40 minutes until we reached the dining tent of Deepak Ghimire.
Generally, trekkers do not enter base camp. We were lucky: Subash’s father is a cook there. It was an honor to walk amidst people who would scale Everest.
We ate one of Deepak’s meals in the dining tent with some Sherpas. It was the best meal we had on the trail.
Deepak takes pride in cooking for Everest climbers, but it’s a dangerous job. He survived the 2014 earthquake and the 2015 earthquake and avalanche. The latter killed more than 8,000 people in Nepal, including 19 in base camp. As a result, his family worries for him.
“Mostly, my wife. She prays for me,” Deepak said.
Surprisingly, one cannot see Everest from base camp, so the next day we headed for Kala Patthar, the summit of a ridge. We started the two-hour ascent before dawn. The moon aglow over the mountains, we crossed a dry lake bed and rose up a steep ridge. The trail flattened somewhat, then became rocky and steep.
Subash and Arjun grabbed my arms and for about 15 minutes steadied me up a mound of boulders. Atop the summit, prayer flags whipped in the wind.
Stretching beyond was a wondrous panorama of base camp tents and at least nine 20,000-footers, including Everest, Nuptse and Pumori. These giants stood out against a brilliant blue sky.
I felt a rush of pride. Mr. Arthey, who climbed Kala Patthar with another group, described the scene: “It was as if somebody had dropped boulders from the size of a shoebox to a small house, and they were like dumped in a heap. The top of Everest was so close it was like you could reach out and touch it.”
Yet Everest was 12 miles away. Its top, often buffeted by hurricaneforce winds, seemed without snow. Everest loomed black.
Rockin’
Over the next three days, we retraced our steps. David quickened his pace wearing a heavier pack to ease the burden on Arjun.
Subash turned on his digital music player. I trudged down the trail until a song by Queen energized me.
I tucked my ski poles under my arm and played air guitar to Brian May’s stirring solo. Swaying, I strummed the poles with bravado, making an absolute fool of myself. Subash, concerned I might tumble down the gorge, urged caution.
There in the forest, the solid schist, gneiss and limestone of the Himalayas towering above me, I felt free and alive like the lyrics that Freddie Mercury was singing.
“We will, we will rock you. We will, we will rock you.”