Several people have asked me if I'm happy to be healthy again, now that I'm back. Although the cough is still lingering, it is not unexpected that it''ll be around for a few more weeks. I tend to believe that people do not fully realize the extent of my Everest obsession. I knew exactly how sick I could be on the trip.
Since reading Into Thin Air, I have probably read every book or magazine article that was ever published related to the 1996 Everest disaster. Has to be well into the hundreds...I have seen every film and documentary too, multiple times. Ive looked at so many photos online and read so many mountaineering and trekking blogs and journals that I know far too much about Everest and trekking to base camp than any sane person ought to know. It was like hiking in a world that I, in some capacity, had visited before. I fully expected that I would be extremely sick somewhere along the way, whether it was due to poor sanitation or the climate. The mountains are unforgiving, they do not care who you are, how much your trip is costing you, or what your health history is. Have I mentioned that before? Altitude sickness can strike anyone, even someone who has a lot of mountain experience, even after never having any symptoms on any previous trips. As you ascend and begin to feel unwell, your mind can't help but wonder what it will progress into. The rescue helicopters that break the silence during the day are a constant reminder that you are not in control in this environment. When you get above 10,000 ft., nothing heals, either. So if you have a slight cold or a headache at lower altitude? Its not going to get better in a few days. Again, you expect and prepare for the worst but hope for the best. You can take care of yourself by being in good physical condition, hydrating, consuming lots of calories, using a buff to cover your mouth, climbing slow and acclimatizing as needed, but luck is still a huge factor. I absolutely knew the possibilities and expected every symptom that would happen along the way to people in our group. The insomnia was somewhat worse than I anticipated. But certainly not unexpected. Its challenging to be physically exhausted, losing brain cells at 17,000 feet and climbing for 6-7 hours a day on only 2-3 hours of sleep, fighting bronchitis. But to have escaped with ONLY bronchitis and insomnia while capturing my dream? I am a lucky, lucky girl.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Missing Nepal, aka The Turn-Around Time Is Quicker Than Childbirth
I do love my 5:30 a.m. Spin class at the gym! Love, love, love the energetic instructor Leslie. But when she screamed at the class to put our heads down and just CLIMB! I had to laugh, Climb. I've been doing that a lot lately! And then she said, BREATHE! and I chuckled. Yes, breathing is very, very important, I recently had that idea reinforced somewhere. It seems that no matter what is happening to me during the day that I am relating it to something that happened on my trip. Watching the entitled suburban drivers on the highways here made me think of how the Nepali drivers are actually very patient. Granted, it's a game of Frogger when you try to cross the street in Kathmandu, but they are patient and kind people, even as drivers, and when you start to cross the intersections, they stop for you to scurry pass. The only rule is "don't make any sudden moves". I'll try to find an instructional video on Youtube that shows you...
I'm missing lots of things about Nepal this week. Its similar to childbirth where right afterwards, you swear youll never do it again, but then you gradually reconsider. At the Rum Doodle we talked about how much money someone would have to pay us to make us turn around the next day and do the trek again. I said $5,000. By the time I got back to the United States, it was just someone paying for my trip. This week? Its almost as if I should contacting Mountain Madness to see when the next group is leaving and if there's space for me. And maybe I'd like to go higher this time! Ahh, how soon we forget...
There, I was a person in the midst of the quiet mountains. No traffic, no media, no obligations, no nothing. Just me and my dream. I could hear the stones crunch under my boot with each step and I listened to myself breathe into the fabric around my neck that kept the dust out. The noisiest thing I can think of was a passing yak's bell or someone coughing in the next bed. Here it is sensory overload everywhere I turn.
I can't seem to make my Milk Tea the same as RamKaji did for me every morning. I miss Sila's inquiry of "Pleeze, Milk?" at breakfast.
I miss mindlessly picking up my heavy pack and throwing it on my shoulders and just walking, walking, walking...
I miss the string of "Namaste" greetings we get from people we pass on the trail.
I miss the friends and the laughs we shared along the way.
I'm missing lots of things about Nepal this week. Its similar to childbirth where right afterwards, you swear youll never do it again, but then you gradually reconsider. At the Rum Doodle we talked about how much money someone would have to pay us to make us turn around the next day and do the trek again. I said $5,000. By the time I got back to the United States, it was just someone paying for my trip. This week? Its almost as if I should contacting Mountain Madness to see when the next group is leaving and if there's space for me. And maybe I'd like to go higher this time! Ahh, how soon we forget...
There, I was a person in the midst of the quiet mountains. No traffic, no media, no obligations, no nothing. Just me and my dream. I could hear the stones crunch under my boot with each step and I listened to myself breathe into the fabric around my neck that kept the dust out. The noisiest thing I can think of was a passing yak's bell or someone coughing in the next bed. Here it is sensory overload everywhere I turn.
I can't seem to make my Milk Tea the same as RamKaji did for me every morning. I miss Sila's inquiry of "Pleeze, Milk?" at breakfast.
I miss mindlessly picking up my heavy pack and throwing it on my shoulders and just walking, walking, walking...
I miss the string of "Namaste" greetings we get from people we pass on the trail.
I miss the friends and the laughs we shared along the way.
Dreams
"There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, Ive got dreams, of course I've got dreams.' Then they put that box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there." --Erma Bombeck
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Why?
Maybe its best summed up by Sir George Leigh Mallory who actually summited Mt. Everest...
"So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle of life itself is forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for".
"So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle of life itself is forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for".
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Timing is everything...
2500 trekkers are currently stranded in Lukla, Nepal because bad weather has not allowed flights in or out!
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/11/04/Tourists-stranded-in-Nepal/UPI-27181320444574
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/11/04/Tourists-stranded-in-Nepal/UPI-27181320444574
Friday, November 4, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Tea Time in the Himalayas
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Out my window in Namche Bazaar
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Check out these links!
My friend Chris got his very own article!
http://www.ourmidland.com/news/article_71b47020-a5fd-5770-a6d4-52dfcd431127.html
And, my friend Jon has an awesome blog from our trip with some spectacular photos.
Even a photo of me smiling! http://everest.jonwist.net/
http://www.ourmidland.com/news/article_71b47020-a5fd-5770-a6d4-52dfcd431127.html
And, my friend Jon has an awesome blog from our trip with some spectacular photos.
Even a photo of me smiling! http://everest.jonwist.net/
All you really need in life is oxygen, water and some chapstick with a high SPF
"The lust for comfort murders the passions of the soul." --Khalil Gibran
After my face cracked, peeled and bled at 18,000 feet from blowing my nose too much and being exposed to the elements, it's finally healing. I keep examining my skin in the mirror and I'm pretty sure its never looked better. Or felt softer. Is it because I'm back in the land of moisture content? Or does it feel that way because its been hidden under layers of clothing for weeks and I just have forgotten what skin feels like? Either way, I'm fascinated. Getting up for work today, the house was set at a balmy 64 degrees. It felt like an Alabama summer afternoon in the bedroom. As I waited for the shower to heat up (!), I realized that I was about to get in and I wasn't even shivering. This is how a shower at 16,000 feet (highest elevation that I took a shower) goes: Dangle your soap and camp towel from a rusty hook, take off all of your fleece, leave on your flip flops, ready, go! The warm water trickles out from a small tube attached to a barrel on the roof. You race to scrub every inch of yourself as fast as you can so you can get a once over of a rinse before your teeth start to chatter. You try not to look down at the "shower floor" because its so disgusting. And oh my God, you're wearing the same flip flops you trudge to the squat toilet in every night, the same toilet that people routinely "miss", ahem... You try to get re-dressed while standing on one leg so as not to get your "clean" pants wet from touching the ground. In the end you don't care because you've "cleaned" the top layer of grime away. There are no mirrors anywhere to see yourself anyway. Your beauty regimen consists of slathering the face and ears with SPF 50. Or REI GLUE as some called it. No need to pluck the eyebrows or even check them...nothing grows at this altitude anyway. It's funny that during the trip I once wore my winter hat for 3 days straight, even to sleep. When I took it off, my hair was a matted rats nest, so I just put the hat back on again. When we finally got back to the Yak and Yeti in Kathmandu I think many of us were shocked at our reflection in the mirror. All of the guys on the trip had full beards by the time we returned. We'd all lost a ton of weight. When we finally came down to dinner, it was like seeing a whole new group of people. The women all had makeup on and blow dried hair. The men had all shaved. We all had a previoiusly unseen set of clean clothes on! Thank God for the small things in life.
After my face cracked, peeled and bled at 18,000 feet from blowing my nose too much and being exposed to the elements, it's finally healing. I keep examining my skin in the mirror and I'm pretty sure its never looked better. Or felt softer. Is it because I'm back in the land of moisture content? Or does it feel that way because its been hidden under layers of clothing for weeks and I just have forgotten what skin feels like? Either way, I'm fascinated. Getting up for work today, the house was set at a balmy 64 degrees. It felt like an Alabama summer afternoon in the bedroom. As I waited for the shower to heat up (!), I realized that I was about to get in and I wasn't even shivering. This is how a shower at 16,000 feet (highest elevation that I took a shower) goes: Dangle your soap and camp towel from a rusty hook, take off all of your fleece, leave on your flip flops, ready, go! The warm water trickles out from a small tube attached to a barrel on the roof. You race to scrub every inch of yourself as fast as you can so you can get a once over of a rinse before your teeth start to chatter. You try not to look down at the "shower floor" because its so disgusting. And oh my God, you're wearing the same flip flops you trudge to the squat toilet in every night, the same toilet that people routinely "miss", ahem... You try to get re-dressed while standing on one leg so as not to get your "clean" pants wet from touching the ground. In the end you don't care because you've "cleaned" the top layer of grime away. There are no mirrors anywhere to see yourself anyway. Your beauty regimen consists of slathering the face and ears with SPF 50. Or REI GLUE as some called it. No need to pluck the eyebrows or even check them...nothing grows at this altitude anyway. It's funny that during the trip I once wore my winter hat for 3 days straight, even to sleep. When I took it off, my hair was a matted rats nest, so I just put the hat back on again. When we finally got back to the Yak and Yeti in Kathmandu I think many of us were shocked at our reflection in the mirror. All of the guys on the trip had full beards by the time we returned. We'd all lost a ton of weight. When we finally came down to dinner, it was like seeing a whole new group of people. The women all had makeup on and blow dried hair. The men had all shaved. We all had a previoiusly unseen set of clean clothes on! Thank God for the small things in life.
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