If I’d thought the hard part was over, I was sadly mistaken. Snow gave way to rock and ice, and lots of it. We scrambled down boulders the size of cars, some of them even moved at the touch, a most concerning realisation.
‘Please don’t kill me,’ Subash said from below.
‘Only if I don’t kill myself first.’
I fell hard on several occasions. Everyone did. It was perhaps a little harsh, but when I saw one of the porters fall it made me feel pretty good. It wasn’t just me. I think the only person that didn’t fall was Nima, who was already a tiny speck nearing the bottom of the slope. How did he do it?
About three-quarters of the way down, the dreaded thing happened. I slipped on a vertical, icy drop, except that my right knee stayed where it was while the rest of me came crashing down. It twisted in a sickening way, and I felt all kinds of unnatural grinding and carrying on. The trip had been a bit of a risk from the very beginning as I was attempting it with a ruptured posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) in my right knee, remnants of an old rugby injury.
I lay there with my leg on the upwards slope, the rest of me sitting in a pool of water between two jagged rocks. I dared not move. I looked around to see if anyone had seen me fall (funny the things I sometimes worry about). Subash was too far ahead, and I was shielded from the porters above me by an over-hanging cliff-face. I moved my knee slowly, bending it to see the extent of the damage. It was sore, but I didn’t think it was damaged (any more than it already was).
I stood on it slowly, and at first, it was as though someone had jabbed a knife straight into the side. I took the weight off of it and tried again with the same reaction, only this time it wasn’t as bad. Standing on my left leg I reached for my bag and had a gulp of water. I tried again. This time it was just sore, with no shooting pains. Well thank God for that!
I carried on, as cautious as ever, and somehow managed to negotiate that awful section of rock without too much more drama. The rocks turned to dirt, which I didn’t mind sliding down on my arse. And then something remarkable happened. We joined the valley floor and it was flat. I’m not talking Nepali flat. This was Australian flat. It was wonderful. For perhaps 3 kilometres we walked on flat, flat ground, the only obstacle being about six inches of snow; but the trekkers that headed the other way in the morning had left us the perfect path. I had a sore knee and a slight limp, but I was having fun again.
After another half an hour we came to a bit of a rise. Not much, but it was a testament to how much the pass had taken out of me that even the slightest ascent almost brought me to tears. It was really hard again. We weren’t climbing up a mountain, but more of a gigantic mound on the middle of the valley floor. It may have even been terminal moraine if you want to talk technical. It took close to 20 minutes with me doing the ‘10 step equals 10 second break’ routine before we came over a gentle rise and saw the tiny town of Dzong La nestled on another area of flat ground. Subash took off ahead, I assumed to get my room sorted for when I eventually stumbled in. Once I finally joined him he said, ‘Ok man, Koreans staying in the other one tonight, we staying in this one. No one going to disturb you tonight.’
I could have hugged him.
I flopped into the lodge, banging my head in the process on the door frame that stood only four feet from the ground. I ordered a pot of masala tea, which was the nicest thing I’ve ever drank, even with my nose dripping into the cup. Two other men were in the dining room. They were kitted out in Korean beanies, with Korean patches sewn onto their jackets and trousers. They were dressed exactly the same as the ‘other’ Koreans. I panicked at first, but as I walked in they bowed to me and didn’t say a word. They were different. I calmed down instantly.
They turned out to be mountain climbers, immediately obvious from their boots. They were climbing Choletse (6440m, 21128ft), the mountain right next to us, and were using this lodge as their base camp, 4800m above sea level. They didn’t make a peep all night. I wished them luck as we walked out of camp the next morning, and not really understanding me, they just said ‘Namaste!’ and bowed their heads once more. I apologised in my head for stereotyping all Koreans as noisy and self-centred, and stepped out into the fresh morning snow, headed for Everest Base Camp.
Chapter Sixteen
To Gorak Shep and a change of plans
A few things happened this morning that were to shape the rest of the trip. First of all, Subash realised that we needed to steam roll ahead to stay on schedule. We were meant to get to EBC that day and shoot back down to Gorak Shep to spend the night. The following morning was the steep and draining climb of Kallar Pathar to get a glimpse of Everest, before heading back to Lobuche to sleep in preparation for the third pass the following morning, the somewhat scary Kongma La. After that we’d have to put in some long days in order to get all the way back to Lukla on the 26th of March for our flight back to Kathmandu.
What immediately became obvious that morning was that I was very tired from the pass the day before. Nay, I was exhausted. It was a fairly easy ramble to Lobuche, but by the time we got there I could barely take another step, let alone climb up to Base Camp that same day. Subash had been setting a real hot pace all morning, and I simply could not keep up. In the end I became a bit fed up of him, and just dropped off the pace, walking at my own speed. I found myself all alone for long periods of time. Except I wasn’t entirely alone. I had Ama Dablam and Cholotse for company. I had them all to myself. You could do far worse.
We climbed high before joining the main Everest Base Camp path, and once again I expected to see a long trail of people training to see Everest, but I was once again impressed to see nothing but snow and mountains for as far as the eye could see. I was blessed with my first glimpse of Pumori, standing majestically at the end of yet another valley. We walked down to connect with the path, which stood over the other side of a great snowfield that we duly wandered across.
As we joined the main path we were passed by perhaps a dozen trekkers heading in the opposite direction. I was, as usual, just wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt; and as usual I was over-heating. I am a hairy man, so I had a built-in down-jacket. I passed two weird-looking German girls, one of whom said, ‘Ooooh tough man!’ In quite a weird German voice. I didn’t know if she was being sarcastic or not, and I was of course way too tired to find out.
We strolled into the little village of Lobuche, essentially a collection of lodges and shops. Lobuche could adequately be described by the two words ‘shit pit’, which is a shame because its situation is breath-taking, nestled between some of the greatest mountains in existence. Lobuche Peak rises dramatically behind the town, while Nuptse dominates the other side of the valley. Yet here was Lobuche, crap everywhere and filthy. I stepped into an empty, wooden dining hall with typical expedition-based memorabilia plastered on every visible surface and ordered a bowl of noodle soup. I sat there, kind of dumbfounded that I was no longer walking. It felt like I’d been on the go for days without rest.
‘Subash I think we’re gonna have to rethink the schedule,’ I said.
‘You is looking the very tired.’
‘26 days to do the pass, I think no way. Not with being sick and an extra acclimatisation day.’
‘Ok so we take 28 days, have an extra rest day in Lobuche, then go over pass.’
‘We’d have to re-arrange the flights then.’
‘Man this is a no problems. This is my a job.’
‘The problem is that only gives me a day and a half to explore Kathmandu and the valley. I wanted longer than that,’ I pondered.
‘What you want me do?’ he asked, a little exasperated.
I thought for a second then said, ‘Nothing. Don’t do anything. Let me eat my noodles and drink my tea, then I’ll tell you.’
All I could think about was the Cho La pass. How lucky we were to get across it. Less than a week before we tackled it, it was closed, and I could see why. The snow was treacherously deep in parts, particularly on the upper, steeper slopes. I�
�m no expert, but the whole situation cried ‘avalanche’ to me. Combine that with the rock falls on the other side of the pass walls, and I’d say it was not altogether a safe climb. But I had to get back to the schedule. What was I going to do? Something had to give.
‘So you reckon this Kongma La Pass is harder and more dangerous than Cho La?’ I asked.
‘Yes of course,’ Subash answered, but then he uncharacteristically stared at the ground. Even the mention of Kongma La brought about a change in the guides. They’d immediately stop speaking English, but would converse in their own tongue, in hushed voices and urgent whispers. It scared them. ‘Kongma La only just open. Much snow up there and because it’s 5535 metres and this time of years, the snow is freezing on loose rocks. This is a dangerous pass now.’
‘Ok where’s your map Subash?’ he fumbled around in his bag for a minute, then rolled it out on the table before us. ‘Ok so we’re here, and we stay here tonight. Then Everest Base Camp tomorrow morning, but how are we going for time if we miss the Kongma La pass?’
‘Man this is your destinies. You must go over the pass.’
‘Two things mate. First is that I went over Renjo La and Cho La, both after rest days and both times I only just got over. Now you want to take me over the hardest one without a rest day? I don’t think I’d be able to do it. Second, this isn’t my destiny. To climb over a pile of rocks. I have been doing that for 23 days now. I am not that ambitious or goal orientated like some people, who would consider it a failure of a trip if they didn’t climb something they said they were going to climb. So don’t feel bad man, because I don’t. And you said there was nothing to see up there right?’
‘Yes there is no good views from there, no. Only glacier. Good view from Renjo La, but no Kongma La.’
‘Sorted. It’s good too because I’ll get to see some of the villages from the Everest Base Camp trek that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.’
It was amazing. The mood immediately lightened and Subash and Nima went back to being their normal selves. They were relieved. We hadn’t heard of or met anyone that had been over the Kongma La this season, which is unusual because we met heaps of people tackling the other two passes. Subash told me afterwards he was very worried about breaking a new trail on that pass.
We went and sat upstairs in the sunroom that doubled as some kind of weird waiting room for a couple of leaking loos. It was awkward when we’d be sitting there, keeping warm with the sun’s rays streaming in through the large, glass windows, and someone would stroll down the corridor and give us a mortified look because we were sitting metres from a toilet separated from the room only by a thin, rickety old door with a coat-hanger for a lock. They’d enter, and we’d politely listen to all the accompanying noises while pretending we hadn’t heard a thing. Nima sprawled himself out and was immediately in a coma.
‘Nima is really tired,’ I said while snapping a multitude of photos of the sleeping Sherpa.
‘Yes of course, we is all a tireds,’ Subash answered.
‘Really?’ I asked, unsure if he was being serious.
‘Yes man!’ he shouted, a little unexpectedly. ‘Of course, we been trekking for more than 3 weeks.’
I guess I had just viewed Subash and Nima as superhuman. Their strength in times of adversity was just mind boggling to me. I would not have made it very far without them, I can assure you now.
A group of Estonians flooded the little dunny foyer and the room became uncomfortably crowded. At one stage Subash announced he was leaving, but a big eastern European hand was placed firmly on his shoulder and the thickly accented voice of the owner said, ‘Sit, sit, no problem. Soon we go shopping and leave you in peace.’
Shopping in Lobuche. Very funny. Subash was swayed by the man, but I was having none of it, so I retired to my shit hole of a room, got into bed and went to sleep. I was out for a good two hours before I awoke, realised I was still in Lobuche, sighed, then went back to sleep again. When I finally awoke, it was to little knocks on the door, and I could hear Nima’s voice whispering that I should come downstairs for dinner. I went, ate a disgusting bowl of spaghetti, which was just spaghetti and tomato ketchup that had been diluted with water. It was vile, but I ate it, needing the carbs. I then drank a delicious cup of ginger, lemon and honey tea (or maybe it was just delicious because everything else was a let-down) and then went back to my room and wrote until my laptop ran out of battery. I folded it and put it away, turned off my little two-watt light and went to bed once more.
We were high now. About 4900m above sea level, and it really began to show. I’d wake in the night and be gasping for air as my breathing naturally slowed down. Even when I wasn’t gasping for air, I just couldn’t gain any continuity with my sleeping. It was 20 minutes on, wake up, lay there for a while, go back to sleep, repeat. And so I passed the night. It was really cold too. Just thought I’d throw that in there. It is hard to sleep when you can’t expose a single body part to the cold, because if you do, the cold lets you know about it very quickly.
*Do you ever struggle to sleep all night, and then as soon as the sun begins to come up you just conk out? Well that’s what happened to me in Lobuche and I awoke, yet again, with soft Nima taps at the door imploring me to come downstairs for breakfast. And that’s all the mention that breakfast gets I’m afraid. It looked like dog shit and quite frankly that probably would have been an improvement. I drank an entire large pot of tea instead, packed my bag incredibly slowly, gasped for breath as I shoved my sleeping bag away, then just kind of sat at the end of my bed, a little deflated, just waiting for the inevitable arrival of Nima to collect my bag.
I hadn’t even put my boots on yet. They were literally frozen solid and it didn’t look like much fun. I could have sat there all day in a state of bliss, but I knew we had to keep on moving. It was Base Camp day, and I should have been enthused, but I just could not recover at this altitude. Nima showed up and I was forced into action. I cursed as I put my feet into the freezer that was my boots, attempted to lace them up, but got them nowhere near tight enough, and with boots rubbing at the heel I slumped up and trudged downstairs into a less than impressive hazy day.
The going from Lobuche was pretty steady. We weren’t out to break any land speed records after all. At first the ground slanted up, but ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly. What was, however, entirely perceptible was the lack of oxygen, which made itself abundantly clear after only a few steps on flat ground. So I plodded, and plodded well. We made pretty good time. After a while Nuptse began to really increase in size in our right-hand flank, while Pumori shrank below a mound of moraine. Then we were standing at the foot of that moraine, and the path went straight up it. This is going to be hard, I thought, and guessed correctly. A few steps and I was buggered. I looked up and saw, of all people, the Koreans just ahead of me. Not the nice, quiet Koreans, but my mortal enemies. Wow, they were struggling. More than me. Their pain gave me strength and I powered past them, flicked my beard in the breeze while the sparkle of the sun glinted from my eyes, and then I raised my middle finger.
Of course the exertion to get past them left me light-headed and delirious. I struggled up and up despite it being the most mediocre of hills. When eventually on top I collapsed on a rock and gulped for air. Once I’d had enough of that I gulped at my water bottle to remove my tongue from the roof of my mouth after it had assumed a super-glue impression. Then I gulped for air once more, paying the price for not breathing while drinking. I stared at Subash and he stared back. We were both breathless.
Too much talking and no makes it, he seemed to say to me. So silently I stood, nodded, hoisted my pack and hauled my heavy arse slowly forwards. The Koreans had just taken the hill and looked at me with wonder as I carried on walking and they collapsed on rocks and struggled for air and water. We carried on up through the moraine. It was a lot of up and down on a thin trail of loose dirt and rocks, but mostly it was up. We did have a few hundred metres to ascend to the last village, Go
rak Shep. I synced my breathing with my stride - one breath, one step, breathe out, another step. Repeat. It was unreal that so much breathing was required for such a small output of work. One breath, a very deep diaphragm-inducing breath, and all I had to show for it was two steps at barely a metre. At least it was comfortable and it allowed me to poke along the track.
After an hour or so we climbed up onto a bit of lateral moraine higher than anywhere else on the track, and standing before us was the Khumbu Glacier in all its glory, smashing and grinding its way down the valley. It was different, the Khumbu Glacier. All the others that I had seen were pig-ugly masses of dirty, black ice, but this one, formed at the knees of Everest herself, was clean and white and reflected the sun so efficiently that it was impossible to stare at it without sunglasses on. At the base of a large rock buttress, and indeed scattered over more stable parts of the glacier, were tiny yellow and orange tents. They were far away, probably another 5-6 kilometres as the crow flies, but I knew immediately what I’d seen. Everest Base Camp. The end of the track.
I struggled on and was eventually overtaken by the Estonian crew.
‘See this man?’ asked Subash’s mate from the day before. ‘He is superman.’
‘Superman, really?’ I wanted to know.
‘Yes he is 75 years old.’
And he was overtaking me with a full pack on his back. Bravo, sir. The bloke looked about 60.
I vowed not to let him out of my sight, and spent the rest of the walk to Gorak Shep tailing the man of steel. We took great care to descend the final track into Gorak Shep. It was probably only a vertical 30m drop, but snow from the night before was somewhat incredulously beginning to melt and it was quite slippery. We strolled along flat ground into a lodge, which shall remain nameless, solely because Subash assured me that all the lodges were equally as shit as each other, and my mum always used to say, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’
The Nepali Flat Page 12