Beyond the summit: An Everest adventure and Romance

by Linda LeBlanc

  Dorje threw both hands up in frustration as the three headed out on stepping stones in the small stream flowing into the lake. “I have to go with them,” he told Beth, “but you stay here.”

  “I’d probably do better than they will since I’ve been here longer and live higher.”

  “I don’t want you to get sick too. Stay and tell the porters not to set up tents because we will use the huts tonight. There is some dried dung for fires. Now I will show the Norwegians what a real mountain is like instead of those hills they are so proud of.”

  When they disappeared from view, Beth gave a giant shrug and flapped her arms at her sides. Oh my. What to do? Standing alone in a cold, rocky wasteland surrounded by snow-capped peaks, she hoped Lhamu and the other porters would arrive soon. After surveying the place, Beth decided that as the sole guardian of five yak herders’ huts she might as well pick the best one for herself. All were dank and reeked of smoke. The first thing to do was air them out. She threw open the shutters on glassless windows and used rocks to prop the doors. “No shortage of stones around here,” she laughed as she rolled a boulder towards the last hut.

  Finally done and with arms akimbo, Beth smiled proudly and was wondering what to tackle next when Lhamu strode past the mani wall well ahead of her male companions. Finally! Running toward her, Beth waved her on to the huts and signaled to drop the doko there. Now the real test was convincing the string of weary porters, cook, and kitchen boy who arrived ten minutes later not to put up the tents. Spotting the doko with her duffle, she kept motioning for the porter to follow to her chosen hut and pantomimed his removing it and leaving it there. She repeated her performance for the unloading of the Norwegian gear in the hut furthest away. Beth hoped they’d figure out that the three remaining open doors were invitations to them.

  Once the porters understood, Lhamu sauntered over to Beth and showed her a silver pendant bearing a small photo of the Dalai Lama inside. Having seen it among the Tibetan items at Sanasa, Beth smiled and asked, “Hamar?” Giggling, the Sherpani closed the pendant and slipped it inside her long-sleeved blouse worn under a floor-length, wrap-around tunic. She lacked only the striped, multicolored apron worn exclusively by married women. Unlike men who had adopted western attire, none of the Sherpanis appeared to have given up their traditional attire, even those working as porters.

  Anxious to finishing preparing the huts, Beth pinched her nose and waved her hand in front of one, hoping to indicate the foul odor. Smoke wasn’t the only offender. One by one, she and Lhamu hauled yak wool rugs outdoors. Each holding onto an end, they shook vigorously in a laughing contest to see who’d lose her grip first. Eyes closed and head turned aside, Beth felt like the Peanuts character, Pigpen, who walked around in a cloud of dust, sprinkling dirt on all he came in contact with. The rock walls separating pastures were soon elegantly draped in wool.

  Returning to the huts, Beth studied the hard-packed floors and finally concluded that they were made of the usual mixture of mud and dung. Easy to sweep if one had a broom. She thrummed her cheek, pondering, until Lhamu pointed to a yak tail resting in the corner. Beth picked it up gingerly with only her thumb and forefinger, wary of creatures residing among the thick hairs. A few hefty shakes dislodged only a couple of multi-legged beasts that scurried too quickly to identify. As the women swept the last lodge, it struck Beth that she was getting used to this too! Being immersed in another culture was intriguing and challenging and she had adapted too frightfully well. Now heat. Faced with the reality of spending a night this high in Gokyo, she remembered Dorje’s comment about dried fuel for a fire. With the floors swept, benches wiped, and rafters cleared of cobwebs, the women went in search of the sacred dung.

  But first Beth needed to pee and in private, away from curious porters who had assumed she meant no tents were to be erected including the charpi. Feeling pretty cocky about having accomplished so much this morning, she swaggered over to a three-foot wall, planted her hands, and threw her legs over with the grace of a gymnast. When her feet hit the ground sliding, Beth grabbed the top stones and held on desperately trying to remain upright because a quick glance revealed she wasn’t the first to choose this location. A summer’s worth of excrement softened by yesterday’s snow had created a viscous mire of unbelievable length and breadth. Clinging to the wall, she managed to pull herself back over by sheer arm strength alone. To heck with it, she was dropping her pants behind the nearest rock.

  Resurfacing, she discovered Lhamu had unpacked Beth’s duffle and was holding her sleeping bag around her shoulders, wiggling and kissing and saying, “Dorje, Dorje.”

  It cracked Beth up and she couldn’t let it pass without pretending to pull a pendant from her blouse and swooning, “Hamar, Hamar.”

  Taking the bag inside, Lhamu pantomimed Beth and Dorje making love. Not to be outdone, Beth ran to the Norwegians’ hut, found Hamar’s duffle, and dragged it to a separate hut. “Lhamu and Hamar.” Both women agreed that they would seduce men into their huts tonight.

  However, the elusive question of dung remained and Beth wasn’t about to act that one out. Not in any of the huts, it had to be somewhere sheltered from the elements. Searching all the rock structures, Beth discovered a kind of root cellar housing hundreds of dried patties. After her recent incursion over the wall, she wasn’t thrilled about handling them. But weighing Do I want to be cold or do I want to touch shit, she chose the latter. Her eyes to the ground and carrying a load stacked to her chin, she trod across the rocky terrain to her hut and ran straight into Royd and Kirk who looked like walking cadavers. “What happened to you?” she exclaimed.

  Kirk mumbled something incoherently and Royd said they just weren’t feeling too well and needed to lie down. Where were the tents?

  “We’re using the huts tonight. Your gear’s in that one over there.” Royd’s skin was sallow and his eyes had sunk in deep hollows. “You look dehydrated,” said Beth. “You should drink more water.”

  He smirked, his body unsteady. “A woman standing with an armload of shit is telling me what to do.”

  “It’s going to keep me warm tonight,” she answered with a crisp edge to her voice.

  Kirk mumbled something else and tugged on Royd’s sleeve. Watching them stagger toward their hut as if drunk, Beth wished Dorje would return. After stacking the dung by her hearth, she found the Norwegians stretched out on their window bench and wrapped in their bags. “Where’s Dorje?” she asked.

  “Hamar insisted on going to the top and he went with him,” Kirk groaned. “We turned around half way.”

  “Wasn’t Hamar sick too?”

  “Worse than us.” Kirk was holding his forehead and breathing rapidly. “He threw up and had diarrhea the first quarter mile. Dorje said it was from the water yesterday.”

  “Then why—?”

  “Don’t ask,” said Royd. His arm dropped to the side of the bench and he pointed. “Just get us some water. Our bottles are over there.”

  She started to snap back with, Get your own damn water, but figured she wouldn’t add to their misery. More concerned about Dorje and Hamar, she and Lhamu watched for them while the cook filled bottles with boiled water that had cooled rapidly. To keep from worrying about the men, she and Lhamu finished the household chores: replacing the rugs, closing the shutters, moving the rock doorstops, and lastly hauling dung to Hamar’s hut and then Royd and Kirk’s. The snide remark about her being a shit bearer was no longer forthcoming; nor was a thank you. With a shallow pan of warm wash water, she closed the door to her hut, stripped down and took a very small shivering sponge bath. Rifling through her duffle, she pulled out clean clothes and quickly felt rejuvenated.

  Almost three hours after the arrival of the two Norwegians, Beth spotted what appeared to be a single large form at the base of the mountain, lurching and falling, and then slowly and awkwardly getting to its feet again like a wounded bear. Panicked, Beth yelled at the porters, waving her arms excitedly and motioning for them to come. As th
ey neared the specter, she could see that it was not one but two beings, the smaller struggling to keep the ponderous, ungainly one afoot. Lhamu ran to Hamar and supported him through two rounds of dry heaves.

  “He’s already thrown up everything else,” Dorje explained. His eyes blurred as if he were about to faint. Beth grabbed his arm and steadied him. “Why did you let him go to the top?”

  “Could you have stopped him?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  With Lhamu’s help, Hamar lumbered and staggered across the stepping-stones in the stream while another porter carried the daypacks.

  “What about the other two?” Dorje asked.

  “They’ll survive if I don’t kill Royd first.”

  “Don’t be angry at him. He doesn’t want you to see his fear.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That he’s not as strong as he wants to be.”

  “Or as appealing.”

  The cook prepared thukpa with extra broth to re-hydrate the Norwegians. At dinner Dorje announced they would not be crossing the Cho La in the morning. None of them was well enough. To go higher could mean death. After a day of rest, liquids, and aspirin, he would determine whether they were fit to continue or to return to Namche. This time, no one complained about the prospect of spending a day with nothing to do but sleep or read.

  Beth helped Dorje settle Royd and Kirk in their hut and build a dung fire to take off the chill. As they walked back to Beth’s hut, Dorje asked, “And Hamar? Where is he sleeping?”

  “With Lhamu in another hut. She’ll take good care of him tonight.” As I will of you, she thought as they arrived at her door. Leaning against the cold stone wall, Beth reached under his jacket to massage his back. “You must be tired and sore after today.”

  Eyes closed, he leaned into her hand. “That feels very good. No one has ever done that for me.”

  Pressing harder on his large, lower muscles, she said, “If you want to come inside and sit by the fire, I will rub your whole back. We call it a massage and it’s so relaxing you will probably fall asleep. Maybe you should bring your bag here just in case.”

  Dorje had the eyes of a cat because he was gone and back in minutes with the moon not yet risen and no flashlight. She shone hers while he built the fire after making small offerings to phug lha, the god of the home who dwelt in a pillar of wood, and thab lha, the god of the hearth who tolerates no impurity. The smoke fanned out along the ceiling—a dense, stagnant cloud of acrid, pungent dung fragrance that infused everything. She would smell like this for days, but so would everybody else. “It is better to sleep on the floor by the hearth,” he said, “and let the smoke go above you.”

  “And what happens when the entire room is filled?”

  “The wind calls to it through tiny holes in the roof, windows, and door.”

  “Then I will not block its escape.” She moved her pad from the bench to the floor near the fire and pulled his beside it. “Now sit,” she said, “and I will soothe away all your cares of the day.” As he sat leaning forward with his arms wrapped around his knees, Beth slowly worked the tension out of his muscles. She wanted to explore every inch of his smooth, flawless skin. When finished with his back, Beth ran her fingers up through Dorje’s hair and massaged his scalp. Slowly rolling his head from left to right as if asking for more, he responded to her every movement.

  Kneeling behind Dorje, Beth slowly wrapped her arms around him with her head resting against his shoulder. “Sleepy yet?” she whispered.

  He turned and held her face between his hands, gazing at her. “You are so beautiful in the firelight. I like your blue eyes.” He kissed each closed lid, her cheek, and lips.

  So ready to make love with him, she barred all other thoughts and sensations. No gnats of doubt or guilt allowed tonight. “Stay with me” she whispered. “I can zip our bags together.”

  After removing his shirt and jeans, Dorje crawled in beside her. “I want to make you happy,” he said. And please her he did with a slow, gentle touch over every part of her body, taking his time, caressing her with his lips and tongue—his breath warm and sensual. She remembered the first day at Lukla when he turned and looked at her in his green cap, tight Levis, and snug blue shirt. A warm flush had swept through her and thrown her slightly off center. And she’d been atilt ever since. Afterwards, her head spinning and lips tingling, she was too enervated to move. Beth stepped outside of herself and with amusement looked at the woman lying on a mud-dung floor with a suffocating smoke cloud overhead and below zero temperature. How could anyone feel this complete or be this happy in such circumstances?

  CHAPTER 18

  Thin shafts of light slipped through the shutters and spilled across the floor, washing over Beth’s white skin that felt as soft as the finest Indian silk. Like a sweet mist rising from leaves after a warm rain, her body had responded quickly to his touch last night. And now they were lovers . . . but for how long? To think about her leaving in a week or two cut through every nerve ending making him raw and vulnerable. Wrapped around her, he would carve this moment into his heart like a prayer chiseled in a mani stone and use it as his mantra forever.

  The hollow-faced Norwegians didn’t reach the dining tent until after 10:00 a.m. and then only had a breakfast of tea and watery hot cereal designed to replenish liquids. Graced by an exceptionally warm afternoon, they basked in the sun, read, and played cards. By dinner, they boasted of no more headaches, nausea, or shortness of breath and were eager to start over the pass to the Everest Valley the next day. Dorje announced that he would make that judgment at breakfast and his word was final. There would be no taking off without him this time.

  Eager to set out, the Norwegians awakened early the next morning. After two days of perfect weather, the skies still remained clear. Dorje agreed it seemed an auspicious time to travel. While everyone prepared to leave, he constructed a stone altar for a short puja. From his pack, he placed a prayer flag on top and lit two juniper boughs at the base for incense. Scattering rice and tsampa offerings, he and the other Sherpas chanted prayers to the mountain gods asking for their blessing, continued good weather, and success in crossing the pass. At the conclusion, they spread tsampa powder on their faces to mimic graying hair—a blessing for a long and fruitful life.

  When the Norwegians were ready to depart, Hamar announced, “I’m going to walk with Lhamu and the porters.”

  Grabbing his arm to pull him along, Kirk said, “Oh, no. You’re coming with us and letting her do her job. You can hump her again tonight.”

  Like a wild animal, Hamar shrugged him off. “Don’t talk that way about the woman I love.”

  Royd howled. “Love? You’ve known her . . . what?—a few days—and don’t even speak the same language. Are you crazy?”

  “I know what I feel. Now leave me alone,” Hamar snapped and ambled past him.

  Certain that Beth had overheard the conversation, Dorje wondered what she was thinking and feeling. Yesterday and last night, he had experienced with Beth the most intimate emotional and physical connection of his life. The two of them had been like beautiful gold eagles that soar in pairs high above the Khumbu, gliding endlessly on wind currents with their broad wings touching. He never wanted to part from her and tonight would again share her tent whispering words of love.

  He waited for her to join him before they departed for the trail over the Cho La. The group crossed the rock and sand debris on the surface of the Ngozumpa Glacier for an hour before climbing a deep, narrow valley that eventually opened out on an ancient lateral moraine. After hiking more than three hours, the Norwegians and Beth were flushed and breathing heavily.

  “We will rest here,” Dorje announced. Removing their daypacks, they lay down with their arms across their foreheads to shield their eyes. Dorje climbed a large boulder from where he could identify the pass and fix the route in his head, but he was reluctant to leave before spotting the porters behind them. Only one had crossed the Cho La before and knew the
trail. Fifteen minutes later, he saw them slowly making their way up the valley. Anxious to get over the pass, Dorje waved to the lead porter, a man in his fifties who had crossed several times. When Sangbu waved back, Dorje felt it was safe to move on.

  Sliding on loose rock and gaining only two steps for every three on a talus slope slowed their progress. It was laborious work requiring frequent stops to catch their breath. Bent over with her hands on her thighs, Beth rolled her eyes up at Dorje and gave a little nod saying she was okay. She only needed a minute. The Norwegians plodded upward dragging one foot after another until they reached the glacier at the base of the pass. This cold and intimidating challenge seemed to revive them.

  “This calls for a fresh toothpick.” Pulling one from his pocket, Kirk brandished it like a sword before neatly slipping it into the corner of his mouth. “Now onward over the pass.”

  Singing a drinking song, the men tramped up the glacier ahead of Dorje and Beth. But after twenty minutes of boisterous marching, the pace slackened as altitude and the effort of moving in ice and snow eroded their spirits. When they reached a steep, icy traverse with a 300-foot drop, morale plummeted.