Mt. Everest draws in the most adventurous and heroic climbers from around the world, but perhaps some of the most daring and defiant challengers to the ascent are locals from Nepal. The most famous and arguably most accomplished Nepalese climber was Babu Chiri Sherpa, who set many climbing and endurance records on Mt. Everest. He was intimately familiar with the remote region of Hades above Everest base camp, but was taken into the icy underworld in 2001 as he fell to his death in a deep crevasse. Another venturesome Nepalese climber named Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa predated some of Babu’s bold expeditions and had bright prospects for many legendary feats. Before his death at the age of 23 in a high-elevation avalanche in the Fall of 1996 he had already summited Mt. Everest five times, four of those without supplementary oxygen. On one expedition he made a statement for the pride of the Sherpa people by ascending the full extent of Mt. Everest wearing traditional dress (a chuba) and relying solely on the rarefied air of 29,000 feet and beyond. He was also part of Scott Fischer’s expeditions, including the catastrophe of Spring, 1996. He survived, but he couldn’t dodge misfortune much longer.

Looking out the window today I see the powder white snow glistening in the fiery orange hues of an inter-mountain sunset. What I’m really thinking is that I’m so glad I’m inside where it’s warm, because it has been awfully cold here among the baby mountains of northern Utah. We’ve gotten intermittent flurries of snow, just enough to let me know for sure in the mornings that it is cold and I’m freezing! The elevation here is only around 5,000 feet, which is remarkably close to that of Kathmandu, but you’d better believe they have a much different outlook on the winter than do we. As I may have mentioned before, Nepal sits at a northern latitude similar to that of the state of Florida, America’s swampy, humid home to crocodiles and college kids gone crazy. That state is primarily a flat land mass at low elevation, which serves as a welcoming mat for ferocious tropical storms. Kathmandu, land-locked and wedged up against the world’s highest mountain ranges, is at a similar latitude to Florida but a similar elevation to Utah. So just imagine if we followed the Jimi Hendrix principle where a six was a nine and Utah switched positions with Florida.

The holidays are lumbering up and I realize that I should send out greeting cards and buy a few gifts before it turns into procrastination, though I may be there already. There are a lot of personalities around me and it will be a challenge to think of good gifts for everyone. I asked about the holiday season and he had to scan his brain (Google) to figure out what traditions there are in Nepal that would be analogous to Christmas and Hanukkah. They don’t even get a New Years celebration for another four months or so – December is a slow month for Nepal. The big festival that everyone celebrates is Dashain where there are things like family gatherings and gift giving, but there is nothing quite as significant during the winter season that could compare to the Western holidays. He assures me there is always some kind of festival going on among the Nepalese communities, but they are fragmented according to the various ethnic or caste groups and not everyone celebrates or even knows about each of them.

Over the last several months I have been fully engaged in learning about the culture and the experience of Nepal. I certainly haven’t touched on every side of life in Nepal but as far as getting to know all about Pema and his life of leading treks up and down the trails past his home in Khumjung I have involved myself very intensely. I spent over a month just talking with Pema and recording all of his stories, then I spent a month researching and setting up this website, then a month in Nepal living the experience first hand, and now it has been over a month since I’ve been back. I’ve written lots of blogs and articles on the subject and I’ve wandered the topics widely in my writing. It’s amazing to think of all that I’ve learned and how familiar I have become with the ways and viewpoints of the Nepalese people, especially the Sherpas. It looks like the others from our group have settled in and adjusted back to the world, but with slightly changed perspectives. Actually the Stranges (Steve and John) may not be back to normal just yet. Their plan was just to rest up for a couple of weeks and then get back out on a trekking route to Patagonia way down at the bottom of South America. Of course it’s actually summer down there now, so I don’t feel so bad for them, but they sure don’t have any luxuries where they’re going.