With the superlative and singular terrain of Nepal it seems that casually trekking amid the jagged mountains is pretty pedestrian. There are certainly enough thrill seekers fueled on high horsepower trucks and death-defying adrenaline rushes that can make good use of Nepal’s extreme geography. Apart from the degree of personal risk involved in an expedition to the summit of Mt. Everest, there are countless combinations of normal recreational activities mutated into something insanely suicidal, but a good laugh if you survive. You could say that mountaineering to the top of Mt. Everest is the most extreme activity on the planet, but then consider that it takes months to get up there, and most of the action moves extremely slowly and you undergo prolonged trauma from the cold and shortage of oxygen. Let’s classify this less of an extreme sport and more like being a subject in a torturous medical experiment.

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.

The infernal chill from our nights camping at Lobuche has finally found its way to Utah and crept through the cracks in my windows last night to numb my toes. I thought that the bitter cold at 16,000 feet in the late autumn of the Khumbu was miserable, but at least I had a remarkably warm microfiber sleeping bag and the most miraculous moon jacket. Just as soon as I squoze into that puffy, extreme cold weather coat it would buffer the frigid sting of breeze. To be honest, once I was bundled up in that ingenious insulation I had hardly a concern on my mind. Now I can appreciate that because the heater in my apartment just couldn’t keep up with the cold last night. My blankets couldn’t capture enough warmth and even with an extra electric heater blowing right at my face I just could not break the shivers. The temperature at Lobuche must have been somewhere between zero and not much, and at the time I thought it was the depth of discomfort. Now I look back longingly to the perfectly cozy nights I spend zipped up and Velcroed in to my mummy bag sleeping on the lumpy ground listening to a roaming pack of yak bells.

The frigid winter season is upon us and all I can do is daydream about palm trees gently swaying in the warm breezes somewhere south of here. My car, born and raised in Southern California, has no idea what to think of the snow and ice. Of course for others this is the season that they dream of all year to challenge the forbidding back country high in the mountains. By now a good deal of fresh snow has accumulated on top of some older ice and the threat of avalanches is mounting. Why do we find it necessary to take this sort of risk? Maybe because we got bored with our other hobby of Russian Roulette. For mountain climbing and skiing in the remote, pristine landscapes you go with the assumption that you could fall victim to a slip in the snow pack and you might be buried alive under tons of snow and debris. With that assumption there is training and equipment that will improve your odds of surviving an avalanche. First of all you should be out there alone, and second every member of your team must have a solid understanding of the techniques for dealing with the catastrophe. If your group is hit by an avalanche it’s not possible to know who is going to be left to rescue everybody else.