There I was, flapping in the frigid wind and clutching to a chunky boulder, my jaw gaping in amazement at my personal view of Mt. Everest. That’s one (melodramatic) way to describe the pinnacle of our journey trekking through the Himalayas last fall. To be honest, I didn’t get a very clear view of anything because my legs were locking up from the chill in the gusting wind and the steep drop seemingly on all sides. I was so cold and worn from climbing the last hundred meters or so that I only sought out shelter between the rocks for relief from the elements. I had my video camera with me, and I did my best to reach up out of the rocky crevasse to record a panoramic view or the mountains and to assess just how steep the drop was just down-wind from me. Watching the footage now it’s a bewildering sweep across indistinguishable rocky terrain and a crackling audio track of the wind and the violently snapping prayer flags overloading the tiny microphone.

If we’re out camping in the wilderness and going without washing for weeks at a time then we’re rugged enough to wake up and get started a little bit early for our hike to the top of Kala Patthar. Our guide Pema knows well enough that a whole trek could be ruined by delaying the start just a few hours on the day of the final ascent. Although you could say that the journey is the destination, most of Pema’s clients hired him to actually get to the top of a mountain and get pictures of themselves as proof of the efforts. Add to that the costs of travel and taking time off from their jobs, and the price puts pressure on reaching the objective. The M.O. of the weather patterns up in the Himalayas is to offer clear skies in the early morning through noon, then in the after noon the tufts of condensed water vapor begin to rise up out of the valleys and they bunch up against the slopes.

Although I’ve spent a number of years of my life in Utah I’ve never actually gone to any of the fine ski resorts to go skiing. That is until this past weekend, when our chief web designer invited me to go snowboarding at Snowbird. I remember in high school noticing that a lot of the other kids disappeared several days out of the week each winter to go skiing, and then some of them would turn up hobbling back to school in a cast. Not only was it an expensive sport to get into, it seemed to me like you’d probably break something along the way. I got enough encouragement to try it out this time, and I’m glad I did. The equipment rental turned out to be a lot more expensive than if I had just gone to a movie for the afternoon, or about five all day actually. I had a great time showing off my crashing skills, but after the first couple of runs I got the hang of it. I probably won’t get out of the Chikadee run for a while, but then I’m not in a hurry to leap off of any black diamond trails.

Either because Lobuche is situated in the shadows of so many great mountain peaks or because of the vaulted elevation reaching up into thick, roiling clouds, the sunlight fades out and the chill sets in very early in the evening. As a camper, foraging along with the yaks for something to snack on, you notice that just when you’re getting a handle on the day it seems that it’s coming to an end. Perhaps by 4 pm the glare of the sunlight from the grazed grasslands dims out and the sapping cold quickly demands your attention. This experience was in October, even before the adjustment from Daylight Savings. Of course I don’t even recall whether Nepal adjusts their clocks between the seasons. Considering that their time zone and calendar are entirely independent from the rest of the world, it is unlikely that Nepal follows the conventions of daylight savings time. So even in early autumn the the golden glint of the fading summer washes out to a frigid and alien purgatory.