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.

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 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.