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.

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.

Looking back now on Lobuche we were thrilled and relieved to finally arrive, but once we saw it we were ready to quickly move on. It was a destination that we envisioned as an amazing goal, and it’s the sort of challenge you place before yourself that you don’t know how you’ll ever reach it. There were so many thousands of feet of elevation and miles of winding trails to traverse before we could get up there. As with many monumental tasks you can’t wrap your brain around all the details and all the hard work that it will take to reach it, so you just let it go and you throw yourself forward. We also had built up a lot of anticipation by hearing of the experiences of other hikers who were returning and euphoric from the joys of the relatively lower elevation. With all of this in mind we really were thrilled to realize we had passed through all the anxious anticipation, like kids making a trip to a great amusement park.

I think we first noticed how short our breath was and how much effort each step was becoming as we pulled out of Thokla. We were on our way to our campsite at Lobuche, and this was to be our base camp for making an ascent on Kala Patthar within a few days. We could see that we were advancing upward to the snowline with every inch, and we could certainly feel the chill in the air. Foremost on our mind was that we continue to manage our body’s reaction to the high elevation, and we were watching each other for the first signs of altitude sickness. Most of us were on Diamox at this point, and we were drinking lots of water to keep ourselves hydrated. Remember that one side effect of Diamox is that the water flushes from your system, and whatever you take in is soon pressing you urgently to get out. If you get cynical or impatient you might go on strike, but nothing will stop you from having to heed the call. Richard and Gaye were becoming especially concerned, despite their own discomforts, for the well-being of the you teenagers in our group. They were doing just great, and being just as boisterous as ever.