Long Last Week

Monday May 16, 2011

4:47PM

It’s been a rough few days here in Pheriche, but the end is drawing near. Actually, it’s tomorrow. We have decided to close up a few days early due to some unfortunate events.

Front door view in the morning-
Tawache and tip of Cholatse

For the past few weeks Gobi’s grandmother has been very ill and few ever expected her to make it as long as she has. Since our volume has dropped to virtually zero, Gobi made the decision to hitch a ride on an empty helicopter in an effort to make it home to say good-bye. To make matters worse, Alun and Lauren returned from their successful attempt on Imja Tse to find out that Alun’s grandmother had passed away a few days previous. Subsequently, they are going to leave two days from now. 

Back door view at Sunset
Ama Dablam

With their departure I would be left to run the place with Jeet and Ang Rita. That wouldn’t be too bad, but with so few patients coming through there really isn’t much reason to stick around. Thus, we have started our final inventories and assuming things go smoothly we’ll be headed for Namche on Thursday and Kathmandu around the 22nd or so. 

Now that leaves me with quite a significant chunk of time before my flight out of Nepal on the 31st, so I have to find something to keep myself occupied. Right now the leading thought is to take a beginning kayaking course and then do a 2 day river trip. Staying in the highlands would be great, but it’s becoming agonizing to stare at the beautiful mountains around us and not have the resources to climb. Next time I come here I’ll be better prepared and have several goals to accomplish.

Beyond stuffed. It actually
only weighs a little over 50lb.
Just not made to carry this much.

Speaking of climbing, I was originally supposed to go up to base camp today to meet a potential partner for Lobuje. My bag was packed and ready, but due to certain circumstances, the details of which I’ll spare you, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. After said events, there wasn’t much point in making the 6 hour slog to base camp carrying my clown pack. (Bigger pack next trip.) I feel, as my British friends would say, “gutted”. I once read a quote from an ultrarunner who said “There are very few problems in life that you can’t work out during a long run. Some runs just have to last longer”, and that is my plan for tomorrow. I’m going to run off a whole truckload of frustration, and I suspect it’s going to take a while. Climbing one more mountain would have really made a great ending to the trip, but I suppose it will have to wait. For those of you who know what it means to “Feed the rat”, climbing Imja Tse really only woke up the rat, and now it’s hungry and pissed. I guess that’s one more reason to come back ...... soon. Takers???

Last day all together
 + medical director
Ken Zaffren on the left

The good news is that nearly all of my new acquaintances in base camp who were attempting the summit have plunged an axe into the top and enjoyed the view from the top of the world. (Maybe one of these days......) Just a couple more people to get up and down, but the weather and conditions in the icefall are becoming more volatile, so we’re all keeping positive thoughts. Most certainly, drinks will be had in Kathmandu in a few days and, hopefully the group will be be fully intact. Here’s to the summit!

Winding Down and Wasting Away

Thursday May 12, 2011

6:24PM

Another 7 days since my last entry - I suppose I should start some of the social commentary to fill in the gaps between more interesting topics, but the motivation for such writing has been low. Life here in Pheriche hasn’t really been too exciting. The volume in the clinic has dropped off substantially leaving more time to make my way through Stieg Larson’s “Girl Who ...” series. I’m not sure why I put these books off, perhaps due the mainstream frenzy that seemed to surround them for a while, but I’m finding the story quite intriguing - A worth read for sure. 

Currently, I’m sitting in our kitchen (the coldest room in the building) watching Ang Rita and Jeet play some sort of Nepali card game, the rules of which I don’t understand. It appears to involve placing series of ascending cards in singles, doubles, or triples until one player runs out. I can’t seem to figure out when one has to play a single card instead of a pair or triple. Regardless, if you play cards in Nepal, you have to forcefully throw your cards down onto the table with some sort of concurrent exclamation. Ang Rita is particularly animated and rarely does his arm reach short of full extension before bringing his hand down to the table. 

That really sums up the last couple of days - reading and playing cards. I’ve spent the remaining time daydreaming about climbing again. One of the base camp managers who passed through the village last week had done a lot of climbing in the south and I couldn’t help but reminisce about the many good days, before medical school and residency, spent at Foster Falls, T-Wall, Little River Canyon and many others. That reminded that it’s been over 2 years since I last climbed on rock and around a year since my last ice climbing venture. Pretty pitiful. It didn’t help my sense of self-loathing over neglecting the climbing world when I looked in a mirror for the first time in a while the other day and noticed how skinny my arms have gotten. Between the lack of climbing and the altitude related muscle atrophy, I think I’m approaching early high school levels of scrawniness. Needless to say, I feel the climbing bug coming back and I suspect that “Climbing Doug” will be on the rampage to get back some resemblance of previous fitness.

Along those lines, I’m still trying to find a partner to do one more climb. I thought about hiring a guide but what I really need is a partner with some gear. It would be really nice to do Lobuje in a more alpine style without all of the fixed ropes, and even better would be to do it via the Lowe/Kendal Couloir, a classic 4 pitch ice route up to the summit ridge. It’s a line I’ve been eyeing in a guide book and looks to be within my skill level assuming I can get my sally arms to pull me up there. I’m going to have a look at the conditions of the ice next week and if it seems good, and if I can find a partner with the right skills and gear it could pan out to be a super sweet climb. It would also be hundreds of dollars cheaper to avoid the guide. If the stars don’t align I’ll likely spend my few extra days camped out on the Kong Ma La Pass, and may try to climb Pokalde or some other less technically demanding peak. 

We’re down to less than 10 days until closing here in Pheriche and I think I’m ready to be done here.  Actually, I know I’m ready. We’re running low on medicine and I’m getting pretty tired of treating coughs and colds. The number of trekkers has slowed down dramatically and, thus, so have the interesting cases of altitude illness. On the research front, it’s dead. The Nepal Health Research Council has essentially squashed my project through shuffling feet and asking the dumbest questions humanly possible. It’s no wonder this country fails to progress, the government doesn’t do anything. I take that back. The government sends its officials, who have no mountaineering experience, to attempt to climb the highest mountain in the world. Smart ..... real smart. I shouldn’t be so cynical, but when you see the numerous other issues that plague Nepal one has to wonder whether government workers’ time is better spent on Everest or working on basic sanitation, food sources, health care, etc.

I didn’t get very much sleep last night due to a patient’s arrival shortly after I went to bed. Even though the visit was short, I just couldn’t get back to sleep. Subsequently, my writing is starting to ramble a little so I’ll wrap things up. 

A few final updates: 

I think most of my clothes are beyond dirty. It’s going to take A LOT of cycles through the washer to make things remotely clean. In fact I might just leave some of it here.

The weather has gotten significantly warmer (nights just above freezing) and I can actually run in shorts in the morning. This is helpful as it greatly reduces the number of local people staring at me due to running in tights. In hindsight I probably should have brought sweat pants for cold weather running. 

Long run last weekend was 1:45 with a couple thousand feet of elevation gain. I’m aiming for 3 hours and over 3000 feet of gain before I leave. I’m skeptical but it might happen. At least the running has kept my legs from shrinking down to toothpicks like my arms. Of course, if you have hung out with my wife at all you probably will have heard her make reference to my “chicken legs”, meaning that there probably wasn’t much to lose anyway.

I can’t decide what I want to do first when I get home. Right now the top 3 is: 1) Haircut  2)Shower  3)Go to Novare Res and drink really good beer. The list is constantly evolving but I suspect that it will come down to either the beer or shower. 

Books: Lost count - more non-medical reading than I have done in the last decade. 

Imjatse (Island Peak)

Wednesday May 5, 2011

6:53PM

Happy Cinco de Mayo!! There hasn’t really been anything to celebrate here, but I hope that everyone back home is having some fun for me. Actually, I retract that statement. Our water pump was finally fixed and I took my first real shower in 8 weeks. The hot water and subsequent steamy bathroom was such a pleasant change from the trickle that comes from the bag we have been using that it almost rivaled the feeling of reaching the top of Imjatse. Well - almost.Speaking of Imjatse, the climb was really a lot of fun. I say climb, but it was really more of a long hike with a little climbing at the end. 

The fun started at 12:30 AM when the base camp cook woke us up with a cup of hot tea and bowl of hot porridge. It was definitely a slightly strange feeling being served a hot meal in the middle of the night in my sleeping bag, but I can’t say that it was all bad either. After quickly finishing our packing it was time to climb..... or hike. 

The base camp is set up at around 16,500 feet leaving another 4000 ft to the top. We started out walking due east along the lateral morraine of the glacier before turning north and upward. The trail followed rocky switchbacks for a couple of thousand feet before a little scrambling up short rises began. The night felt surprisingly warm with low winds at the start - perfect for climbing - but with the steady gain in elevation the temperatures began to fall. 

The group consisted of only two of us and a guide. My fellow climbing partner was, P.L., a forty-something from Hong Kong, and our guide was Dindi Sherpa, a 30 year old who had been climbing nearly as long as I have and spends his off season farming. I never could get P.L. to tell me what the initials stand for as he insisted that it was not pronounceable in English. I was just happy to have a small group, so that there might be less waiting and more climbing. This turned out to be far from the case as soon as we aimed up hill. 

P.L. was, perhaps, the slowest climber I have ever encountered. Dindi and I stopped to wait for him after 20 or so minutes of uphill travel and then subsequently stopped every 5-10 minutes of the next 6 hours. The slow going did make things feel easy, but waiting was cold. By 18,000 ft I was wearing all of my layers and the huge down coat on top I had pulled on over the front in order to keep from having to take my pack off repeatedly and to provide the ability to ventilate once we started walking again. Each time P.L.’s headlamp drifted further behind into the darkness Dindi would stop and curse his slowness, at which point I couldn’t help but chuckle even though I was getting a little frustrated at my partner being the cause of my cold toes and fingers.

It had snowed a little in base camp and by the time we reached the higher elevations the fresh snow was more like 4-6 inches deep. I kept wondering if the new-fallen snow would present any difficulties later in the climb, but nothing unexpected ever came about. 

As we approached the high glacier the hillside tapered into a narrow ridge for a short distance. The grade tapered off as the trail narrowed and a quick glance to the side with my headlamp revealed nothing but darkness. The small sidewalk on which I was standing separated two long vertical drops down the mountainside. Perhaps not knowing what was beyond the light of my headlamp was a good thing. 

Once the short, thin ridge-line was behind us the snow became more consistent and the reflection from the glacier ahead in the moonlight was clearly visible. As we strapped on crampons and tied in to a rope as a 3-man glacier team the sun began to rise leaving a golden glow on their summits. Despite our slow progress, we had made it high enough to enjoy absolutely spectacular sunrise views on Baruntse, Lhotse, Mehra, Lhotse Shar and Ama Dablam. Even if I never made the summit this moment was well worth the effort. 

Crossing the glacier took only a few minutes at which point we stood below a 300+ ft tall face leading to the summit ridge. It was much steeper than I had expected, approximately 70 degrees, and proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. The mixture of consolidated snow and absolutely bulletproof ice was much better suited to technical ice tools, but as I only brought a standard mountaineering axe with me, I had to make do as best as possible. There were fixed ropes from bottom to top providing protection and I, potentially, could have just pulled up the ropes with my jumar, but pride wouldn’t allow it. Instead I flogged myself using the one axe made to climb terrain far less steep. 

Upon pulling onto the summit ridge I took a moment to enjoy the scenery and noticed that P.L. and Dindi were only about 20 feet up the face. P.L. had left his pack and axe at the base and Dindi was pulling and pushing him up the fixed lines. It looked like it would be a long wait on the ridge for them so I decided to proceed onward and after a few short minutes of climbing I found myself on the summit. I clipped into the ice screw drilled into the summit and had the guide of the two-man team that passed us at the base of the face take a few pictures of me. I also took a few more pictures of the surrounding mountains, especially the southeast face of Lhotse, which is one of the most impressive pieces of mountain I have ever seen and known to have been climbed. I didn’t really want to linger too long, though, as the sun had been out for a considerable period of time and as the temperatures in the mountains rise so does the potential for wind and dramatic weather changes. 

As I made my way back down the ridge I passed my two companions reaching the top of the face and P.L. looked exhausted. I rapped down the lines and waited for what seemed like forever on the glacier below. Despite the sunscreen I had applied I still felt like I was roasting from the intense reflections off the surrounding snow-covered slopes and ice below my feet. Ultimately, we all made it back down to the base of the glacier where P.L. admitted that this was far harder than he expected and that his mountain climbing days were over. I doubted it as many say the same after getting totally worked. I have to give him credit for pushing himself really hard and making it to the top.

We all hiked down and again P.L. fell behind but this time I just couldn’t wait. I was hungry, sunburned and out of water and the call of a comfy camp chair, bowl of noodles and big bottle of water was too strong to resist. When Dindi and P.L. finally pulled into camp Dindi was carrying both of their bags and looked no worse for the wear. 

P.L. was talking more than he had in the previous two days combined, and I felt sure he was really excited about the day’s accomplishment and would reconsider his previous statements on the mountain. Instead, he offered to give our guide his mountaineering boots as a tip, an extremely generous and surprising gesture. After changing clothes and packing we all made our way back down the glacier to the village of Chukkung, the place where we all met and started the brief adventure. For me it was back to Pheriche to work while Alun and Lauren get some recreation time, for Dindi it was over to Lobuche to lead a group of trekkers and for P.L. it was off to Everest base camp. If things go well Dindi and I may meet again to climb Lobuche East but this time in a more alpine style and, hopefully, at a slightly more rapid pace.

2 Days in Base Camp

Wednesday May 4, 2011

4:33PM

Wow! It’s been a really long time since my last entry and there have been so many events that it is difficult to know where to start. Today I’ll talk about the trip up to base camp and then maybe in the next day or two I’ll try to record the Imjatse details.

Thinking back on being in base camp last week, simple words like great and awesome come to mind. At the time I welcomed the trip to a place where there were a few more people with whom to talk, but I didn’t really have any special expectations. I actually thought that I might not enjoy the company of some the people I would meet, but the opposite was, in fact, the case. 

I arrived around lunch time and met up with Ashish and Rachel, two of the three base camp physicians for the season. Jenn, of course, is the third and had gone down to Pheriche to meet up with Ed, thus making my visit possible, as any extra person in camp is required to pay $100 per night. I threw my bag in my tent and sat down to a quick lunch of tuna salad on fried bread. 

While we ate we discussed the case, or drama you could say, involving a 19 year old woman who had stroke-like symptoms at Camp 1. She and her expedition leader thought that she shouldn’t be evacuated on account of her having a previous diagnosis of migraines and seizures, and they were fishing for a physician in camp to support them. Even someone with no knowledge of the disease process could recognize the risk it placed on her as well as her team should she become symptomatic high on the mountain. It’s amazing the rationalization that takes place when big money has been spent and sponsors’ expectations add an even higher level of pressure. During the discussion amongst several physicians and team leaders,  a radio invitation came through from the RMI team asking us for afternoon tea, and once the definitive evacuation decision had been concluded we made our way across the city of tents to the American camp. 

Walking at base camp is not a simple process as it is set up on a glacier, which is a highly rocky, icy, uneven, dynamic land form. One minute you walk on a relatively even, albeit rocky, path and the next you are crossing open ice with water flowing beneath. On two occasions I punched through the ice into the chilly water below, and couldn’t help but wonder why I had left my boots in Pheriche once again. There is one main path that extends traverses from end to end but often seems to dead-end into a camp. Once you have been there a few days it starts to make some sense, but initially you get some angry looks from people as you inadvertently walk straight through “their space”. To limit this from happening, several groups have strung ropes around their camp with signs marking the territory, which I thought was really a little unnecessary. 

When we arrived at RMI, I recognized some the guides from having passed through Pheriche as well as their clients. It felt like being home, chatting about climbing, drinking beer and playing horseshoes, of all things, in front of their dining tent. It also turned out that one of the guides went to Dartmouth and spent a lot of time climbing in the Maine and New Hampshire mountains, my current playgrounds. There was also a man from Atlanta climbing with his 16 year old daughter and together they are trying to complete the 6th of the 7 summits this season. The fun couldn’t last long and soon another radio message indicated that patients were lining up back at the medical tent. 

Unfortunately, most of them were Nepali Ministers in for their daily checkup. I really don’t know where to start my description of what a complete disaster this group is. They’re the same government officials who clogged up our clinic a few weeks ago with complaints that were, in no uncertain terms, stupid, and they refused to pay. Things had obviously not changed as their medical needs had increased greatly from scratched finger in Pheriche to dry mouth and chapped lips in base camp. It is an extremely frustrating situation for us as they are some of the wealthiest people in Nepal and expect us to provide free care to them, while their cooks and porters who get paid very little have to pay a significant portion of their daily wage for an evaluation. The other expedition groups are equally put out by them as virtually none of the government group have any mountaineering experience and have been seen trying to figure out how to put on crampons and making poor decisions like crossing ladders in the icefall several members at at time. (To illustrate this last point, picture an aluminum step-ladder at full extension laid horizontally across a crevasse 25 feet wide and possibly 100’s of feet deep. Common sense would indicate that it’s not a situation where extra weight or strain on the ladder is advantageous.) The primary concern of the other guides is that the official’s inexperience and apparent lack of fitness is going to lead to an accident requiring rescue on the mountain, thus straining the resources, endangering the lives and jeopardizing the operations of the other climbers. 

Technically, when switching positions with the doctors from the other post, it was supposed to serve as a short break, so no patient evaluations. I just couldn’t watch my colleagues wallow through the blood pressure checks, runny noses and coughs any longer, however, so I chipped in for a couple of hours to ensure we made it to our 4PM poker engagement. One has to have priorities.

We wandered over to the camp of Mountain Trip, another American team, where a serious game was already underway. Anyone who has played poker with me before knows that my skills are lacking. I would say that it is really no different than handing someone else my money, but the fun had was worth the entrance fee. Beside experiencing the joy of losing 500 Rupees, I also met some of the better known names in climbing and ski-mountaineering, all of whom seemed like normal. down-to-earth kind of people. As this was more social interaction than I have had in months, I was pretty tired following dinner and retired to my tent at the early, by base camp standards, hour of 10 PM.

That night it snowed several inches and I laid awake listening to the avalanches pouring off the surrounding mountains, and hoped that none were plowing through the tents up at camp 1. The following day was clear and cold to start but soon heated up to near balmy temperatures as the rising sun reflected off the snow covered slopes. Oscar, a photographer for a Swedish expedition in the neighboring camp, and I hiked up and across the glacier to the base of the Khumbu Icefall. Neither of us had real boots or crampons so we were limited in how far we could go safely, and more importantly, without incurring the $40,000 fine and 5 year ban from Nepal for climbing without a permit. 

The view from base camp was pretty spectacular but didn’t really awaken any new desires to venture upward. I have long had some issues with the way in which many climbers with limited experience are “guided” up the mountain, but when I stood at the base of the icefall looking up toward the high camps something changed. I thought about the humorous sketch of this year’s icefall route that Dave Hahn, RMI’s expedition leader, had posted in their dining tent. It had descriptive names of the  various areas of seracs, like popcorn and football field, that had instructions off to the side indicating when to run, not run or pray. The icefall is notoriously the most dangerous part of the mountain but looking at it all I thought was how that chunky, jumbled mass of ice was beautiful and I really wanted to climb it, if for no other reason than to see what was up higher. If it happens, however, it will have to be on my own terms and after several other higher priority climbs. Don’t worry people - I’m not going to attempt Everest any time soon.

After lunch I lounged in the sun for little while and then returned to the poker table and this time donated 1000 Rupees to the guides from IMG, RMI, Mountain Trip and Alpine Ascents. The Oreo’s and milk tea I snacked during the game, again, made my losses seem very insignificant.

The most unexpected part of the trip occurred at dinner that night. We were invited to the Patagonian Brothers camp, headed by the world renowned mountaineers Damien and Willie Benigas, for sushi flown in that day. Ostentatious, perhaps, but it was most certainly a welcome treat. Feeling quite satisfied from the day’s events and culinary delights, I slept soundly in my tent that night despite the creaks and groans coming from the glacier beneath me. 

It was hard to return to Pheriche the next day, but at least I was treated to good weather for a change. I made dinner plans with a few of my new friends to have dinner in Pheriche or Dingboche when they come down from their next rotation at camp 3 and am looking forward to hearing stories from high on the mountain. I’ll certainly try to stay away from the poker table, however. 

Nothing had changed in Pheriche in my absence, but I only had two days in the clinic until going climbing - finally. I’ll have to save that story until tomorrow’s update.

Back from Base Camp

This is a short post to let you all know that I'm back from base camp. 2 days just wasn't enough. I'll post more later when I have time, but now I have to unpack and then repack for Island Peak. I'm leaving for Chukkung this afternoon to meet the guide and my hope is that it is only the two of us climbing. We'll see.
When I get back I'll report on the climb as well as the sushi, Oreos, dark chocolate, and french toast to which I was treated at the bottom of Everest.

7 Days on the Road

Saturday April 23, 2011

6:33PM

After 7 days out and about, Ed and I got back this afternoon, and we had a great, but exhausting, time. 2 major mountain passes with some side hikes led up to a couple of well-needed rest days before coming back to Pheriche. The scenery was beautiful and traveling for a few days really made me realize why so many people fall in love with Nepal.

We started out with a relatively easy hike up to Zhungla, which entailed a gradual climb up to the valley below the Cho La Pass. The weather was sunny and windy, but by the time we arrived at our destination the clouds had rolled in, and by the next morning an inch of fresh snow covered the ground around our lodge as well as the surrounding hills. We both wondered how much had fallen at the higher elevations we were aiming to cross later in the day. As it turned out, the light snow was helpful. There was not enough to obscure the path and by leaving slightly later than other groups we were able to follow footsteps in the snow.

The trail gradually ascended a long valley up to what appeared from a distance to be a vertical rock wall. As we got closer to the steeper terrain ahead, we realized that there was a blocky trail that led up the rock face. After climbing a few thousand feet up the difficult trail we again found ourselves at the bottom of long valley, only this time one covered in snow. A short distance later the snow turned to ice, thankfully covered with a thin coating of snow which aided traction, and the valley became a glacier. To our right large crevasses and glacial tarns littered the landscape. Soon the horizon opened before us giving us wonderful views of the surrounding mountains, especially Ama Dablam and Cholatse among others.

It only took 3 hours or so to get to the top of the pass, but because of our late start we had to share the view with at least 25 of our closest friends. Ed and I shared a Mars bar I had saved for the occasion, took a few pictures and then made our way down the west side toward Thaknak. A short while later the clouds obscured the mountain tops making us realize that we had just barely made it in time to really see what makes the climb so worthwhile.

The remainder of the day was relatively uneventful, just the standard snow storm to make the last hour a little less pleasant. The thunder accompanying the snow, a rare phenomenon in the eastern US,  made things a little more interesting. In contrast to my last attempt to cross the glacier separating Gokyo and Thaknak, the way was straightforward and easy to follow. After the difficulties of last time, I kept waiting for the path to fall off into the lakes below or to suddenly end at a deep river crossing. Luckily, that didn’t occur and as we climbed over the final hill into Gokyo, I couldn’t help but feel a bit satisfied to have finally completed this route.

The Namaste Lodge in Gokyo is one of my favorites thus far in Nepal. The food is good, the dining room is warm and the sleeping areas are clean. It has also proven to be a nice place to whether a snow storm, which is what we did. 

The following day a few inches of snow had fallen and Ed and I decided to stay in Gokyo another night and do a hike in the area for the day. There is a string of 6 glacial lakes leading up to Gokyo and then onward to just below Cho Oyu. We left the banks of the third lake, on which the village lies and  aimed upward, as usual. The sun was shining and the winds calm all the way to the fifth lake. From there we had great views of Cho Oyu, Everest and many of the other smaller mountains in the range. We continued on to the final lake but by the time we arrived an icy breeze was blowing and the clouds had arrived. There was nothing to do but hunker down behind a rock, out of the wind, and enjoy a Twix and a Clif Bar. As per my usual arrival in Gokyo, we puts our heads down through the blowing snow that greeted us, thus making 4 entries into the village in a snow storm.

The day’s efforts hadn’t been overly difficult, but when added to the effort required to cross the pass on the previous day, we were starting to feel a little tired. When we set out across the Rhenjo La Pass the next day, our legs were not quite as energetic as they had been at the start of the journey. We plodded out of Gokyo for the final time and crossed the base of the Gokyo Ri which lies opposite the village on the banks of the third lake. Excellent weather was upon us and persisted for the entirety of the day, an experience that I believe I had not yet had in Nepal.

Maybe we had built up the Cho La’s potential difficulty in our head due the reports from other trekkers, but it didn’t really seem too bad. In comparison the Rhenjo La was, plain and simply, hard. The ascent was long, stair-stepping up steep sections which led to large glacial cirques ringed by mountains higher than those we had already crossed. The route finding was also more difficult and it wasn’t until we were a few feet from the last steep section that I saw where the path led and that it was possible without technical equipment.

The 3 hour slog was well worth the effort as the views were the best I have encountered in Nepal and, for a change, the weather cooperated long enough for us to take in the dramatic vista in the distance. I snapped a few pictures, took a rest and enjoyed one of the best Snickers bars I have ever had before we packed up and ventured down the western side of the pass. Of course, we expected to find similar difficult terrain down the opposite side but instead there was a beautiful staircase extending several thousand feet down the side of the mountain. Why one side was so rugged and the other so polished I have no idea. Maybe the king of the Nepal came to the area and found the terrain too difficult and so mandated that stairs be built? Regardless, it made the way down quite easy in comparison to the ascent.

Ed had talked with a guide in Gokyo who recommended that we stop our descent in either the village of Lungden or, if we were fast, Thame further down the valley. He went on to say that it just wasn’t possible to get all the way to Namche in one day after coming over the pass from Gokyo. That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say to Ed who was now bound and determined to make it all the down. The challenge intrigued me, but I have to admit I was even more motivated by the potential for chicken dahl-bat, warm weather and the two German bakeries in town.

Once we got down into the less steep terrain we turned up the pace significantly. Lungden, Maralung, some other village I can’t remember and then Thame came and went without even a short break. Once you’re down a few thousand feet it is much easier to maintain a good pace but the lack of food and water started to slow us down. Ed is part camel and only drank 1.5 liters for the whole day and I managed only 1 liter more. The difference was that he didn’t finish what he had and I ran out 3 hours before we arrived. We also only consumed a couple of bars and a snickers before arriving in Namche, so the lack of calories didn’t help us out either. The last hill leading up to the Panorama Lodge nearly broke us, but we made it. The dahl-bat was exceptionally delicious that night as was the popcorn, hot chocolate, lemon Tang, chocolate cake .....

After spending 10 hours in mountaineering boots the day before, neither of us was up for walking anywhere, and Namche is an excellent place to pass a leisurely day or two. We started the day with a very large breakfast at the lodge before establishing camp on a local coffee shop’s sun-drenched deck. That is where we spent the next 4 hours drinking cappuccino. Once the breeze picked up a little we made the long walk across the street to the bakery to have a salami, cheese, cole slaw and fried egg sandwich on homemade brown bread. It was the strangest sounding club sandwich I had ever seen but it was excellent. The remainder of the day was spent wandering the streets checking out the shops. Ed bought a pair of down pants to take to Denali in a couple of weeks and I tried to haggle with a shopkeeper over a grossly overpriced Camelbak. The shopkeeper tried to argue that the extra cost was due to the expense of a porter carrying the bag up to Namche but I feel quite certain that no porter has ever gotten paid $50 for carrying anything, much less a 2 pound backpack. Despite all the effort all I came away with was a few pieces of chocolate to take back to Pheriche.

The most interesting event of the day came in a small bar which housed the only pool table in town. We decided to treat ourselves to a beer which was a great idea. The bartender had a great musical selection on his Ipod which he plugged into the stereo and blasted. When I asked to hear Pink Floyd, he got really excited. As it turned out, he learned to speak English by listening to Pink Floyd, and knew much more about the band than I ever did. With good music and a pool table (not so good but useable), we definitely stayed for a second round but then went back to the lodge to gorge ourselves again.

Through the course of the evening I felt a cold coming on, so the next morning we used that as our excuse to lounge and eat for another day. I debated getting a haircut at “The World’s Highest Hair Salon” but better judgement steered me away. Day 2 was essentially a repeat of day 1, minus the beer and pool, and it was equally as good as the previous. The one downside was getting a sunburn on my ankles when I took my socks off. 

Today’s hike back to Pheriche was a little long but not too bad. After leaving the sun in Namche, I can’t say I was particularly excited to come over Pheriche Pass and walk down into the usual icy wind-tunnel that we call home. Whenever we ask Ang Rita about the weather his standard response since early March has been “It’s not usually this cold, I think warmer next week”. I don’t believe him anymore.

As for the remainder of my time here, I have been making a list of things I want to do before returning to Kathmandu. The first couple of things will be accomplished within the next week, but the others are going to be tough with only 28 days remaining. Tomorrow I’ll be staffing the clinic alone again while Alun and Lauren go for a hike. The following day I’m walking up to Lobuche before continuing on to Everest base camp to spend 3 days in the clinic there. Ed’s wife Jen is swapping with me so they can see each other before he departs for Denali. From base camp it’s back here for one day to do a bunch of laundry and then back up to Chukkung on the opposite side of the ridge. There I’m meeting a few people to climb Imja Tse (Island Peak but I prefer the local name) which should take 2-3 days. By that time there will be less than 3 weeks left here. The list of things to do in that remaining 3 weeks is long but I should be able to work something out with Alun and Lauren. 

At the top of the list is to leave Pheriche, cross the Cho La Pass to Gokyo and descend Gokyo valley before returning up through Phortse and Pangboche to Pheriche all within 24 hr. After crossing the pass this week, I think it is very doable, but will be a hard day. The second on the list is to do the Kongma La Pass and likely spend one night up there to climb Pokalde. Lastly I would like to climb up to the base of Tabuche and scope out some of the routes. I have not intention of climbing high but the mountain is beautiful and close by, so it seems a shame to not take a closer look. I suspect that if I can get one or two of those done in my remaining time it will be a success.

Lastly, a few days on the road has allowed me to do some good reading. The book total is up to 12. I never thought I would get into the Harry Potter series but the first four were here in the clinic and since I have run out of most everything else with the exception of the last book in the Twilight series (I saw the first two movies), it seemed like the next most viable option. I knocked those out and now don’t have the fifth book. I checked on Amazon and was amazed that Harry Potter is not available electronically. I guess I’ll have to wait until June to find out what happens next, unless I happen to find a trekker who has and is willing to trade for something else......Twilight. 

Happy New Year

Thursday April 14, 2011

4:38PM

Happy New Year! That’s right. It’s the Nepali New Year today. Why they have a different calender, I have no idea, and I can’t seem to find a Nepali that can explain it to me either. It doesn’t seem to be quite the festive holiday we celebrate back home. Regardless, Ed and I are going to celebrate over a bottle Nepal’s finest - Kukuri Rum. Before you get all excited that we’re about to get ripped you have to realize that a bottle of rum is all of 4 ounces, and at the local prices (and taste) you typically don’t go for a second serving.

After today, I think that a night out on the town is in order. Ed and I were supposed to set out for our two-mountain-pass journey yesterday, but the weather has been decidedly poor the past two days and we decided to wait for improvement. I’m actually glad that the clouds, snow and fog arrived before we departed, so that this time I might avoid multiple hours hiking in the blowing snow. 

Lauren, however, was not happy about our delay and continued to voice her opinion that we should just go. It became pretty apparent that she really wanted to get out of the clinic, so I set she and Alun free to hike down to Namche for a short holiday. I’m more than happy for them to get away, especially while the weather is bad, if it means she comes back less grumpy. The downside is that I now spend the day with three guys who only talk to each other in a language I don’t understand, and I see all of the patients. Much of life is about compromise, right?

The plan now is to leave on Sunday or Monday after my colleagues return, and I’m looking forward to the break. We hit the half-way point on Sunday and as much as I’m enjoying my time here, I am also starting to look forward to being back home. Last night we had the painful discussion regarding all of the foods we would love to be eating instead of the pasta with carrots and ketchup. A couple of other things that will be really great: Geary’s, dessert, running without feeling like vomiting, ratz, warm fingers and toes, and of course being back with Charlotte, the Ratz and our friends.

Friday April 15, 2011

8:25PM

Yesterday’s entry came to an abrupt close in part due to the arrival of a patient requiring evaluation but also because we ran out of power. With the prolonged bad weather of the past week our power supplies have been slowly dwindling, unable to regenerate through the solar panels. We finally hit rock bottom yesterday in time for two emergencies which killed any hopes of New Year celebrations

The first was an infection of the hand that I thought would be treatable but progressed rapidly and did not respond to our limited antibiotic supply. The second was another case of AMS and HAPE that required overnight treatment. With my colleagues on holiday that meant that I was up all night administering medications and monitoring for effect. 

Today started busy from the beginning with patients arriving at 7 AM and not letting up until the most recent five minutes ago. The damage consisted of 22 total patients (our busiest day yet), 1 ground evacuation and 3 helicopter evacuations. I now realize why last fall’s team recommended that 2 physicians be in the clinic during the middle and busiest part of the season. I actually prefer being busy in the clinic, but Gobi and I are hoping for a little sleep tonight.

Theme of the Week: Heli-evac

Monday April 11, 2011

7:05PM

The theme as of late has been heli-evacuation. We’ve had at least two per day over the last 3 or 4 days, and I have to say, they have all been legitimate. Not that we would call or approve a helicopter transport for someone who didn’t deserve it, but most of these people have been pretty sick. Even the ones who didn’t look all that bad at first glance turned out to have horrible vital signs.

The streak started with the woman I previously mentioned with the bizarre sudden vision loss and since then there have been two Brazilian men with HAPE, a man from the Czech Republic with HACE and HAPE, a nervous camerman with a heart condition, and, at least, a few others that I can’t currently recall the specifics. There would have been two others, but they chose not to heed our advice and walked down. 

The first of these two was a middle-aged man from the US who while working hard to get up a steep hill began to feel heart palpitations and subsequently passed out. In the medical world, red flags go up over a situation such as this, but despite our warnings he decided to walk down. The second of the two refusals was even more dramatic. A young woman, again American, happened to notice her very rapid heart rate while resting in her room. As it turned out, she has likely had a thyroid condition for years, which is being treated back in NY by her “Oriental Healer” with ginger and some other herbal supplement. Judging by the goiter in her neck, the twigs and berries haven’t been working. We don’t have the ability here to prove the thyroid as the cause and there were several other more serious diagnoses in consideration so we recommended that she fly down to Kathmandu for a more formal evaluation. The trouble came when she refused to go and insisted that she continue up to base camp with her group. After multiple meetings with her and her guides she was ultimately escorted down to Lukkla and onto a plane by one the group’s guides who missed out on his first opportunity to guide a Himalayan ascent on Lobuche.

Tonight we have an Aussie woman with some mild AMS who really just needs someone to hold her hand for a little while. Too bad we’re all going next door to the Panorama Lodge for a night on the town. Five minutes after she arrived her companions asked whether the “heli” would arrive tonight or tomorrow morning. Fortunately, Alun was feeling kind hearted and provided both the TLC as well as the well thought explanation of why she would likely be heading down-valley under her own power tomorrow after spending the night in her own lodge tonight. One of the benefits of eating out is siting around the lodge’s wood stove, so it’s going to take a really sick patient to keep us away from that.


I'm now off for another backpacking trip, and I'm really looking forward to some time away. The plan is to head up to Zhungla today and over the Cho La Pass from the east to Gokyo tomorrow. From there we'll head up to Cho Oyu base camp before crossing another high pass, the Rhenjo La, to Thame. Then it's a long two days of walking down to Namche and back to Pheriche. I should be sufficiently tired by the time I get back. Hopefully, I'll have some new adventures to report in a week or so. Pictures, as I'm sure you can tell, haven't been loading into the blog well on the slow connection, so I'll try to put something new on Facebook when I get back.

Increasing Business, Decreasing Temperature

Thursday April 7, 2011

4:23PM

In the past week business has started to pick up, especially in the last 2 or 3 days. The large climbing expeditions have started to roll through town, which, for the most time, make the village seem a little more alive. I expect the expedition traffic to continue for another 1 to 2 weeks before tapering back down to trekker traffic, which has also increased.

With the large expeditions comes a lot of “personalities”. I’ll leave it there as I don’t want to pass judgement. Just to give you an idea, the questions during our altitude lecture have transitioned from curiosity regarding side effects of altitude medications to wanting to know how many liters of oxygen a face mask should be delivering above 8000 meters in order to achieve adequate oxygen saturations for summit success. Hmmmm....... not sure anyone has that one worked out quite yet. My thought was give yourself enough to stay awake and give the rest to your Sherpa, so he has plenty of energy to carry you to the top. Not all have been quite so aggressive, and it has been nice talking to the guides as well as many of the climbers. I’m looking forward to going up to basecamp where I can get to know them a little better.

With increased traffic comes increased patients and we’ve had a few more in the recent days. We flew out two patients today, one of whom had strange vision loss in her left eye along with AMS, so I suspect that it was mainly due to the elevation and perhaps some variant of cerebral edema. She didn’t really cooperate with examination and there wasn’t a lot we could do for her anyway, so the answer was to fly her down. I gave my card to her guide so he could send information back to us when her condition had been treated. The other was a trekker with mild pulmonary edema who could have been treated here, but I think he had had enough of the Nepal highlands. Otherwise, I feel sure that I have now seen every person in the villages of Dingboche and Pheriche and several have been seen twice. At one point today, I thought about hanging a box of tylenol and cough drops out front next to a sign with the definition of a cold that instructs the local population to take each of the medications for at least three days before coming to the doctor. I have seen one patient three times in the last 2 days: once because he wanted his blood pressure checked, once because his left ear felt full and again today because his ear still feels full a whopping 18 hours after I told him it would get better with some time. 

The nice thing about having patients, even when they aren’t really all that sick, is that it breaks up the day. We’ve started taking them out to the “sunroom” to be seen as you can’t see more than two in a row in the clinic before your hands don’t function from the cold, not to mention that I feel terrible asking people to take off their 4 layers of clothes for an examination when it’s 25 degrees INSIDE.

In regards to the temperature, I’m tired of being cold but at the same time I've grown pretty used to it. My hands and feet stay cold most of the day with the exception of the morning in my nice warm sleeping bag. The hot water has also now gone from broken to fixed to broken to fixed and, we believe, now permanently broken. It’s a painful experience coming back from a run in the snow to bathe inside a freezer with a small pitcher of hot water. Actually, it’s even more painful if there is no preceding exercise as you start off even colder. Thus far, I’m the only one to attempt bathing since the water broke and I’m pretty sure my blue lips and intense shivering deterred the others. Eventually, though, they’ll break down too.

I might be tired of being cold, but Lauren is on a completely different level. We have a gas heater that, if one sits a few inches away from its front, can warm you reasonably well. Last night it ran out and we have to conserve our remaining gas for cooking. That must have been the final straw, because a short time later she came in the kitchen and very sternly asked, “Is there a solution?”. Her question received the silent response of confused looks from our Nepali counterparts, but Alun and I both knew what she was thinking. She continued with “If we can’t get wood or dung for the stove heater, gas for the other heater, or working hot water, I’m going on holiday to Namche until something gets done.” Obviously, nothing got fixed today and Lauren has yet to emerge from her sleeping bag.

In the next few days. I’m going to head out again to reattempt the Cho La Pass. The husband of one of the basecamp team is spending the next few weeks wandering Nepal after his expedition insurance lapsed thus canceling his plans to climb Ama Dablam. I think both of us are happy to have some companionship while trekking through the mountains. The plan this time is to go over directly from this side and then to spend a couple of days hiking up Gokyo Ri and to Cho Oyu basecamp before coming back across the pass. Things will surely go better this time, and I’ll definitely carry a little more gear to assure staying warm and dry.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to stop this entry here. I have more to say, but my fingers aren’t working too well and I can’t feel my toes, so it’s time to add a few more layers.

First Month Done

Friday April 1, 2011

4:23PM

After the adventure earlier this week, there hasn’t been much exciting to report. The HRA Basecamp team, led by Luanne Freer, has been in town for the last 2 days and it has been nice to have some new faces with whom to socialize. Luanne has been running the basecamp operation for the past 7 or 8 years since she first worked in Pheriche back in 2002. This year there will be 3 doctors there as well, excluding herself, but she plans on staying only long enough to get things up and running smoothly. I’ll be trading for a couple of weeks with the Nepali doctor and suspect that Alun and Lauren will also go up for a few days of something different.

Two nights ago the two teams and the duo of Sandy Scott and John Knowles from the Everest Memorial Trust sat down to a tasty dinner and a few drinks at the Himalayan Lodge. It’s amazing how well one sleeps after 1 glass of red wine - far and away my best night yet. I think I could make it a nightly habit, but red wine, even the cheap stuff, runs about $35 per bottle. 

John and Sandy have an interesting relationship with the HRA. The HRA has been running this facility since 1973, but sometime in the ‘80’s the EMT began remodeling the post. This has lead to the EMT managing the post from a structural standpoint and the HRA handling the administrative and medical side. I understand that, occasionally, there may be some tension between the two groups on how things should be done, but from my observation it appears that everyone gets along pretty well. Through the years the EMT has installed the running water, solar power, and a glycol heating system, all of which I’m more than happy to use. However, Nepal can be a difficult place for advanced technology to take hold and the heating system has never really worked. It would be nice to be warm at some point during the day, especially inside, but I suppose I can be content with the occasional hot shower. 

That brings up the downside of the last 48 hours. The day Sandy and John left, and the day the plumber was supposed to arrive to fix the pipes, the hot water pump mysteriously quit. Once that news got around to everyone, spirits dipped slightly, to say the least. It didn’t help that the plumber, who was supposed to bring 15 ft of replacement pipe, arrived with 12 in of pipe, no tools, and after taking one look at the system stated that he really didn’t think he could do much. Awesome!

I’m certainly no plumber but it made sense to take a systematic approach to figuring out the issue rather than giving up on account of overall complexity. Coincidentally, or perhaps through some divine intervention, Alun and I both had dreams during the night about fixing the system. Over breakfast this morning we put our heads together and started at the breaker box moving down the line toward the pump. Ultimately, the problem was lack of power to the pump which was easily remedied by splicing a broken wire back into the circuit. Voila! The hot shower was back up and running and spirits recharged. Now the plumber could go back to eating and watching Forest Gump.

Since we now had water again, it was time to get out and work up a little sweat. I put off running yesterday in hopes of getting the water fixed, so I set out on the route I had planned previously. Thinking back to my previous running experiences here, I started out downhill for a few minutes in hopes of getting the system a little warm before trashing myself up a hill. That almost worked, but the hill started a little before I was ideally warm. To be honest, I’m not sure that being ideally warm would have made much of a difference in my ability to get up and over Pheriche Pass. Surprisingly, I managed to get within about 20 ft of the top before I started to get lightheaded from the effort. After coming down the opposite side of the pass I took a hard left at the junction with the trail to Dingboche. There were a few steep sections leading up to the neighboring village that I had to walk and then a couple more when crossing up and over the ridge from Dingboche back to Pheriche. All in all, I had to walk less than I realistically expected but more than I hoped. I guess it really wasn’t bad for 50 minutes and close to 1000 ft of elevation gain. If I manage to run the whole thing before I leave, I’ll be pretty psyched. Of course no recent venture would be complete without running into my Parisian friend, Christine, who made it to Basecamp and was returning down the ridge from Dingboche.

Upon getting back to the post I kicked the plumber out of the bathroom (He had decided to do some work) and took advantage of our efforts from this morning. Since my I had been wearing my last clean shirt and socks for the last 3 days, I also took the opportunity to do some laundry, which reminds me of a question I have been pondering for the past few days. When washing  clothes by hand in a basin of soapy water, do the clothes really get much cleaner, or is the dirt just redistributed? I’m leaning toward the latter. Perhaps the icy, subfreezing fog in which the clothes are now hanging to “dry” will contribute positively to the cleaning effect.

On a final note for the day, if you’re reading this Friday morning in Portland, don’t wimp out because of the forecasted weather. Go to the Boys and Girls Clubs Auction tonight! Anything on which Charlotte works this hard is guaranteed to be good and you can go home with a warm fuzzy feeling inside for supporting a great local organization. Happy April Fools Day!

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Oft Go Awry

Wednesday March 30, 2011

1:08PM

I arrived back in Pheriche yesterday around lunch time after nearly 4 days on the opposite side of the mountains to the west. The plan was to hike down-valley to where two major rivers converge, set off up that particular drainage and return over a high mountain pass to the east which ultimately leads down to Pheriche. It was the same hike that Alun and Lauren just did and I was optimistic that I would have equally good weather. Plans did not turn out quite as anticipated.

Day 1: Pheriche to Macherma

After a quick Skype session with the wife and parents to let them know my plans I headed southeast into light winds and sunny skies. My plan was to descend through Somare and Pangboche to Phorche before heading up the opposite river valley to Dhole and Macherma, where our friends with IPPG have a medical outpost similar to our own. I had decided, based on my colleagues’ experience, to travel fast and light with waterproof shoes, a few extra layers, snacks, water and sleeping bag. I figured that with this setup I could make better time than they had assuring completion of the trek in the three allotted days. I let the family know my schedule and that I would be in contact when I got back to Pheriche. 

The first few hours of walking were pretty casual and the weather was warm and sunny. The trail gradually descends from Pheriche to Pangboche and allowed me to make good time without working too hard. From Pangboche to Phorche the way changes from a broad thoroughfare to a narrow path carved into a steep hillside. At times there were sections that had obviously washed out in the past and were now rocks and dirt supported by logs on wooden pegs. Not exactly North American construction standards but I figured it must hold up several tons of yak each day so surely it would hold me. Nonetheless, I tended to hug the cliff-line as much as possible where the ground looked a little more solid and a slip wouldn’t result in a tumble to the river channel 1000 feet below.

After reaching Phorche the trail descended sharply to the river where I crossed a bridge and started up the other side toward Dhole. This was harder work by far, but having descended a couple thousand feet thus far, I was well within my acclimatization range and felt surprisingly good going up. The trail on this side was a little more crowded and I passed around 2 dozen other trekkers on their way up. 

Upon reaching Dhole, I decided it was time for a break, as I had been at it for around 5 hours, was out of water and had eaten only a granola bar since breakfast. I refilled my bottles and sat down to a warm bowl of Sherpa stew and a small pot of hot lemon tea. While eating I inquired about the remainder of my journey to Macherma and was informed that it was another 3 hours walk. It felt like I had been walking pretty fast but I was going to have to pick up the pace a little if I was going to avoid finishing my hike in the dark. I resigned myself to the fact that this could no longer be a relaxing lunch break and scarfed down my food. 

The trail immediately ascended around 600 feet up and over a ridgeline to the north of the village. By the time I reached the top, my stomach was in a serious knot due to the exertion and preceding gorging. To make matters worse, it began to snow. Initially there were only small little pellets but this quickly transitioned to large fluffy flakes. The trail remained easily visible but the rate of snow fall and accompanying wind started to concern me a little bit. As I had just turned myself inside out getting up the hill, the idea of turning back didn’t appeal. So I proceeded onward with the thought that I could go back to Dhole if conditions deteriorated. Along the way I passed through another small village consisting of 2 houses and again told myself that I could return to this place if things got worse. A short while later the snow really started coming down and began to fill in the path, but navigation remained relatively easy as there was only two ways to go, forwards and backwards. Just when I thought that I might have to turn around and make for one of the houses I had passed, I pulled over a small rise and looked down into Macherma valley.

It was a relieving site to see the clinic at the top of the valley and I walked through the door just as they were finishing the afternoon altitude-illness lecture. I welcomed a cup of milk tea and visited with Laurie and Helen while warming up by the stove for a few minutes. They recommended the Namgyal Lodge in the village proper, so that is where I decided to call home for the night.

One of the great things about trekking in Nepal is that you don’t have to carry much equipment because you typically go from village to village where there is always a warm stove, bed (not usually warm), and good food waiting. The other nice aspect is that one can travel alone and usually find company with whom to share dinner and a few stories. 

At the Namgyal, I enjoyed my nightly dahl-baat with Christine, a retired elementary school teacher from Paris, and Karen, a high school physics teacher on a 6 month sabbatical from her job in Montreal. Our discussion mainly revolved around cultural differences between our respective countries. After the effort from the day, I retired early, but agreed to walk up to Gokyo the next day with my new companions.

Day 2: Macherma to Dragnac

Again the weather was warm and sunny, and in fact, was so nice that after breakfast at the lodge I enjoyed a cup of tea at the IPPG post wearing a T-shirt. After a slow morning, I hit the trail and quickly caught up with my companions from the previous night who had made friends with 4 French climbers from Chamonix. Our group of 3 had become 7 and the company was welcome, but the climbers’ English was about as good as my French so Karen was stuck translating as she was the only one of us fluent in both languages.

The hike was initially pretty easy but then reached steeper terrain along the margin of a large glacier. The trail ultimately flattened out and traversed the banks of a chain of 3 glacial lakes. Surprisingly we were greeted by the calls of creme colored ducks with bright orange heads swimming in the few partially melted areas of the lakes.

As usual the weather began to turn gray as we reached Gokyo and my hopes of climbing Gokyo Ri on the banks of the upper lake were dashed. Instead I decided to enjoy a last lunch with my new friends before doubling back and crossing the glacier to Dragnac. Unfortunately, the service was slow but my meal of vegetable egg fried potatoes topped with copious amounts of ketchup was worth the wait. 

Outside the weather was looking more ominous, so I wrapped things up and made way for the village on the opposite side of the glacier at the base of the next day’s effort, the Cho La Pass. Vincent, one of the climbers, had made the same trek 2 years ago and was kind enough to show me the way to the start of the path. Glaciers, however, are a very dynamic land form and the route that Vincent had taken 2 years ago, which was the route on my map, was no longer passable. It really barely existed. I spent 2 exhausting hours trudging through glacial till and hopping over unstable rocks trying to find my way across the barren landscape. Meanwhile the weather was not improving, so I decided that if I could not see my way to Dragnac by 4 PM I would return to Gokyo. 

I finally found what I thought was the right path, and it most likely was a few years ago, but I was turned around by a wide glacial stream that had washed away the trail. There was no choice but to return the way I came, which proved to be no easy task as cairns marking numerous paths went in almost every direction. Thoughts of spending the night on the glacier crossed my mind and I actually scoped out a few sheltered areas amongst the rocks that would make the night survivable, though highly uncomfortable. Once again, like the day before, a little good luck was on my side, because just as thick clouds rolled in reducing visibility to about 50 feet, I arrived at the large cairn marking the main trail to Gokyo. My friends were surprised to see me emerge from the developing snow storm, exhausted and a little frazzled. Over dinner, I discussed my route-finding difficulties with two guys from England who had come over from the other direction. They had been informed by a guide that the old route really no longer exists and that the new route has not appeared on maps as of yet. That would have been good to know.

Day 3: Gokyo to Dragnac or ?

I woke up in the middle of the night debating with myself on whether or not I should go to Dragnac the next day and then do the Cho La Pass the day after that or whether I should try to get over the pass to Zhungla or even all the way back to Pheriche. The latter, however, would be an enormously long day. Ultimately, I decided on trying to email the HRA and family back home to let them know that I would be delayed an extra day and then climbing Gokyo Ri before proceeding to Dragnac and on to the Cho La.

Again, all of my plans were forced to change as I woke up to 3 inches of fresh snow. Gokyo Ri was out of the question and the likelihood of getting over the Cho La in the next 2 days was unlikely, especially given my lightweight gear and lack of familiarity with the route. The only choice was to go back the way I came. I waited a couple of hours to let other groups pack down the path a little so that the snow wouldn’t continually spill over my low-top shoes.  I enjoyed a breakfast of pancakes smothered in honey along with some milk tea before hiking back down to Macherma in yet another driving snow storm. 

I arrived back at the IPPG post cold and with soaked feet. I think they must have felt sorry for me, because I was treated to one of the best lunches I have had in Nepal - grilled vegetable and cheese sandwiches. 

The snow continued to fall outside and was now blowing horizontally, so I was far from inspired to venture further down the trail. About the time I had conceded to staying in Macherma for another night, Christine, my Parisian friend, came through the door looking for a quick check of her oxygen saturations. She was going to continue on with her guide to Dhole, so I decided to go along. 

The trail was surprisingly easy to follow due to the deep ruts cut by Yak trains. A few areas were difficult where the ground was smooth and exposed to wind but still manageable. The pace of Christine’s group was frustratingly slow so I forged ahead with the thought of possibly continuing on to Phorche or Phorche Thanga. I stopped briefly at a lodge in Dhole to call the HRA so that they would know where I was and so that someone could email the family my whereabouts, but the cloud-cover prevented a decent signal. My plans of going on to Phorche came to a screeching halt when I rounded the first bend and started the descent out of Dhole where the snow had stopped but the trail was icy and the visibility minimal. 

I returned the long 20 feet to Dhole and stopped at the lodge belonging to a woman who I recognized from my flight to Lukkla several weeks ago. The lodge was a little on the cold side but still better than the post in Pheriche and the company was good. After an excellent dinner of tomato egg drop soup and fried potato momo’s, I spent the remainder of the evening playing strange Nepali card games with the lodge owners and a group of trekkers from Lithuania, Germany, and Argentina. 

Day 4: Dhole to Pheriche

Waking up and putting on damp, dirty clothes is never fun, but after a couple of days of gradually increasing sogginess it was tolerable. I said goodbye to the previous evening’s company and set out for the post. I had the thought of getting back in time for lunch, which was doable, but I also was feeling a bit beat down from the previous days so I wasn’t really interested in trying to go too quickly. I also hadn’t taken many pictures of the surrounding country in the previous days due to the horrendous weather so I definitely had to do a little photo-documentation along the way. 

Shortly after arriving in Phorche, the desire for a hot meal, hot shower, and a clean change of clothes took over and I turned up the pace significantly. I also noticed that I was going to be racing the weather yet again as the clouds were starting to build in the lower valley. 5 hours of nonstop hiking later, I pulled into the post just as the group was finishing lunch, but not too late to get my shower and 3 peanut butter on chipati sandwiches.

The previous days didn’t go nearly according to plan but they did have a few semi-epic moments and I’m happy to be back relatively intact. My feet are suffering from the numerous miles in soaking wet shoes and socks, but they should recover within a day or two. I’m not sure that the Himalayas are the place for fast and light, especially when you don’t have access to a weather report. Sometime next month I’ll have to make the trek across the Cho La but suspect I’ll just go directly up from here and then back rather than down and around the whole valley.