Gokyo

Nestled deep into the Khumbu, at least a week’s walk from the closest airport, and two weeks from the closest road, lies a village with an aura and setting that every backpacker, wanderluster, businessman, laborer, working mom, housewife, retiree, and Instagram-addicted teenager dreams about. A place where emerald lakes run into snow covered peaks, where strolls along the lakeshore lead only to more lakes in both directions, where every window in town provides a lake view, and where adventure or serenity awaits, take your pick.

Descending upon Gokyo after an arduous 8-hour day over Cho La pass felt like discovering an oasis in the desert, a respite from unforgiving terrain. I had but one desire upon making our way down to the shores of the lake: take the plunge to cleanse from the 2 shower-less weeks and to re-energize my tired feet, legs, back, shoulders, and mind. Alas, my intentions proved to be futile, as the lake is considered to be holy for the native Sherpa, no swimming is allowed. I understood, but lamented what I considered to be a waste of pristine natural surroundings waiting to be enjoyed.

After checking in to our $1.75 room and enjoying some salty yak butter tea along with a fresh-baked brownie, we stared out our window onto the glistening lake, watching the sun make its way slowly behind the peaks as the afternoon fog rolled its way in. The following morning, we made our way up Gokyo Ri, a summit just outside of town, for a panorama of all the surrounding lakes, Everest, and the whole valley. The views never get old, even if the words to describe them run dry. Despite the panorama in front of me, my gaze continued to revert below, as the now tiny village of Gokyo and its dozen or so lodges lay perfectly positioned on the emerald lakeshore, directly opposite a string of peaks similar to Lake Moraine in the Canadian Rockies.

After making our way back to town, I decided to take a walk along the lakeshore in the late afternoon sun. Past breeze-blown prayer flags and meditating trekkers, I found a spot as close to the water sans swimming, and stared through the scattered clouds into the reflected rays on the water, through the peaks, into the hazy sun. I prayed, I praised, I let myself go for a bit, freeing myself from the physical and mental challenges of the trek. With the warmth of the sun fading, I became overwhelmed with emotion as the urge came to speak with my grandfather, catching up on all the things he’s missed since he passed almost 5 years ago, and just how much he’s inspired them all: the trips, the work, the life I’m living. I laughed, cried, joked, and smiled. A long overdue conversation, a physical and mental reminder of what heaven looks like. As the tears dried, the clouds descended, and the sun disappeared, I bid farewell and made my way back along the lakeshore to town, fresh off a cleansing and re-energizing that no dip in the water could have ever accomplished.

Perhaps it is a holy lake after all…

Everest and the 3 Passes

The hike to Everest Base Camp from Lukla is well trodden by many a tour group and individual trekker. The (mostly) out and back route takes approximately 12 days, including acclimatization days, to complete, and has been criticized for the crowds and, unfortunately, trash that tends to accumulate with such an influx of people in an area not suited to dispose of the refuse that comes with. While we wanted to see Everest during our trek, we opted for the 3-Passes route, a difficult route that crosses 3 passes in the 18,000 ft range, with the option to take the offshoot up to Everest Base Camp. The trail was rated as “Hard” and, in some areas, “Remote.”

These are both accurate statements.

From Chukung, we set out for Kongma La pass, supposedly the hardest of the three. Within 20 minutes, I began to feel light headed and the sensation that typically comes prior to passing out. Perhaps it was the 5am start, or the altitude, or the skipped breakfast, or the frozen hands, or the nervousness. Whatever the reason, the first course of action was to remove my pack and get some GU and some chapati in my system ASAP. After a few minutes’ recovery, all was right and we were back on the trail. The morning was beautiful, but the hike was grueling. After what seemed like endless false fronts and one too many impossibly steep switchbacks, we found ourselves at the top of the pass, 18,000+ feet up, overlooking lakes, rocky peaks, and snow covered faces as far as the eye could see. A sense of both accomplishment and awe overwhelmed as we enjoyed our extra hard-boiled eggs from the top, straddling the rocky crags of the pass, looking back at what we’d just accomplished, and out into what lay ahead.

As if the climb up wasn’t enough, we spent the next 5 hours maneuvering our way down the mountain, over icy boulders and down, down, down what seemed like a never-ending trail. The trip down was wearing, as food, water, and energy ran low. At the bottom of the hill, we reached one last obstacle – a glacier crossing, or at least the remnants of what once was a glacier. A steep climb up, then down into the maze of rocks, ice, and pools, following the flags that would eventually lead us to our resting spot for the evening. Into a new world we ventured, with new peaks to ogle over, new terrain to traverse, and new mental battles to fight. Alas, we arrived in Lobuche, back on the well-trodden path to Everest, the first pass in the books.

With bodies and minds sufficiently shot, but our confidence boosted, we continued the push towards Everest Base Camp the following morning, reaching Gorak Shep, the last remnants of civilization, for a quick tea break and sendoff towards the great Sagarmatha. The route was cake compared to the day before, and we arrived (along with dozens of others) to the desolate wasteland that is base camp. With the climbing season over, just a couple tents lay strewn about the rocky hillside that butts up against the undulating, spiky glacier than leads the way up the mountain. Almost hidden behind the surrounding mountains, Everest barely reveals its broad peak to would-be climbers. Based on my recent reading of Into Thin Air, I could somewhat trace the path up in my head, doing my best to envision how in the world the massive icefall could be traversed up to the next camp. I thought about those who met their demise on the mountain, the fact that they were still up there, preserved in the ice and snow, so far removed from the revelers down below celebrating their great accomplishment of walking to base camp with some trekking poles and a porter. I was proud of our feat, no doubt, and floored by the grandiosity of what was in front of me, but my experience at base camp felt much too heavy to celebrate. I made my way down into the glacier, leaping over a deep, fast-flowing runoff (the closest brush I would come to falling victim to the mountain), and did my best to get a sense of the size of it all. I imagined the difficulty of climbing over the ice 4 times my height, plodding my way up the mountain, staunchly reminding myself that I had no business being on that mountain, and thankfully, no desire.

If Everest Base Camp was sobering, Kala Patthar was pure glory. The following morning, we made our way to the top of the nearby hillside (if you count 1200 ft vertical paths hills), to the “footstool” of Everest. The vantage point from Kala Patthar puts the great mountain in plain sight, along with its neighbors to the left, right, and all around. The climb was tough as always, but invigorating, as we had positioned ourselves face to face with the top of world. Everest stands strong, broad, doesn’t show off with any fancy features, almost blends in as it sits behind lesser peaks that may seem to match its height, but don’t come close. It’s as if the mountain is content to sit and let the other peaks deceive its viewers, because it knows who sits atop the throne, and that’s really all that matters. We sat on our own makeshift throne at the top of a rocky outcropping for who knows how long, soaking up the glory that surrounded, high on both life and earth, unsure that we’d ever come down.

Continuing along the route, a short day on the trail left us in Dzonghla, the jump off point for the next pass, Cho La. Dzonghla quickly became one of our favorite stops, nestled at the top of a valley, perfectly framing Ama Dablam, our favorite peak. After Kongma La and Kala Patthar, we were confident for Cho La, though that didn’t make the effort any less challenging. After a short, lost-trail detour and a slip into the creek, it looked as though we were in for another rough day. With our heads down, we persevered, up and over even larger boulders, across snow-packed ledges where one bad step would send us sliding, and finally to the top of the 2nd pass, where we reaped the spoils once again. Snow and peaks and outcroppings on all sides, we sat again on nature’s perfectly selected pedestal. As tends to be the case, two photos of different passes may not look all that different to the untrained eye, but the real-life experience makes each pass uniquely its own, a spoil only truly reaped from the effort exerted to make your way to the top. A similar fate from Kongma La await us on the other side, as we cautiously made our way down, with another glacier-remnant crossing as the final obstacle before reaching the village of Gokyo, the most beautiful place on Earth you’ve never heard of.

2 heavenly days in Gokyo gave way to our final test, the Renjo La Pass. Nervousness no longer an obstacle, it was our focus and resolve that was tested on the final pass. Being so close to the end, it’s easy to fall into the trap of letting down the guard, of losing focus on the task at hand, of hitting the brick wall that doesn’t provide too many options high up on the mountain. The closer we reached, the harder it was to find my rhythm. Each misstep at such high altitude required an extra few seconds to catch my breath and search for the cadence that would take me to the top. Each false front made for another blow to the psyche. The 3rd pass, the easiest of them all, was proving to be the most challenging, as if my body and mind knew it was almost done, but was not patient enough to wait it out just a bit longer. Alas, the pass was ours, quite literally, as only one other trekker, coming from the opposite direction, joined us at the top. The views, as expected, spell-bounding. Everest and its pals straight across, Gokyo and its emerald lakes below, glacier slashing through the panorama, any and all of the scenes we’d encountered during the previous 2 weeks walking, slogging, bouldering our way up, over, and through the valleys and mountainsides lay right in front of us. The Creator’s canvas, laid bare for us to take in, under a pristine sky.

If I looked hard enough, with enough imagination, I could see our footprints meandering the far-off trails. Permanent strokes on a perfect canvas, a permanent snapshot on an imperfect soul.

Through the Clouds

The mental alarm went off at 5am. Breakfast was packed and we were out the door by 6, ready to take advantage of the typically clear mornings. Our hike up the valley would be flanked by snow-capped peaks as we would spend our breaks trying to identify which was which from our map. We’d be floating on air, energized by the surroundings, unencumbered by the high altitude. It was going to be the quintessential day hiking in the Himalayas.

Until it wasn’t.

Thick clouds blanketed our route, as we descended all the way to the valley floor before climbing back out and up half again as high as we started. With each hour, we anticipated the clouds would burn off, but alas, they never did. Again, our gaze was forced towards what lay in front of us instead of above us. Again, what the sky hid from us was revealed through a different medium: through a serene and beautiful monastery in the hilltop town of Tengboche, through joyous conversation with an Israeli couple turned trekking partners, through internal self-reflection and thought between trying to catch a breath, and through the comfort of a hot glass of ginger-lemon-honey tea after a long day of hiking downhill, uphill, but seemingly never flat terrain.

The next morning in Pangboche, through the condensation of the tea house window and the sleep in my eyes, I glimpsed a patch of bluish-purple sky. Immediately, I rushed outside into the freezing cold morning, anxious to see what could be seen. And see I did. As clear a morning as imaginable, right in front of us lay a double peak, jetting into the sky, looking like a combination of the Matterhorn and Mt. Fitzroy: Ama Dablam, my pick for most attractive in the Khumbu. The morning sun glow behind it, lighting up the entire valley, peaks all the way down. I’d found what I’d come for, just waiting to be explored, seen from every angle, admired, even climbed perhaps. The day’s hike took us through Dingboche, another town engulfed by surrounding peaks, and onto Chukung, a resting place for 2 days prior to tackling the first of three passes. Upon arrival in Chukung, we found ourselves at what seemed like the foot, or perhaps the heel, of Lhotse, a neighbor to Everest, standing at over 26,000 feet. The face of Lhotse, along with its sister peaks, dominated the Skyline with a jagged ridge and rocky, snow-covered face. While other peaks were somewhat majestic, to me, Lhotse felt ominous, like it meant business. We sat in awe as we attempted to recover from our slightly-too-quick ascent from Pangboche, feeling the effects of our 15,000+ foot elevation.  

Our recovery and acclimatization day was spent, you guessed it, hiking. We took an offshoot trail to Island Peak base camp, making our way through glacial river bed run-offs, enjoying some flat terrain as we took in the beauty surrounding us. The scale of everything becomes mesmerizing, as you realize the peaks in front and around are up to 2 miles above. The sense of scale and scope stop functioning, what’s truly known is just how small we ourselves become, that the small rock seen tumbling down the glacier face across the way is most likely the size of a car, and that the trail in the distance, the one that seems to endlessly go in one direction and slope (up and steep) is on the docket for tomorrow.

As the clouds part and the air gets thinner, the breaths become harder, and the steps become slower. We are continuously reminded of the effort required to do what we came for, and must make the conscious effort to continue towards the peaks and passes in front of us, and those hidden as of yet, but that we know await.

And so we go…

Into the Khumbu

There are those places that we so often imagine ourselves being, imagine the feelings we’ll feel, the state of awe we’ll be in, the romanticism, the adventure, the grandiosity, the serenity. For some people, it’s the backstreets of Paris or the cobblestones of ancient Rome, for some it’s the promenade of Rio de Janeiro or a palm-fronded beach in the South Pacific, still others it’s a lakeside villa in the Alps, or standing atop the lost city of mystical Machu Picchu. Wherever the locale, we create the scene in our minds and run it over and over whenever we feel the need to Walter Mitty our way out of daily life. We imagine, we save, we plan, and, if we’re lucky, we go, in the hopes that the fantasy we’ve created becomes reality before our eyes. I, myself, have dreamed up a list of time and place perhaps larger than most, and have been fortunate enough to translate fantasy to reality for many a locale.

Mount Everest was never on that list.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, the Himalayas never made their way into my daydreams. The biggest mountains in the world, accessible to any willing trekker, were never a place I wanderlusted over, incessantly researching and imagining what it’d be like to stand at the foot of the giants. My last world tour came to an end ever so close, as I made it as far as India, but never north into the mountains. Since then, I knew I would make it to Nepal and the great peaks next, but I can’t say I ever really wondered what it might be like. I never put myself at the foot of Everest, never smelled the thinnest of mountain air. Curiously, my only real daydreaming came from a short scene in Benjamin Button, as an aging, but now able-bodied, Brad Pitt travels through India and wakes up to the sun in his eyes rising over some snow-capped peaks that I determined to be the Himalayas where I would one day find myself.

While a lifetime’s worth of wanderlust can enhance an experience, sometimes adventure lies in the unknown. And so, I decided to jump in blind, doing as little research as absolutely necessary to plan for the trip, ready to be overwhelmed by whatever lay ahead on the multi-week trek to and through the Khumbu, the region in and around the tallest mountain in the world. The trek would take us to Everest Base Camp, the jump-off point for would be summiteers, and over three 5000+ meter passes: Kongma La, Cho La, and Renjo La.

We began the journey with a thankfully non-eventful puddle-jumper flight into Lukla airport, a short runway stuck between a mountainside and a cliff (watch the 1st minute or so). From there, our trek began, meandering along the mountains high above, alongside, and over roaring glacial rivers. We passed through village after village situated into the hillsides, with farms, gardens, goats, yaks, porters, and, of course, Tea Houses. Tea Houses in Nepal serve as de-facto room and board for trekkers, glamping if you will. The basic structures typically have a large, comfortable, sometimes warm, common area where meals are served, tea is drunk, and smelly trekkers commiserate before heading to their chilly rooms to sleep the necessary 10-12 hours each night to recover. If you’re lucky, a warm shower may exist (for a fee), and there might even be a fully functioning sink. While glamping may not be the appropriate term, the comfort of protection from the elements, a hot meal, and a steaming cup of yak butter tea sure are some significant perks over pitching a tent.

The first 2 days of the trek were devoid of the peaks we were chasing, as the high clouds that typically make for excellent hiking weather weren’t quite high enough to reveal the looming mountains that we were unaware surrounded us. Our eyes instead were fixated on the dense forests, covered in ferns and mosses, and the ubiquitous mani wheels and stones found at the entrance to nearly every village. With each village came a twirl of the wheels to cleanse our souls and ensure a safe passage. Tombstone-like slabs of carved rock piled high and long, all repeating the mantra, served as guideposts. Porters with loads piled high on their backs serve as the long-haul truckers of the region, as no roads exist to transport goods up the mountain. Distances between villages are referred to as days’ walking, rather than kilometers covered. We crossed many a bouncy bridge suspended over the powerful rivers below, some a bit more precarious than others, dodging donkey-train traffic jams and doing our best not to look down over the sometimes hundred-plus foot drops.

The deep greens of the forest and the icy blue-gray of the river below were interrupted by the vibrant pop of color emanating from the famous prayer flags. A repeating series of green, red, blue, white, and yellow flags can be found in and around every corner of the mountains, hanging from bridges, strewn across high passes, covering stupas, decorating the walls of teahouses, you name it. Always eye-catching as they blow in the breeze, they served as a sign that we were near something important, perhaps our destination for the day, providing a vibrant reminder of the different world we were in as we lost ourselves on the meandering trails.

After the first of many arduous climbs, we found ourselves in Namche, the last major “city” before climbing deeper in teahouse-only territory. Sitting at 11,500 feet, Namche is the last stop for anything a trekker may have forgotten; you can find all the gear, food, souvenirs, and WiFi you can dream of. The city itself is situated like an amphitheater high above the valley below, with peaks (still hidden to us) surrounding in all directions, it’s colorful buildings and lodges making for a kind of lego-land feel from high above. All roads, er trails, in the area lead towards, from, and back to, Namche. Many trekkers (us included) choose to spend 2 days in order to begin the acclimatization process prior to proceeding higher into the hills.

After a successful start to the trip and sufficiently getting our hiking legs under us, the anticipation began to build for the prize of the whole adventure. Sure, the vastness of the mountainside, the power of the rivers and waterfalls, the quirkiness of the donkey and yak trains, the charm of the teahouses, and the mystique of the prayer flags and mani stones made for a trek already worth writing home about, but these were the Himalayas, we came to see the Giants, and it was time to do so. My wanderlust was in full effect, no more relying on Benjamin Button, no more zero-expectation travelling. I was Koo-Koo for the Khumbu, ready for the great peaks to knock my socks off.

Let’s Hike…