Up in the mountains

“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit” – Bernard Williams

Bleeding nose, dry flaky skin, blistered feet, breathlessness, extreme exhaustion, and perennially chilled to the bone. Sweaty days but no showers, freezing nights but no fire, dehydrated and a bottle of frozen water. Ah! Those were eleven exciting days to Nirvana.

Being far away from civilization with no means of communication for days together, an unplanned helicopter ride and three days of curfew imposed by a nasty fog marked an adventure of a lifetime!

Everest Base Camp

The destination had been on my mind for a few years now, which finally came to fruition in November 2014. I had deliberately chosen a ‘winter’ trek as it is supposed to be ‘off-season’ and therefore less crowds and I anyway had the ability to withstand extreme cold. Little did I know that neither of that would be true.

We were a group of four trekkers with a guide and two porters. The itinerary was a quite simple and a standard one. Fly out from Kathmandu to Lukla, trek for 8 days till EBC, descend back to Lukla over the next 3 days and fly back to Kathmandu. Did I say simple? “In the Everest region, expect anything but a predictable day”, our guide had told us the very first day upon our arrival.  His statement was axiomatic as our experience revealed.

The routine

The daily routine during those eleven days was pretty much the same. We wake up by 5.30-6.00am, have breakfast by 7.30am, stop by for tea and lunch on the way and reach the day’s destination before the sun set.  Food used to be a standard fare. Dal-Bhat, Momo, Soup, loads of lemon-honey tea for fluids and snickers & dry fruits for energy during the journey. I drank very little water throughout as the water always used to be cold or frozen. 8-10 cups of lemon tea a day sufficed though.

The terrain was mostly a combination of uphill and downhill, barring a few stretches of continuous uphill which used to be the toughest. Temperatures during the day used to be as high as 5 degrees and the nights went down to as low as -15 degrees at the highest altitude. Walking continuously would keep you warm during the day, despite the low temperatures. However, the minute you stop for tea or lunch, two minutes is all that’s required for the chilly winds to hit you like crazy, especially with all the sweat. On the one hand, the feet get extremely exhausted in a few hours but you need to keep on walking to keep yourself warm. Such was the irony of the situation.

Sleep was always elusive for me during the nights. Either it was too cold or it was too warm in the sleeping bag. There was this one time at Gorakshep (5200m) where I simply had to sit through the night as a sleeping position would not allow me to even breathe. There were times when I went without brushing my teeth or changing clothes for several days at a stretch. And of course having a bath was a luxury, one would have to pay anywhere between 200-400 bucks for a hot water shower. It was another matter that it was next to impossible to even take one in such extreme temperatures. I took a shower only after returning back to Mumbai after exactly 14 days!

The experience

EBC trek is one of extreme endurance. Hours and hours of walk leads you just one step closer to the base camp.  Days and days of such walks requires quite a lot of mental endurance, not just physical fitness. Counting those days and hours to destination seemed never ending. There were times when the single-most thing on my mind was to get back to civilization and regain some sanity, even if it were the hot humid weather of Mumbai that I’ve always cursed.

Sometimes it would just get plain boring. I used to keep walking and walking with no soul around me and no destination in sight, just the majestic mountains and the flowing streams that constantly make me aware of how insignificant a creature I am in front of their might. To do away with the boredom and fatigue I used to count my steps, every step as I walked. I made a conscious effort not to take a water/chocolate break before 1000 steps which was approximately half an hour. Typically, on an uphill climb I had to catch my breath every 30-40 steps depending on the slope of the hill. Each time I exceeded my previous pace, say instead of 40 I manage 50, I felt this sudden new surge of confidence and motivation to go ahead. That is how I used to keep up my energy levels high.

There were days when I wanted to back out (which was almost every day). The second day of the trek from Phakding (2600m) to Namche Bazaar (3440m) was by far the worst even though this was at a far lower elevation. A total of 9 hours of trek with four hours of continuous steep uphill and an altitude gain of 700m took a toll on me. After a point, I simply couldn’t move. I just wanted to collapse right there in the middle of the mountains and go off to sleep. Somehow I managed that day with a little help from the porter who carried my backpack for the last half hour or so. The next day, I decided to skip the ‘acclimatization’ trek and instead opt for a refreshing foot massage that would gear me up for the days ahead.

Every time I felt unsure of my capabilities and wanted to give up, speaking to a dear friend encouraged me to go on. I needed every bit of motivation I could get, be it talking to my friend, counting my steps while walking, or fearing the repercussions of a failure. Of course, the breathtaking views of the Himalayas and the everyday challenges posed by the ever changing terrains were like a soothing balm to me.

Perceptions

I always knew one thing all through. One I return back to civilization, I will be asked just one question “Did you manage to reach the base camp?” and the thought of having to say “No I couldn’t” scared me. It is another matter that even if I didn’t manage to reach the base camp, the sheer effort of having gone up-to say 4000m, 4500m or 5000m was something the average person could never do. Staying even for a single night at such an altitude with 50% oxygen levels and temperatures hovering around -15 degrees is no mean feat. There are so many people who have had to turn back or rescued at as low an elevation as 3440m (Namche Bazaar). But at the end of the day, when you come back down nobody cares about all the travails one endures. Only victory matters. Even a 90% attempt will be considered a failure.

The victory

At the end of it all, reaching the base camp (at 3.00pm and a freezing -10 degrees) was worth every single minute of the arduous journey. Words will do no justice to express the triumph I felt at that point. Though I barely stayed there for ten minutes, I knew at that very moment that I had done something that no person I know in my social circle will ever attempt to do. And that made me some sort of a hero (I was surely treated like one once I came back!). Afterthoughts

EBC is not everyone’s cup of tea unlike what I thought earlier. It’s only after I came back to Mumbai and saw the kind of response I received from people around me, I realized that what I did was truly an amazing feat. Two out of four of my group members backed out towards the end and had to be taken back in a rescue helicopter. The other two of us hitched a ride as well to save time, which as it turned out was absolutely futile as we ended up being stranded in Lukla for three days waiting for the fog to clear out before we could fly out to Kathmandu.

One needs to have a reasonable estimate of their own capabilities, health & fitness, as I realised very early into the trek. Most people just target EBC as a destination in itself and fail to realize the fact that there is an equal distance of descent to be covered. A lot many trekkers simply collapse during the final leg and need to be rescued back. I was well aware of what I could do and what I couldn’t and planned my days accordingly and refused to listen to what others said or did. For instance, at Namche Bazaar, I avoided the acclimatization trek simply to give my legs some rest and conserve energy for the ultimate day. I also didn’t go to Kalapathar, where one gets the best panoramic view of the mighty Himalayas. Going to Kalapathar would have been sheer insanity for me as it involved trekking at 5.00am in the morning at -20 degrees, in pitch darkness with head torches on, and a 4 hour steep climb.

Footnote

I sometimes wonder how those who climb the summit retain their energy levels for months together. A hell lot of patience they must have. It requires a completely crazy insane person to even attempt base camp, leave alone the summit. But I did it and this is just going to be the mark of a new beginning and a new set of adventures!

Both war and mountains have the capacity to radically change one’s perspective on the world and on one’s place in it – (taken from “Facing Up” – Bear Grylls)