Journey to Everest: A Mountain Denied.

I tried to sit still and wish it away, but I knew it was all over. After getting so close, the mountain was within reach, only a few days further. The guests in the dining room did their best to help, bringing me water and blankets, though from the look on their faces it wasn't good. It hit me like a bolt and within seconds I was outside vomiting up my insides retching with pain. Every movement I felt as if I would pass out, my head searing with pain. I stumbled back into the lodge, and immediately vomited again in the center of the dining room creating a scene I am sure the other guests would not forget soon. "We are going down now." Gombo Sherpa told me as the guest house staff began to clean up my new mess. "I know." I said, head between my knees.

Ten days earlier the four of us Al, Ali, Gombo Sherpa, and I boarded a bus headed for Jiri, the old starting point for Trekking to Everest. This was once the only way to get to Everest, though nowadays almost no tourists travel this way and instead opt to go the much easier route by flying into Lukla and cut about a week off the journey. The bus ride was nothing short of an adventure in itself, having caught fire halfway to our destination creating absolute panic high up on a mountain road. It was a false alarm, and despite most passengers needing to vomit out the bus window every few minutes, it wasn't too bad a ride.

And so we followed the footsteps of the great climbers of the past like Sir Edmond Hillary and Tenzig Norgay. The path to Everest from here to Lukla goes due east crossing over the river valley draining to the south, which means every day is a long up and a long down, until Lukla when you move straight north up a valley. This section of the trek was incredible. The Jiri region is untainted by tourism like most of the other popular trekking areas and so you can experience "real" Nepal. Most of the tea house stops are small and quaint, and the villagers are excited to meet and talk with you. This is also in the meat of Sherpa country. The Sherpa people are notorious for their hospitality and friendliness.

We moved slowly day after day trudging over the daily high mountain passes, and staying in small tea houses at night always to ourselves. We only came across 2 or 3 other westerners throughout this section. In every village the children would run up to us in wonder and amazement and stare at us, but too shy to respond to our questions. I would toss them a piece of candy and they would giggle and run away.



Just before we reached Lukla we came upon what seemed like a big festival. People were gathered around a large Mani Stone (a boulder which has Buddhist prayers chiseled out and painted white) there was singing and many candles. Ali approached first and accidentally knocked over a large bowl of holy water when passing. When I approached I was handed a large bag full of food by a Buddhist monk. "Please take, its a puja offering." he said. Al and Ali also received a food bag, as did all the villagers and passers by. We stayed and watched the ceremony. The celebration was for this new Mani stone that had just been finished and the monks had travelled very far from different regions to bless it. As we watched the monks began playing traditional instruments and chanted loudly over the music. It was amazing to witness, and luck to arrive just in time for it.

Now in the Everest region proper past Lukla, things changed dramatically. suddenly there are thousands of tourists going in both directions, all to come and gawk at the biggest mountain in the world, most of them are well to do hiring porters to carry all their belongings and do most of the work for them. The villages changed from small farming communities to sprawling tourist towns with hotels and shops as far as the eye can see. The trail is now littered with water bottles and discarded candy wrappers. This is not what my original envisionment of what tramping through the Himalayas would be like. A few more days brought us to Namche Bazzar, the bustling trading town of the region. Here we took an extra days rest to acclimatize.

Leaving Namche I felt a bit under the weather, but mostly okay. It was to be a short day up another few hundred meters to the village of Tengboche. We reached the village shortly after lunch. Mt. Everest towered overhead in the backdrop. The village is home to the country's largest Buddhist Monastery, and we arrived in time to watch their daily chanting. I watched as several hundred monks read prayers together and played instruments, though I started to get that all too familiar dizzy feeling and had to leave. I came back to our guest house and tried to lay down, but it was no use. I started to feel worse and worse and within a few hours I knew I wouldn't make it the night. After vomiting several times, Al and our Sherpa packed my things and helped me walk back down the mountain in the middle of the night. The moon was full and the Himalayan peaks glowed in its light, I looked back to see Everest and it loomed over head as a reminder of what I would miss.

After a few days rest the Altitude sickness subsided, though I also had a bad case of food poisoning and could not keep any food down and then developed a fever. I was too weak to do much, and so I sent Al back to Everest without me, and I began my slow walk back to Lukla where I would take a plane back to Kathmandu.

The Sherpa people call Mt. Everest "Chomolungma" which means "Mother Goddess of the Earth." They believe that the mountain chooses those who will climb it, and often denies many for unknown reasons. I did not make it to Mt. Everest this time, and although I am disappointed, I feel I will be able to return again and stand at its base. Sometimes adventures don't turn out the way we expect, but this is the drive that keeps me going.