14 Apr 2014 – Lobuche BC to Pangboche

Overnight low in tent vestibule 24F. Beginning altitude 4785 metres (15700 ft). Ending altitude 3930 metres (12900 ft).

There seems to me to be a sense of denouement in the camp. Where previously we had many expedition members, filling up two mess tents, we now have six trekkers, who at breakfast take up only part of one tent. Of the six trekkers, three don’t much want to be here. Two are the wife and son of one of the expedition members who will be attempting to summit Everest. Having seen him off at base camp and now being on their way home, the remaining trek is for them a chore. If they could wave a wand and be at Kathmandu airport awaiting a flight home, they would. Another is a doctor who came on the trek with an interest in expedition medicine as a possible career avenue; she has gotten the information she needs and now is pretty eager to get back to the comforts of the Hyatt. I totally get that, but I’m doing my best to keep my mind off of hot Hyatt showers and focus on the experience of the trek back. That’s what Julia and I wanted; we asked to be here, right where we are, doing what we are doing.

Everyone is pretty strung out from the exercise and the altitude. There’s not much banter.

I have spent some time just standing out in the open near my tent, gazing upon the mountains around me. They remain impressive and impassive. I have tried to sear the memory of them into my mind. It seems almost as if seeking some kind of bond, but there is none to be had. This experience has been so meaningfully incredible to me, but the mountains simply don’t care, regardless of how much (for whatever nonsensical motivation makes me anthropomorphize them) I might want them to. I think of the Honey Badger, and grin just a little bit.

Indifferent mountains are indifferent

After breakfast, we set off from Lobuche Base Camp toward Pangboche. A short distance from the camp is the top of the large climb we took to get here, at which are located a number of monuments.

Julia took this picture. It more or less fits the narrative,
but it’s here because I really dig it.

I spent some time pondering the monuments, and took some photos. To me, the existence of the monuments seems sort of pitiful. Juxtaposed against the Himalaya, they seem insignificant and transient.

In memory of our member who climbed the top of Sagarmatha
on the 10^th of May 1989 but died on the way down.

Of course, monuments aren't for the dead, they are for the benefit of those that remain. But given the nature of mountaineering, that reality seems thrown into sharp relief. Climbing Everest seems to me to be primarily a test of self; it is of necessity a self-absorbed activity. There is no ‘selfless’ mountaineering. An alpinist pits him or herself against the mountain and the environment, and succeeds or fails.

In memory of Erich Eberhard Schaaf, who lived his dream
and died on Mt. Everest May 19, 2012. His dream lives on.

You can Google ‘Erich Eberhard Schaaf’ and obtain more detail about his effort. His dream may live on, but his frozen body rests down one of Everest’s slopes on the southern route.

I’m not passing judgment on the nature of climbing Everest, those who attempt to do so, their motivations, and certainly not upon their success or failure. It’s the monuments that give me pause. As I look at them, rather than feeling inspired or awed, or perhaps even warned, I simply feel a sense of pity for those who built them. How often do the people who built them come to visit? What statement do they make; are they a sort of Parthian shot at the mountain(s) that defeated those who are memorialized? The only constant audience these memorials have are the dispassionate mountains themselves.

If these mountains could speak, I suspect they wouldn't bother

But on a less somber note, today we would be going downhill! We would be descending 900 metres. There would be more air in the air. I had slept better – though not soundly – at Lobuche BC, and hoped for even further improvement.

This trail was a lot more enjoyable going the direction we went today

The nature of this trek is that there is a lot of uphill and downhill intermixed. The long downhill stretch at the beginning of our day today was an exceptionally consistent bit, but for the most part, one goes up and down in an alternating fashion, gaining or losing altitude on the whole depending on the direction one is travelling. Midway through our day, we had a nice flat stretch, though, pulling into Periche before midday. The hike from Periche to Lobuche BC had taken an entire day on the way up. On the way down it made for a good place to stop for tea.

In the shadow of… Ama Dablam (of course)

We would be pushing on to Pangboche to spend the night. The fact that we were losing altitude was offset by the fact that our return trekking stretches were over a longer distance. Overall, we were just as tuckered out at the end of the day going back down as we were on the way up.

Here is a picture of the door to our room in Pangboche, or, more accurately, the (rather thick) hanging over the door. I’m not certain what the function of the hanging was – perhaps to keep warmer air inside, similar to a revolving door, when the actual door was opened. However, it does provide a good example of the ‘eternal knot’ motif which we found displayed frequently, and which was replicated in the keepsake I got at the Puja the day before.

And now, friends, let me share with you the good news about… potatoes. I don’t know what the Nepalis do with potatoes to make them so good, but they totally rock the taters. Totally and completely. One of the climbers, Tim, was going on about how great the potatoes were in Nepal, and we were – understandably I think – a bit incredulous at first. But we started paying attention to the potatoes, in whatever form they showed up in our meals. And dang if he wasn't spot on. By the end of the trek, we were ordering things off the menu that had potatoes in them, simply because they had potatoes in them, just to see what wondrous thing we would get. At Pangboche, I ordered ‘Hashed browns with cheese’.

This may not look like food porn, but it is.

What showed up sort of looked like a congealed lump of barf, but, man, it was delicious. I only planned to have a few bites, but couldn't stop eating it. Potatoes. Go figure.

Sunset over Pangboche

Then we slept. Soundly.