‘If you don’t go out into the woods, nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.’ ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Hiking to Mt Everest base camp was one of the most transformational, exhilarating, and humbling experiences of my life. I honestly can’t wait to do it again. Here is my story…
However, like most stories, the beginning begins some time before that :)
I was living and studying in India while working the International Yoga Festival (IYF) in Rishikesh. Rishikesh is Northern India located at the foothills of the Himalyas and overlooking Ma Ganga. There, I made some really close friends (shout out to Rainbow Tribe Unit) and we decided once the yoga festival had finished we would travel throughout India together. Our joke became #hashtagindia because there are so many things that happen in India that could only happen in India.
It was around that time when I realized I had the wrong visa. I only had a 3 month visa - which is not enough time to explore India because it’s incredibly large. So I thought ‘oh whatever, I’ll hop over the country next door, re-up my visa and come back and travel with my friends.’
Until I realized the country next door happened to be Nepal and
Mt. Everest happened to be located in Nepal and
I love mountains more than anything & many moons ago I had promised myself that one day I would hike Mt Everest; and the day I had this realization started to blossom into the one day I would.
In a few weeks span (three I think), I read every blog I could on solo hikers hiking Mt Everest, I reached out to every person I knew that lived or worked in Nepal or Mount Everest (massive thank you to Lindsey & Chris!!!)
In my research, I discovered the hike was 12 days total; 8 days up and 4 days down. It’s 80 miles or 130 km - which honestly didn’t sound like too much to me but I didn’t consider the constant elevation gain and loss and gain and gain and gain makes it feel like double that.
The rules were simple - warm clothes, hike at least 6 hours a day, drink a lot of water, hike high & sleep low on your acclimatization days, and lastly, if you feel sick, descend and eat as much Himalyan garlic soup as you can (as it helps with altitude sickness.)
‘Sounds reasonable.’ I thought.
& like the crazy person I am, with absolutely no training, no partner, no prior knowledge of Nepal or Mount Everest besides my super-late-cram-session, and cigarette habit, I was “prepared” to hike to Mt Everest Base Camp. Thanks to my insane determination, stubborness and perhaps mental illness, I hugged Leah goodbye in the Dehli airport and I boarded the plane to Kathmandu BEYOND excited for the adventure I had in store!
All was well when the plane began its flight from Dehli, India to Kathmandu, Nepal; it was a short morning flight and I had hours of daylight and packing to do before I left at 6:00am the next morning. As the flight began it’s descent into Kathmandu, it stopped descending, started circling around Kathmandu and then the pilot decided the smog was too bad and visibility was low and we turned back to Varanasi, India to refuel. My anxiety went from a peaceful easy feeling to literally hearing the blood pump in my ears. I had made the mistake of not planning for this type of fuckery. But here we were. #hashtagindia
Sitting behind me on the plane was an Irish girl excitedly explaining to an English boy how dangerous the hike to Mt Everest was and to not do it solo, ESPECIALLY if you were a girl. She was going on and on about needing a guide to lead you up the trail and a porter to carry your stuff, friends so you don’t go missing etc etc. As the anxiety reached an all time high, to distract myself, I turned around in my chair, apologized for eavesdropping, and mentioned to the Irish girl Gillian (who, spoiler alert, turns into one of my best friends) that I, in fact, was actually hiking it solo, without a porter or a guide or friends, and all my
(three weeks of)
research left me feeling confident I wouldn’t die. There was only one trail up the mountain - so I couldn’t get lost. It was a very popular hike - so even if I got injured someone would eventually walk by me. I was stubborn as hell and could probably carry my own weight and I didn’t bother with feeding fears of getting raped, murdered or dying alone in the mountains.
We ended up chatting and connecting for the rest of the flight and the plane was able to successfully and efficiently (not common in India) refuel and we headed back to Kathmandu - where we actually landed. There was much rejoicing.
Now, I had only 4 hours to get to my hostel, unpack, get back to town, acquire all my gear for Everest (I had come from warmer lands and had no cold gear) and re-pack. All of this would have been somewhat manageable but a girl named “Yessica” ended up grabbing the taxi I had waiting for me. Le sigh.
Gillian, the English boy and I shared a taxi to Thamel (downtown / backpacker’s district of Kathmandu) and parted ways. Intuition said to get Gillian’s number but alas, I did not. I did however make a mental note as intuition promised I’d be seeing her again.
I wished her well, got out of the taxi, promptly got lost, took two bike tuktuks to my hostel. Two because one was highly unsuccessful and required a second. Realized I had to change hostels, made some friends, met Yessica, got driven back into town with my backpack rolling dangerously on top of the car we were in where I finally landed back in Thamel where I sweat out my body weight in stress and started frantically running around gathering all my gear from the Nepali family my American friend Chris knew.
Thamel is one of my favorite corners in the world, it reeks of the most delicious incense that coats the inside of your nose and sinks deeply into your clothes. The stores are colorful, the people are wonderful, the prayer flags are abundant. It’s busy and bustling but not overwhelming. The buildings are tall but the storefronts are welcoming. Some people are here for Mt Everest Base Camp, some for Chitwan National Park. Some are here to stay in Thamel or leave for Pokhara, some just passing through. Because of this, the atmosphere is curious, excited and kind. Even though I was rushing around like a tiny crazy person I was excited to return back to Thamel and properly explore the city once I had accomplished my task of hiking to Base Camp.
It was dark when I finally finished unpacking and repacking but I fell asleep as soon as my body hit the bed. Contented that I had accomplished everything I needed to despite all odds and excited afffffff for the next day.
I arrived at the airport in Kathmandu bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, alarming levels of excitement pouring out of my chest, born ready for my flight to Lukla - the most dangerous airport in the world.
But my middle name is Danger so… * shrugs *
I went up to the counter and was told my flight was pushed back and I would have to wait an hour. ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘ I can do this.’
After waiting an hour I checked again and the flight was delayed another hour. I pondered several very colorful swear words but reassured myself it’s worth the wait.
Several more experiences of this later, my long arduous waits punctuated only by the deep stinging pain of disappointment that my flight was delayed again, I decided to start talking to everyone in the airport. I had questions and I needed answers.
Very soon I learned that a few people had been waiting for several hours before me; and some had been waiting for
FOUR DAYS
Literally.
Living in the airport Tom Hanks style. I was shocked, angry, disappointed and quickly losing hope that I would put my feet on the trail today.
Now, the reason why Lukla is the most dangerous airport in the world is because it has
1. the tiniest landing strip and
2. a steep mountain wall just beyond the landing strip and then
3. the weather at that elevation - 9,383 feet - can change quickly so flights often get turned around to reduce deaths
Ugh. logic and reason.
After what ended up being a 4 hour wait, many intense discussions and serious plotting with all my new hiker friends (Tamara and Rob - solo hikers from Australia, Whitney - solo hiker from the US and several French friends) we decided we would rent a helicopter and get our Everest party started! Six of us hopped in a helicopter and flew through the most gorgeous green winding valley with overlooking ‘hills’ (aka small mountains), waterfalls, tiny isolated villages at the top of and carved into the sides of these hill-mountains.
The view was so spectacular and I cried just taking in mother nature’s beauty.
After a (thankfully) easy landing in our helicopter, a few of the friends grabbed a bite to eat in Lukla where we ran into people just finishing their hike. We congratulated them on their amazing feat to which
1. some didn’t even both making eye contact (foreshadowing)
2. some were walking funny and
3. some looked at us with an evil glint in their eye.
We pushed all of this out of our minds and started our ascent. Nothing was going to get in my way of accomplishing my goal of making it to EBC. The 12 day adventure to the top of the world had begun.
to be continued…
“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories... water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” ~ CPE
