Thither & Yon

I’m on a plane on the way to Nepal where Dustin and I plan to do a 112-mile trek into the Himalayas so I can poke Mount Everest, an ambition I’ve been harboring for nearly a decade. Before we left, I had planned a really thoughtful blog post about why this trip is so exciting to me, how we finally got it to come together, and all the cool stuff we did in preparation.

But then I spent two months making noodles like a maniac instead of preparing for this trip, barely survived our conditioning adventure to the Colorado Rockies, and managed to leave the house yesterday without bringing my hiking boots, so I figure I’ve got basically NOTHING instructive to offer.

I suspect you should not go to the Himalayas as unprepared as I am, despite all the reassurances the adventure guide companies offer about how any “reasonably fit” person can accomplish this trek without any specific training. The triathlete we talked to who’s done this before may also not be the most comparable source.

And you should definitely not go to the Himalayas without your painstakingly selected, thoroughly broken-in hiking boots, but here we are.

My Everest obsession started when I read Dan Simmon’s novel The Abominable. The book is so-so, plotwise, but Simmons’ descriptions of the mountain, the efforts required to face its challenges, and all of the history and culture surrounding it sparked something in my psyche. Within a week after finishing the novel, I’d read everything I could get my hands on about the mountain and the people who have set out to conquer it.

I don’t want to climb Everest. I know how many people die up there. I am enthralled by it in the same way I am enthralled by spiders: they are beautiful and fascinating, but I don’t need to get bitten to know what they’re really all about. I do, however, want to get close enough to identify the hourglasses on their undersides and say “Yesss! This is the real thing! See how magnificent she is!”

The peak of Mount Everest reaches 29,029 feet above sea level, making it the highest point on the planet. For comparison, the highest point in South Dakota (Black Elk Peak) is 7,244 feet, the highest peak in Yellowstone (Eagle Peak) is 11,357 feet, and the highest peak in the continental United States (Mt. Whitney in California) is 14,505 feet.

To connect the dots: the highest point in the continental United States isn’t even HALF as high as the summit of Mount Everest. It’s almost impossible to comprehend.

Everest Base Camp, where summiting expeditions start and which is as close to the peak as I have any intention of getting, sits at 17,598 feet, which is WAY less high than 29,029 feet, but still WAY more than my previous elevation best of 10,568 feet, atop of Avalanche Peak in Yellowstone. We’d driven up Trail Ridge Road in the Rockies, which goes above 12,000 feet, but driving and hiking are two very different beasts.

In August, we decided we’d better get in at least a little practice at as high an elevation as we could reasonable achieve, so we joined our friend Jessica for a tour of the Four Passes Loop in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness, a breath-takingly beautiful part of the Rocky Mountains where intrepid hikers (and insane trail runners) can do a 30-mile loop that includes four passes that cross the 12,500-foot elevation marker.

I acquitted myself with competence, if not dignity.

I’ve taken the trail name “Hummingbird” because my poor little heart beats so fast when I make any kind of cardio effort that one chooses to be my hiking buddy at the risk of one’s patience. I insist on stopping for heart-recovery breaks any time my heart rate goes over 160, which can be often in early parts of big hiking trips. Fortunately for everyone, I do seem to acclimatize quickly, and usually by day 2 I can keep it at least in the 150s. (I still take lots of breaks, though.)

On the Four Passes Trail, I discovered that if I let me heart rate get all the way up to 160, with the thinner oxygen available, recovery became incredibly slow. If I stopped instead at 145, I could recover much more quickly and keep up a steadier overall pace. This is the most practical lesson I’m taking into the Himalayas. I already know Dustin and friend Jessica are very patient. I hope our guide is, as well.

Okay! Enough non-Himalayas for now. I’d love to write a real post about this Four Passes trip some time, but for now back to Nepal.

Since beginning this post, we have concluded the 48-hour travel adventure and I managed a pretty respectable 8:30 bedtime to get a good night’s sleep. Today we meet with our guide and do a bit of touring around Kathmandu, then tomorrow (Saturday) we fly to Lukla to start the big hiking adventure.

The Hiking Boot Recovery Plan, in case you’re curious, is to try and find some insoles for my barefoot trail shoes, which I feel completely competent to hike in, but which could get a little thin on more than a hundred miles of rocky trail. I’ve got really good, really fluffy socks to wear with them, as well. I still feel like a dunce, but I’m going to be fine.

I’ll try to post some updates along the way, but the big posts will probably all come next month, after we return to the States. We’ll be staying at tea houses along the way, some of which have wifi, so check out Instagram and Facebook for occasional awesome photos.