They're just there

George Leigh Mallory was one of the greatest British alpinists of the early 20th century, and his big dream

 was conquering the summit of Everest. On July 8th 1924 he was seen clearly through a crack in the clouds 245 meters from the summit, and has never been seen since. His body was found 75 years later, and until then no one knew whether he reached the summit or not.*

Before he met his demise at the place he's been looking for it, Mallory made a tour around the US lecturing about mountain climbing. In one of his lectures, a nagging reporter asked him "Sir Mallory, why climb Everest?". His famous, improvised and impatient answer: "Because it is there".

Maybe that's the best description of the Himalayas - they're just *there*. Their size challenges the viewer's sense of perspective, and they look eternal, as if they're simply not going anywhere. They don't make one feel physically small as much as insignificant in time.

mountains, reflected in the window of the world's highest hotel

a tiny piece of the Himalayas, with Everest in the middle

Want a fun fact? Apparently the Himalayas are actually one of the most mobile mountain ranges in the world - they're growing at a rate of half a centimeter per year, still pushing their way upwards from the force of India's collision with Asia about 50 million years ago. Actually that's not that long ago - when dinosaurs roamed the earth, India was still a large island off the coast of Africa. Want another? Ok, here - the highest mountain outside of Asia is Aconcagua in Argentina, towering at 6,961 meters above sea level. Impressed? The Himalayas laugh at this puny hill - it has more than a hundred mountains over 7,200 meters tall.

And now, a few facts about the Everest itself, or to be exact, about its peak. It was first ascended in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand, who became a national hero and still appears on his country's 5 dollar bill; and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, "the tiger of the snow", who became a hero in India, Nepal and Tibet (they're still all trying to claim him as their own) and a little sadly the first low-born Asian to become famous in the West. What's a Sherpa? The Sherpas are a people (or a tribe? what's the difference?). They immigrated from Tibet around 500 years ago and many of them currently live in the Everest region. They are famous for their physical strength, their ability to cope with oxygen-poor high altitudes and for their good nature and intelligence, and they are the ones who have been helping western climbers to try and reach high peaks in the area since the 1920s.

The Everest is considered a relatively simple peak for professional mountaineers and doesn't require any impressive technical skills such as rock climbing or advanced ice scaling techniques. This is mostly thanks to a team of Sherpas who clamber up themselves before the climbing season starts and install ropes and ladders for the convenience of the (mostly western) expeditions that will come later. Hundreds reach the summit every year, but it's still dangerous due to the oxygen-starved air, the avalanches, the cold and the sudden storms that can bring fierce hurricane-strength winds. There are different ways to calculate the danger level, but the bottom line is that one person has died on Everest for every 15 that have reached the summit. Besides the risk, the climb demands considerable stamina; lots of willpower to deal with weeks of cold, cough, pain and altitude sickness during the wait for the window of opportunity and the acclimatization to the thin air; and the mental capacity to deal with the possibility of setting out on "summit day" (a 12-hour climb) which might end in a turnaround 100 meters before the top because you were too slow or the weather has changed, many times without the opportunity to try again.

Oh, and you also need about a hundred thousand dollars.

the runway at Tenzing-Hillary airport, considered one of the world's most difficult landings.
The pilot lands on a slope and has to quickly turn and stop to avoid hitting the wall

Something else: in 1978 the legendary/crazy Italian climber Reinhold Messner first reached the summit without bottled oxygen. Many didn't believe him, and accused him of sucking oxygen from miniature bottles hidden in his climbing partner's clothes. He denied the accusations, and proceeded to shut everyone up two years later by climbing not only without oxygen, but also completely alone. Crazy.

The only two people that might be crazier than him are the American Jordan Romero (or maybe his parents), who became the youngest to ever reach the top in 2010, doing it when he was 13 years old; and a Japanese gentleman named Yuichiro Miura who became the oldest person to reach the top in 2003, at 70. The crazy part is that when someone broke his record a few years later, he did it again when he was 75. And then someone broke it again, so he did it again this year, at 80.

So far for fun facts about the Everest. Credit goes out to Wikipedia, people we met on the way, and the book "Into thin air".

any further questions? Enquire here

***

On a trek you do a lot of things - you walk, you meet trekkers, locals and yaks, you drink lots of tea, you play cards and you eat dal bhat and momo (the first is a filling rice-beans-baked vegetable dish and the second is local dumplings). But the most powerful experience is simply walking into the mountains. You live with them and breathe them, day after day. You learn to recognize each individual mountain and know it by name, and you understand that each one has its own character - from the sharp zigzags of Thamserku, through the beautiful asymmetry of Ama Dablam to the wide, massive pyramid of the Everest. This character tends to change with the weather, the time of the day and your line  of sight. Sometimes you come back down a slightly different path, you see a familiar peak surrounded by an orchestra of clouds and you stop and stare, discovering a new facet of the mountain's personality.

things you do on a trek, number 1: put on sunscreen

things you do on a trek, number 2: drink lots of water 

number 3: bug Neriya

number 4: discover surprising landmarks

number 5: Momo eating momo

Thamserku

Ama Dablam

boom, there's the Everest

The name of the trek, "Everest Base Camp", is a little misleading. The "King Mountain" is indeed the reason people come here, the reason the region has an airport, schools and hospitals, and the reason the locals are adept at carrying loads and using climbing equipment even though their forefathers have been farmers for hundreds of years; but it's not the most beautiful mountain or the most commanding peak, and the base camp itself - the point where expeditions start the grueling climb to the top - is certainly not that interesting. There's usually just a tent city there (when we were there even that was missing, so it was just some rocky ground), and a lot of trekkers don't even bother making the 6-hour return trip and instead climb to Kala Pathar - a 5,545-meter spot that provides the closest accessible viewing spot of the highest point on the planet. The whole trek is a Y-shape, with the starting point at the top and a snowy mountain pass connecting the two arms. Our first plan was to go around the whole Y, but we've been told that the pass is probably closed due to the storm (see previous post), and many people said the western side is actualy the highlight. So we ended up giving up going to the base camp area altogether, and the trek was simply fantastic. Later we went to the Everest Stake House and had a salad.

the trek

Gokyo from above - a much nicer place than Everest Base Camp

a few minutes earlier

 Beyond the experience of walking into the mountains, one of the most interesting things on the trek is the people. It's a little funny (or sad) how easily they fall into national stereotypes (hey, call us shallow. we tell it like it is). The Japanese usually walk around in large groups, with colorful gear, they're usually older (we met one who was 69), and many of them have both porters and guides. One group especially impressed us - not only were they having miso soup and ramen noodles that were probably flown in from Japan, they each received a hot water bottle at the end of each meal to keep themselves nice and warm. Hooray to the Japanese.

The Germans, on the other hand, were tough, serious, fast, and looked as though they were doing the whole trek as a preparation to some sort of mountain marathon. Even the older ones passed us on the trail, usually in the "70-year-old German Woman Method" that Neriya later adopted - you take small steps and walk very slowly, but you *never stop*. The Israelis can tell you about the best and cheapest places, and usually come back from the trail sick/sunburned/exhausted. And the Australians are simply outgoing and great. We were especially lucky to meet an awesome couple from Darwin, Australia, who we spent much of the trek with. Super friendly guys, smart and funny with a heart of gold. 

they're somewhere in this picture, we're not sure where

In the background, around and inside all these people, are the porters - the locals who make their living carrying westerners' backpacks. It does feel very strange to have someone taking your stuff on his (or her) back, but they make two months' pay in two weeks and live very well off it or send their kids to school. They're surely much better off than the ones who don't know English and end up getting paid by the kilo and carrying 30, 40 or 80 kg loads of beer, mattresses or firewood up the mountain.

a relatively modest load. And he's wearing shoes, too, and not flipflops

Geljen Sherpa, the guy who was with us, was mostly really sweet and positive. But we were surprised at the nuances of the porters' local politics - they get offended if you go to a different restaurant than the one they recommended, sleep in different lodges than the ones they pointed you too, etc. Of course it's not just business, but lots of respect issues - did someone see him start walking to a different lodge, does the owner's sister know his brother-in-law, and so on. It took us a while to realize that they also occasionally pay for food and a bed, and don't just get it free when they "bring" us in, and so in a few places they're unhappy and don't really say why. 

Eli losing miserably to Geljen

Geljen's family

our little family, in Geljen's home

One of the leading characters in the story of the trek is the weather. It affected everything about our day our mood, the difficulty of the trail, the beauty of the mountains and the amount of money we spent on tea to keep warm. You usually only walk four or five hours every day and spend most of the afternoon reading, writing, playing cards and staring out of the window of the lodge at the changing landscape, the setting sun and the shifting clouds which are often seen from an unusual perspective - from above. The cold usually isn't too bad. While you're walking it's not cold because you're moving your body, at night you get into a good sleeping bag and while you sit in the lodge it's usually nice and heated (unless they're being cheapskates and not renewing the supply of firewood [or yak crap, true story]). There's only one weak point - when you have to get out of your sleeping bag at night to go to the bathroom when it's minus 15 degrees outside and minus 5 in your room. Not very pleasant. One of our warmer nights was when we left a village early and arrived at our destination to discover that all three lodges were completely full. We ended up sleeping in the common room (which is also the lobby and dining room), together with all the porters. For us it was nice and warm, but it seemed it was somewhat awkward for them and they didn't really enjoy us seeing them play cards at night or clean up quickly in the morning before the trekkers arrived for breakfast.

Anyway, towards the end we were in a hurry to get back the warmth of a reasonable altitude, and we fantasized about sitting in the sun by the lake in Pokhara (a Nepali resort-town) or on the beach in Melbourne [Naturally, it rained for days straight in both cities when we got there].

snow!

snow, snow!

snow, snow, yak, yak, yak, Nepal!

the view from halfway up Gokyo Ri. The view from the top?
We have no idea, we spent an hour in a cloud

When the weather was especially cold, one of the most astounding sights we saw presented itself. It was in a village called Dole, we had finished dinner and were heading out to a different lodge to play cards with our Aussie friends. We were partway there when we looked up and froze. We'd never seen so many stars, or such a sharp and bright relief of the Milky Way. It was breathtaking, a little scary, and more than anything - hypnotizing.

hello, I am a yak

***

We've seen a lot of cool things and had many experiences during the trek, and the trip so far in general, and only one thing stayed constant. No matter if we were in a crowded apartment in some city, a cabin in the mountains or a dusty hostel, there's one moment in each day that stays the same, and in which we feel at home. It's the moment when we take out the sleeping bags, unroll them, open all the zippers, connect them so they form one big two-person sleeping bag, and climb inside. In that moment, when we get in the bag, everything around us disappears behind the scenes and all the day's experiences fade away a little and make room for one warm, fuzzy feeling - the feeling that we're here together, and that's the most important thing. And the most fun.

***

Here's another video. Sorry for the length. At this rate we'll be posting thirty-page updates and 5-minute videos by the time this trip is through. We'd write more concisely, but we didn't have time.

P.S. Oh, and we also met Miss Oceania (she's Australian) 

:) We even made her put her sash back on for the picture, like good Israelis.

there she is, by that blonde with the leopard-skin jacket

* Nobody knows to this day.