The Tibetan Monasteries
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The Tibetan Monasteries |
The road to Everest continues..... : 14 March 2004
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After another cold, no electricity, no heat, no toilets night in Shegar..we all piled back in the Landcruiser to continue our journey to the Mountain...at this point we where all very excited, knowing that we where actually going to be at Base camp that day. The drive itself was no less bumpy than the day before...it was very rough on the butt and the bladder. There was basically no "road" just a one lane dirt passage on the side of the mountain. There where no guard rails or anything like that. Going around blind corners was a real treat, the driver would just honk and hope that nobody was on the other side. It was cool though, we would pass through little villages where the people lives in stone structures..houses? Barely. Some places looked totally demolished yet we would see the smoke coming out of the pipe chimmneys on the different stone structures. In most of the villages there would be Yaks, cows, sheep, goats, pigs and off course alot of dogs mulling around the streets. The people would all be very friendly waving and smiling as we passed through, especially the children, they would get very excited. By the time we got to the top of the pass we where at 5,150 meters. It was amazing, we drove around the pass wich had it's usual stack of Tibetan flags and mounds of rocks, and there it was...this big beautiful mountain. There was snow on parts of it but the top was dark brown. The wind had apparently blown the snow off. We all jumped out to get photos. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy therefore we could not see the peak. Eva wanted to stay so we could wait for the clouds to pass...yhea, like that was going to happen... It was unbelievably windy and freezing and it was only getting cloudier. Besides, we wanted to get to base camp. So we moved on. We stopped at a little village that was about 2 hours outside base. Our driver wanted tea. We met an American couple there (actually the guy was born in Torrance, ironic). They seemed nice enough, Robin was bugged by them. Anyway, this was their second night in this little village. Apparantly the had a driver and a guide and they would go out to base camp each day for a couple hours. They had just come back when we met them. They told us how absolutely amazing it was and how incredibly freezing it was. They said it was too cold to be there for any length of time. This was funny for us considering we where planning on spending the night at the Rongbuk Monastary/guesthouse. We asked them about it, if they had seen the guesthouse and if it was open. They weren't sure, they looked at each other with a questioning look....then told us about some old building they saw, maybe that could have been the guest house..great. Anyway, we said our "Good Byes", they said their "Good Lucks"..and off we went. After about two hours of bouncing all over the road we finally arrived at the Mountain. It was about 3pm and the mountain was amazing...it was so awesome, here we where standing in front of this huge natural wonder. We where running around freezing and wheezing trying to get the best shot. We stopped at the Monastary to check with the Monks about the guesthouse...sure enough, that rickety shack that looked totally abandoned, was the guesthouse. It was such a pitt, but that's okay because WE WERE AT MT. EVEREST! The Monk showed us our tiny room (for lack of a better term) with four beds lined up next to each other. Off course there was no electricity, no heat, and duh, no toilets. There wasn't even a lock for the door, there was barely a handle. The toliet, I mean enclosed shit hole, was outside in the freezing cold and it had about 10 years of shit piled in it. It was so gross. When the wind would blow, which was freezing and constant, I would have to dodge things flying out of the hole....But hey..WE WERE AT MT. EVEREST! We dumped our bags in the room and doubled our layers of clothing. Moving was funny, we looked like four Michelin men on the move. We where about 7 kilometers outside base camp, which we thought we where hiking up but, thank god, our driver gave us a ride. Base camp itself was a bit confusing for me. I expected it to be up the mountain a bit, which I suppose it was because we where at 16,700 feet, but it was this flat (base) of the mountain. There was garbage everywhere, beer bottles etc. There where campsites, toliets (holes), there was even a little China Post booth(closed). It was wierd, but all we had to do was look up ahead of us and there it was...Mt. Everest. We decided to walk towards it for better photos... actually it sorta draws you in. We ended up going for a 2 hour trek getting closer and closer. It was really cold and windy. We where trekking through ice and rocks, climber over and around huge dirts/rock piles... we just had to get closer. Everytime we thought about stopping, one of us would say, "Okay, we'll just go to that next rock, then we'll stop"..and so on, and so on. I personally would have loved to have camped at the place where we actually did stop then continue the next day. (It was probably cleaner and just as warm as the guesthouse). But we had to turn around, it was getting too cold and too tiring especially since we where going against the wind and the effects of the altitude are very apparent here. So we hung out for a bit clinging to the rocks as to not fall or slide off the side of the little peak we where on. We took tons of photos then head back to Base Camp. When we got back our driver, who was freezing and starving... oops, told us that we where not suppose to go out of Base Camp. Apparantly there is a $200 fine if caught, good thing we weren't caught. We took a photo of the very official warning sign that we all missed when we got to Base Camp. In my opinion, that whole journey was a tease. I would love to actually really climb Everst one day..all the way. It would be so awesome. I would need to do alot of training and it would be really hard work but so worth it..Tunde? The feeling on that mountain is hard to explain... let's just say I loved it. That night, however, was not so spectacular. It was very long. I couldn't sleep at all. I was totally wired..Robin didn't sleep so well either. I was getting incredibly frustrated as I got up around 3:30 am to attempt "the hole"... When I got outside I was taken away by the beauty. There was a full moon and the sky was totally clear. The mountain looked absolutely amazing, naturally lit up. I really regret not getting my camera at that moment.... dam! It was just so cold as I sttod there in my long underware, boots and Robin's down. I should have just woke everyone up.... I'm sure they would have loved it as well. Around 8am we all got up, the mountain was still clear so we where able to get some more photos, luckily, because about a 1/2 hour later it got totally cloudy and it started to snow. Before long we couldn't even see the mountain anymore, we couldn't see anything anymore. The drive out was terrifying...I was literally praying that we would not go over the edge..what edge? I couldn't even see the edge...just a long drop into whiteness.
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Replies: 1 Comment
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Everest! I'm so jealous! Critter and I have devolped an obsession ever since reading the book "into thin air" (a book I highly recommend if you really are concidering a climb!). Posted by Katherine Stanfill @ 03/26/2004 12:40 PM PST |
