Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Kyajo Ri

Recently my good friend, Mike (Bear Grylls) McMahon, came and visited me here in Nepal, and we got to do a little bit of peak climbing.  He flew in to Kathmandu in early October and we had plans to get some things together and head out as soon as we could to begin a long acclimatization trek, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate.  We had to get a flight to Lukla which is a tiny airport in the foothills of the Everest region with one short runway that leaves no room for error, so when the weather is even slightly bad flights are cancelled and rightly so!!  This is what happened to us.  Flights were cancelled for two days that we were trying to get out, so we ended up leaving several days later than we intended.  This of course gave Mike time to catch a lovely respiratory illness in the severe air pollution that blankets Kathmandu for most of the year.  It also gave us some time to go see some of the cultural sites that Kathmandu has to offer.  Two of which are large Buddhist stupas and the other is a large concentration of Hindu temples called Pashupatinath.  Mike was definitely under the weather for these little excursions, but he handled them well.
Some statues on the way up to Swayambhunath (The monkey temple)
Photo: Mike McMahon

The monkeys at Swayambhunath do not like their pictures being taken from close proximity, so of course Mike does just that.
Photo:Mike McMahon

Just chillin'
Photo: Mike McMahon

Some prayer wheels... "What happens if I spin them the opposite direction?"  So evil.
Photo: Mike Mcmahon

Paintings and whatnot
Photo: Mike McMahon

The Garden of Dreams: Right in the middle of nasty Kathmandu there is a nice little place to rest/nap
Photo: Mike McMahon

Approaching the giant stupa, Bouddhanath
Photo: Mike McMahon

Mike feeling very stoked about life and air pollution

Part of the site at Bouddhanath
Photo: Mike McMahon

Old people...
Photo: Mike McMahon

These places have some downright intricate carvings.  They just don't make things like they used to.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Stone carving at Pashupathinath.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Gazing through one of many indentical temples at Pashpathinath.
Photo: Mike McMahon

For a conservative culture in which sex is taboo, they certainly do like their phallic symbols.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Human Barbeque!! (or cremation I suppose), but it really did smell like meat on a grill.  I guess all burning flesh smells about the same.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Pay some money, and take a picture with these classy dudes!!
Photo: Mike McMahon

Checking out more temples at Pashupathinath
Photo: Mike McMahon

A monkey puppy!!  Very snuggly.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Monkey playing.  They would climb on top of the bridge and then take flying leaps off of it into the water.  It looked fun, except the water was only a couple feet deep.  The did seem to get hurt though.
Photo: Mike McMahon


Getting the required climbing permits was also not as easy as I envisioned.  I have a friend here who is a mountaineering guide and he offered to help us get the permit since the permit requires any potential climbers to have a guide.  He had a friend who had a friend who owns a little travel agency called High Spirit who we were told could help streamline the process.  Mike and I walked into his little dungeon-office and were immediately a bit uncomfortable when greeted by the overweight sweating man with little weasel eyes and a track suit that really accentuated his rather ample plumbers’ crack, but he came recommended by a friend of a friend, so maybe we would get some sort of deal.  We sat down and started getting things going.  We told him what we wanted, and he started making the proper arrangements, and we were to come back later and finalized everything.  When we came back in, he informed us that there would be some extra charges as we would be required to take one of his porters for which he would charge 2000 rupees a day and he would take 800 of those rupees as his fee.  This was on top of the 10% fee off the total cost of everything that he would be taking for his fee.  Why he was taking money from the porter each day is not currently understood.  Having this guy’s porter wasn’t really an issue because we needed porters anyways, and this porter was supposed to be reliable and could help us get some other porters.  We did find it a bit odd that he waited until it was too late for us to go to another travel agency for our permits before telling us about the extra fees.  We had our plane tickets booked for the next day, and by this time we didn’t have time to start the process over again.  He also ended up charging us $40 extra for some trekking permits we did not need as we had a mountaineering permit.
Please read second to last bullet above the green line... I would have thought a travel agent would know this rule and not have us get TIMS permits...of course we could have done our research and known this ourselves, but it's always easier to place blame on others...
Photo: Mike McMahon

We eventually got everything sorted out and went to the Kathmandu airport to do some serious waiting.  We got a flight out on a little airline called Makalu Air which seems to be chronically late and fairly disorganized.  Our 7:00AM flight finally left at 10:30 or so and we flew off in a little one engine prop plane for Lukla. 
Our trusty sky rally machine.
Photo: Mike McMahon

The sprawl of Kathmandu
Photo: Mike McMahon

After landing we met with our assigned porter and went to grab some breakfast.  We told him we needed another porter and he rounded up one of his friends, and then proceeded to do something rather peculiar: we had two heavy bags that we needed our two porters to carry and he began to strap both bags together so that one person could carry both bags which combined probably was over 80 pounds.  I asked him what he was doing and he said, “My friend will carry these two bags, and will carry my friend’s day pack.”  Well, that seemed pretty strange.  I told him that wasn’t going to work and that we got two porters because the bags are heavy and we had some ground to cover that day.  If one porter could do the work then he could either send his friend home or go home himself.  He wisely chose to split the bags back up and both he and his friend carried the bags.  And with that we started off on the seven hour walk up to Namche Bazaar.
The airport at Lukla
Photo: Mike McMahon
A list of the most extreme airports which we found in a copy of the Guiness Book of World Records that was randomly lying around the hotel in Namche
Photo: Mike McMahon

The infamous runway at the Tensing-Hillary Airport
Photo: Mike McMahon


Weaving our way through the constant line of porters taking goods up into the Everest Region
Photo: Mike McMahon

Weaving our way through the one of the many yak trains taking goods up into the Everest Region
Photo: Mike McMahon

A look of...determination
Photo: Mike McMahon

Crossing one of many suspension bridges on the way up to Namche Bazaar
Photo: Mike McMahon

A helio-bird.  For those less excited about suffering, and with deeper pockets.
Photo: Mike McMahon
Mike crossing the bridge in the picture below.

Looking down at a confluence and an older suspension bridge while crossing a newer one built much higher than the old one.
Photo: Mike McMahon

The first mountain visuals, Kongde Ri in the background.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Along the way we got some nice visuals, and met a nice group from Spain at the National Park check-in who we ended up with in just about every guest house.  The one man was in front of me to get his permit to get into the park.  He had not done his planning very well and did not realize he had needed this permit, so his group and him walked on past until they reached an army checkpoint further up the valley.  At this point, the army folks told them they needed this permit, to this guy walked back to get everybody their permits.  Again, he did not plan well as they did not have enough rupees to cover all six of their permits.  He was trying to pay in Euros and the people at the desk were giving him a very bad exchange rate which wasn’t helpful, but at the same time their right to do as he was the one who messed up.  Anyways, I was extremely impressed with how well this guy was holding it together because the guys at the desk were being pretty curt.  He said, “Please.  In Kathmandu, the exchange rate is much better.  Can you help me some?” 

They said, “Then go back to Kathmandu.”

“I can’t do that obviously.  Can I pay on my way out after I’ve visited an ATM in Namche Bazaar?”

“Nope.  Go back to Lukla.  There is an ATM there.”  Lukla was three hours back the way he came, and the sun was setting.  This sort of thing went on for a bit, and I stepped in.

“Can I help you in anyway?”  I said.

The Spaniard mistook my question as a hint to hurry up and said, “Look man, I’m trying as best as I can.”

“No, no.  Really.  Can I help with something?”

“Not unless you have 18,000 rupees you can lend me.”

“I do.  How can you pay me back?”

“Well, I can go to an ATM in Namche or get Euros from my friends and pay you back in Euros.”

“Okay.  I’d prefer rupees, where can we meet?”

“The Zamling Hotel in Namche.  We’ll be there for two days.  Really?  Here, I’ll give you my passport as collateral.  Thank you so much.”

“No, no.  That’s not necessary.  We’ll meet you either tonight or tomorrow at that hotel.”

And with that he paid for his permits, and that very grateful Spaniard continued on his way and we did the same.

We walked pretty slowly so as not to strain ourselves and risk feeling sick at altitude.  As we neared Namche Bazaar the illness Mike picked up in Kathmandu really started to catch up with him.  He looked pretty ragged and was stopping a lot, but he nutted up and dragged himself into Namche and we stopped at the first place that had beds and food.
The bustling mountain city of Namche Bazaar

The next morning we got up, and headed up to the Zamling hotel to meet our Spanish friends and have some nice breakfast.  The places in Namche are for the most part, pretty shwanky.
Our Spanish friends at the Zamling Hotel
Photo: Mike McMahon

Zamling Hotel.  Shwaky, eh?  Almost all the materials for all the hotels in the region were brought in on the backs of porters.
Photo: Mike McMahon

We spent the morning gathering gear, and non-perishables as well as a kilogram of cheese.  In retrospect we should have gotten the cheese when we came back through Namche to pick up our things after acclimatizing, but it held up pretty well.  McMahon always gets very excited about cheese and forces us to take way too much cheese on all our trips.  I remember one time in Alaska when he insisted on taking five pounds of cheese for a six day trip.  I always try to be the voice of reason, but he is very insistent when it comes to cheese… though I may be confusing the two of us…

After getting some things together we arranged with our porter from Lukla to send two more porters on a specified date up to Namche where we would meet and begin our trek up to the climb.  We specified that both porters needed jackets and real shoes (as opposed to the flip flops that many porters wear), and that we would rent them hats, gloves, a tent, and sleeping bags.  We realized that we needed to pay some money in advance to reserve them, and we agreed to pay them half of them money they would receive up front so they would be sure to meet us in Namche.  Local porters make about 6 to 7 dollars per day, and porters hired by trekkers and tourists make 10 to 12 dollars per day.  McMahon and I decided to pay $20 per day since we were asking a bit more of our porters than most people do.  Our plan was for them to stay one night up in a tent at pretty high altitude which would probably not be very comfortable.  We gave our porter $180 to give to the two porters he would send up on the agreed upon date.

McMahon and I set off in the late afternoon for a little town called Phortse Thenga at 3680m.  Along this route we caught some views of Everest and Lhotse off in the distance, and around dark we pulled into what we assumed was Phortse Thenga, but was in fact a town called Mong La (3900m) at the top of a pass.  We had a pretty set acclimatization plan, and staying there would have us sleeping 300 meters higher than we originally intended.  We continued on down the other side of the pass in the dark to sleep in Phortse Thenga.  The next day dawned clear, and we had a leisurely breakfast and set off for Dhole.
Mike on the way to Phortse Tenga with the double bridlges in the valley in the background.

The river near Phortse Tenga
 
One of many porters lugging building materials high into the mountains with with Kangtenga (6783m) in the background.
Photo: Mike McMahon
Ombigaichang (6340m), also known as Octagon by Bear and myself because we couldn't remember the actual name.  This peak has two ascents, the first in the 60's by Edmund Hillary and the second in the early 2000's.

Kangtega (6783m)

Bear enjoying the sites on the way to Dhole.

These acclimatization days were quite pleasant. We only wanted to increase about 300m per day so each day was only about two hours of walking which left plenty of time for picture taking, chatting, sitting and enjoying the scenery, and eating tasty food. We managed to stretch each walk at least an hour longer than it should have been. We pulled into Dhole at 4110m around lunchtime and had a nice meal out in the sun. Then I took a nap, and got up in time to go wander up one of the ridges for a little additional acclimatization and view gazing. Sunset was magnificent with views of many of beautiful peaks of the region.
Bear enjoys the sunshine, the views, and some tasty food.

Nearing sunset above Dhole looking North
Photo: Mike McMahon

Afternoon light on Ombigaichang (6340m), Malangphulang (6573m), Kangtega (6783m), and Thamserku (6618m)- left to right.
Photo: Mike McMahon


Kangtega and Thamserku looking cloudy

Macchermo Peak

Not sure of this one, looking North

Looking North

Bear

Bear making some sort of funny face...

I think this is Cholatse (6335m)

Ombigaichang

Kangtega

Mike hiking up above the little town of Dhole

Looking to the east.

Thamserku

Looking towards Ombigaichang

The next day we again had a nice leisurely day getting to Machhermo at 4470m which offered our first views of the peak we were planning on climbing, Kyajo Ri. 

Mike meandering up towards Macchermo


Ethan meandering up towards Macchermo
Photo: Mike McMahon
Mike checking out the east face of Kyajo Ri

The sun setting behind Kyajo Ri

I again repeated the lunch-nap sequence followed by a nice evening acclimatization stroll. 
Last light

As we had been ascending Mike’s cough was not getting any better, and by the next morning he was coughing up blood.  Since Mike has a history with pulmonary edema at high altitude we were obviously pretty concerned.  He had no other symptoms of HAPE, but we wanted to be sure so we went on up to the rescue post which is manned by western doctors during peak trekking season which made communicating a bit easier.  They determined that it was probably just a lung infection, and gave him some antibiotics.  They also recommended staying at Machhermo for at least one more day to give him so time to recover since the body’s ability to recover decreases pretty fast the higher you go in elevation, so we decided to trade our planned rest day at Gokyo with a rest day at Macchermo.  I took the opportunity to wander up Macchermo valley up to about 4990m which offered some lovely views.
Some interesting geology in the Macchermo Valley.  I wonder if this yellow colored rock is the same as the infamous "Yellow Band" on the North side of Everest.

Everest with a nice cap cloud.

The lenticular clouds we had been noticing gave way to a gray morning with some light snow which was just the forerunner of things to come.  Mike was feeling a bit better, so we decided to make the couple hour hike on up to Gokyo at 4790m.  The trail went gently up through some nice alpine terrain, and then climbed some narrow stairs etched into the side of a cliff to get into the Ngozumba Glacier Valley.  By the time we reached Gokyo the snow was falling pretty hard…and this kept up for the next three days.  The morning after we arrived we were going to climb Gokyo Ri and start heading back down the valley, but we woke to about a meter of snow on the ground so we scratched the idea of going up Gokyo Ri and decided to just start trying to get back down the valley.
Doing a quick assessment of the snow..."yep, it's cold."
Photo: Mike McMahon

We joined hordes of other tourists on a narrow trench through the snow.  As we walked we could continuously see slough avalanches coming off of the steep slope to our right across the river, and we could hear much larger avalanches somewhere up in the fog higher up on the slopes.  As we neared the bridge to cross the river and get onto the narrow stairs we encountered a major traffic jam, so Mike and I cut around on the moraine to get a look at the stair section.  It didn’t look good.  The slopes above the stairs were continuously sloughing, and the stairs were very narrow with a long drop into a raging glacial river on one side.  The chances of being buried in a large avalanche were slim, but the chances of getting hit by a small slough on the narrow, slippery stairs was extremely high.  The consequences of even a small slough hitting somebody would be pretty bad.  Mike and I decided we would return to Gokyo to wait out the storm, but first I decided to go talk to the guide who seemed to be in charge of sending groups of tourists across the bridge onto the stairs where they would immediately catch up to the other groups and be in a major jam on the dangerous stairs.
Working around on the moraine
Photo: Mike McMahon


The traffic jam at the bridge
Photo: Mike McMahon

I walked up to him, and spoke in Nepali so as not to worry his guests.  I asked if he was in charge.   He said he was, so I mentioned that the stairs seemed dangerous, and that even a small slide could knock some people into the river.  He said that several people had already been knocked in.

“And you’re still sending people through??!!”

“Well, yes,” he replied. “They have to catch their planes.”

I told him I thought it would be best to return to Gokyo, but this guy was clearly a nitwit and would hear nothing of it, so I decided to talk to some of the clients directly.  The guide asked me not to talk to his clients, but I said that they could make up their own minds…it quickly became apparent that they could not do this. 

I know there have been experiments with random authority figures with no credentials telling somebody what to do, and they will frequently do it even when it means harming others or risk to themselves.  This sort of sheepery is amazing to me, but it happened that day.  I walked up to the first group and said, “Hi, I know a little about avalanches, and that path looks very dangerous.  I recommend turning around.”

“Well, our guide is telling us to go on, so we will,” many replied.

Others said, “We have to catch our plane soon, so we don’t have a choice.”

To which I replied, “Okay.”  It wasn’t my job or desire to argue with them, but the word guide carries so much weight.  These people were with trekking guides who are very nice, know the area, and have probably spent a lot of time walking around the mountains of Nepal, but becoming a trekking guide here requires very minimal qualifications.  You need a license which is acquired after taking some sort of basic exam given by the government; avalanche training is NOT a prerequisite, and under normal circumstances it really has no reason to be.  Knowing a bit about the history, culture, local flora and fauna, basic first aid, and simple acclimatization rules are what most tourists are looking for from a guide.  The people that day were putting their full faith (and lives) into somebody because they were guides.  Having a guide is not an excuse to stop using your brain!  I do admit that if I hired a guide on a mountain or skiing trip I would trust what they said, but only to an extent; if something looked too dangerous I would at least question their decision making.  I also admit that if I had to catch a plane it would have been very hard for me to turn around though all the flights to and from Lukla were cancelled during the storm anyways.  It’s why when survivors of avalanche accidents are asked whether they knew that conditions were poor, a large majority say, “Yes.”  They went anyways due to external factors; knowledge isn’t everything.  Chances are we would have been fine crossing the stairs that day, and in fact only one yak herder and his yak fell into the river.  The yak died and the man survived after being rushed down to a rescue post in a severely hypothermic condition.  McMahon and I just couldn’t take that risk, so we headed back and as I walked back through the traffic jam my story changed.

“Hi, I’m a ski patroller from the States, and I think those stairs are too dangerous to cross.  I’d talk to your guide and head back to Gokyo.”

“Okay, that seems like it might be a good idea.”

And then, “Hi, I’m a certified mountaineering guide from the US, and those stairs a definitely too dangerous to cross.  I’d talk to your guide and head back to Gokyo.”

“Oh, okay.  Thanks!  We’ll definitely do that.”

Again, the word “guide” is a magic word.  I am a far cry from a mountaineering guide, or even a ski patroller, but people listen if say you are an authority, and then speak as if you are.

So McMahon and I settled back into the lodge in Gokyo with our books and some very long games of Cosmic Wipe Out, a fascinating and fairly confusing dice game that Mike brought with him.
Debating the next meal, prepping for Cosmic Wipe Out, and deciding which of the other guests we would eat first if food in the lodge ran out...
Photo: Mike McMahon

Lodge workers trying to keep the roofs from collapsing under the weight of the snow.  One of the lodge's roofs did end up collapsing, but no one was inside or we would have had some nice barbeque.
Photo: Mike McMahon

We spent several hours one day digging a path through the snow up to the top of the moraine, a two and a half hour task to get to a point that would have literally been a ten minute walk without snow. 
Beginning the trenching operation to the top of the moraine.
Photo: Mike McMahon

A snow bound Gokyo
Photo: Mike McMahon

Ending my first trenching shift, and checking out Gokyo Lake
Photo: Mike McMahon

Mike enjoying the digging

Surveying the Ngozumba Glacier

At the top of the moraine
Photo: Mike McMahon

This paid off because not only did it give us something to do, but that night the storm cleared out and a nearly full moon revealed itself making for some awesome visuals of the newly snow covered glacier from the top of the moraine.
The top of the moraine at night
Photo: Mike McMahon
 
Some night shots of from the top of the moraine:



A Bear!!


Mike and I thought that if we stayed the night we could get out early and head towards Namche.  This way, the snow would have the rest of the night for sloughs to run, and if we crossed underneath all of the avalanche terrain before the sun hit it then we would be able to avoid sloughs as well as the slides that would surely begin as soon as the warm autumn sun started affecting the snow.  Mike and I headed out early in the morning constantly listening for any sign of avalanche activity.  As we hoped/predicted, all was completely silent and still, and just as we reached the stairs the sun started hitting the slopes high up on some of the enormous peaks to the north.  We knew we would have to hurry to get through the dangerous parts before the sun hit the high slopes we wanted to sneak underneath.  Unfortunately, hurrying was not too much of an option.  The stairs were covered in cemented piles of snow from the continuous sloughing during the storm, and soon we hit ice.  The storm was not particularly cold and while it was snowing some of the rocks were already warm enough to melt snow; the runoff flowed on top of the avalanche debris and refroze during the clear night.  After I spent a while chipping at it with a trekking pole, Mike discovered you could get a foot underneath it and break it up from underneath.  We spent quite a while getting through this section of stairs because each steep section we had to kick steps in the rock hard avalanche debris which resulted in some damaged toe nails, but did get us through just as the sun started hitting the slopes up above us.  The two doctors as well as two other people followed us down to the stairs, but upon seeing the exciting traverse decided to turn around and head back to Gokyo.
A quick photo break on our dash out.
A startled Baer.
Photo: Mike McMahon


First light on something way to the North on the border with Tibet. I had these all figured out at one point, but I've forgotten exactly where I was looking in some of these pictures.
Kicking through some ice.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Mike making his way down the avalanche debris

A quick rest for the toes.

Whew, made it through : Mike sporting his super fine and dangerous neck warmer.
Enjoying the sun
Photo: Mike McMahon

Mike and I stopped at the rescue post in Machhermo to give them an update on people and the doctors in Gokyo since the phone lines were not working, and then we proceeded to rally down to Namche Bazaar.  On this day we saw at least eight helicopters heading up towards Gokyo presumably to airlift people from the town since there was no way out unless you were up for crossing terrain best crossed with an ice axe and crampons, without them.
Kyajo Ri after the storm

The snow line
 
A real man would fill that thing with concrete first.
Photo: Mike McMahon

In Namche we had to pick up a couple of last things, and then meet up with our porters.  At this point we were a day behind schedule, and had no way of telling our previous porter to send the new ones a day later.  That’s why we paid in advance though.  That way the porters would hopefully wait for us to get there because we had already paid them for a week.  I called our porter from High Spirits and apologized for being late, and asked him about the porters.  He said that they went up the day before, but since we had not shown up they returned at night to Lukla.  That was interesting.

“Can you send them back up today, and we’ll meet them in the afternoon in Namche?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

In the early evening, we got to Namche very tired after hiking all day, and met our porters.  There were several problems which needed to be taken care of that evening.  Only one had an even remotely reasonable pair of shoes; the other had only sandals and neither of them had a jacket.  Both were from the village of the High Spirit porter which is way down the valley at very low elevation.  They had not done porter work for a trekking group before, and they were not even remotely acclimatized.  Most distressing though, was that they had not been paid the money we gave for them in advance.  This is why they hiked back to Lukla at night when we did not show up: they couldn’t afford to stay in Namche.

We set out to rent our new porters the proper equipment minus the shoes.  Having shoes was part of our initial agreement, so they had to pay for those from their salary.  I spent a lot of time on the phone trying to figure out why the porter from High Spirit didn’t pay the new porters though it didn’t really matter.  He wasn’t going to come to Namche to pay the porters that night, and they needed money while they worked so we were just going to have to pay them again and try to get our money back from the High Spirit porter after our climb.  We were frustrated, but could do nothing about it so we went ahead with our plan…which was constantly changing.

Originally, we were going to acclimatize, return to Namche, and then hike up a remote valley to the base of Kyajo Ri to begin our climb, but with all the new snow we thought using established trails for as long as possible would be a good idea.  We didn’t want to post hole up the valley for a long distance at high elevation, so we decided to hike back up to a town called Luza and over a pass there which would drop us into the Kyajo valley almost at the base of the peak.  This way we could use a trail that already had an established boot pack up to Luza and then quickly gain elevation over a short distance which would minimize the distance we would have to trudge through deep snow.  This was not the first, or last time I wished I had skis on this trip. This plan would also mean that bringing a tent and food for the porters would not be necessary.  They would hike with us to Luza, and then spend one day hiking as high up to the pass as they could and then return to Luza for the remainder of our climb.  Luza had a nice lodge and warm food available.  They would then meet us on a prearranged day at a prearranged spot up on the pass in order to help us bring our gear back down.

The next day we headed out with our now equipped porters, and worked our way towards Luza.  At Dhole the porters said they were tired (they had some heavy loads and were not acclimatized), and decided to stay there for the evening.  Mike and I continued up to Luza where we would meet them the next morning.
Nearing Dhole on our second trip up
 
Nearing sunset... I think the reflection of the mountain in the clouds is neat.

Peaks peeking above the clouds

Almost to Luza



Newly snowy peaks to the west of Dhole
Photo: Mike McMahon

The views while walking were sort of breathtaking.
Photo: Mike McMahon
Sunset from just above Luza.  Hungchhi (7029m) is in the sun I think.

Nice streaking in the sky

Again with the streaking

The next morning our porters showed up on time, but one of them was feeling the altitude.  We now had a bit of a dilemma.  I gave him some Advil and a Diamox, and he had a hot meal at the guest house.  His headache got a little better, but was still hurting him.  Our plan was to take the porters quite a bit higher, and we did not want him to get any sicker.  For one thing working hard with a splitting headache is not fun, and second, if one of our porters got really sick we would have to abandon our trip and make sure he got taken care of medically as well as financially.  The agent we dealt with in Kathmandu said that we paid for insurance for our porters, but at this point it seemed unlikely that our previous porter had passed on the names of the new porters to Kathmandu which was also a task he was supposed to do.  It also dawned on me at this point that we were idiots and never got an itemized receipt from the guy at High Spirits.  If one of our porters needed to use the insurance that we paid for it would be easy enough for the man in Kathmandu to claim that we never paid for it. 

We obviously couldn’t ask this guy to go any higher, but we needed a second porter.  We talked our problem over with the lodge owner.  The lodge owner made sure that our sick porter was not dizzy because that is the main symptom of high altitude cerebral edema.  We were sure to include the lodge owner to make sure we didn’t make a stupid decision based on summit fever.  We all spent a long time talking and the sick porter decided he felt well enough to walk back down alone.  If he had not we would have had to either go with him or send our other porter with him.  We paid the sick porter his wage for the day even though he had only worked for about two hours, and then sent him on his back to Namche and then his village. 

The lodge owner agreed to send one of the women who were working in his kitchen with us as a second porter, but only for one day.  We were hoping to have porter support for two days.  The first day we would hike to a camp, and then porters would return the short distance to the lodge to return the next morning with nothing and carry things to a higher camp.  We only had the woman, who was one of the shortest women I have ever seen, from the lodge for one day though and that day was quickly slipping through our fingers while we figured out our porter situation.  We quickly dumped everything we didn’t need for the climb in the lodge and loaded up.  We gave a pair of our hiking boots to the male porter, but the woman could have probably fit her entire leg into our boots so she made do with sneakers.

She may have been short, but she was strong.  She was also acclimatized seeing as she lives at 4300m.  This was the kind of porter we needed from the beginning.  She carried a bag that was probably more than half of her body weight…all day…through the snow…at altitude…with wet socks, and never once complained.  Mike and I took turns breaking trail for our much shorter Nepali companions who sunk to their hips every time Mike and I would sink past our knees.  The snow had compacted some, but was far from consolidated.  We made depressingly slow progress as we slogged our way up towards the saddle.  We were hoping to reach 5090m which would have been 300m higher than the highest place we had thus far slept in Gokyo.  We traveled on avalanche debris as much as possible because it was a bit more consolidated that the rest of the snow, but not the cement we were expecting.  At 3PM we had to turn our porters around so they could get back to the lodge before the temperature started dropping too much, and before it got dark.  At this time we were still fairly short of our goal for the evening so we turned our porters back and told the young man to come back the next day if he wanted.  We told him it would again be a tough day, but we wanted to start earlier and hopefully the snow would be more compacted.  If he did not come then we asked him to meet us up on the slope in five days’ time and he could help us carry things back down.  We were all very tired, and it seemed unlikely he would want to get up at 5AM to get there by seven or eight to start hauling again. 
Beginning the slog
Photo: Mike McMahon

Continuing the slog
Photo: Mike McMahon

Taking a break from the slog
Photo: Mike McMahon

A little higher on the slog
Photo: Mike McMahon

Mike and I began shuttling loads up another 100m or so to a camp we set up at 4990m.  This took us another three hours, and we finally settled into our tent to start making food as it was getting dark.  This was our first night in the tent, and it went pretty well.  The stove was the main issue.  We were not sure what kind of fuel would be available to us in Namche when we were planning so we brought my stove which can burn just about anything.  I figured we would be able to find normal gasoline as I had used it before here in Nepal and it worked pretty well.  It turns out that you can get all sorts of compressed gas canisters in Namche Bazaar, but gasoline is not available.  The only fuel they had was kerosene which, by the way, can hardly be described as combustible.  It has the greasiness of a cheap sunscreen, and a lovely smell that never goes away…ever.  It has a relatively high combustion temperature.  With white gas or normal gasoline one has only to get some sort of spark in the vicinity of the liquid to ignite it, but kerosene is another animal.  We had to protect a lighter from the wind for a good two or three minutes while holding the lighter to the kerosene to get it to light which is not an easy task high in the mountains where breezes are common and hands freeze quickly.  It also doesn’t burn as cleanly as gas which quickly reduces the stove’s performance.
"Hmmm... I think we go up."
 
Really enjoying shuttling heavy loads late in the day.
Photo: Mike McMahon

The stove is started!  Nightfall in the Khumbu
Photo: Mike McMahon

We woke early the next morning, made some tea (after battling the stove again), had some chocolate and started hiking just as it was getting light.  There was no sign of our porter which was no surprise, so we distributed loads more evenly among the four bags and started up with our first of two loads to shuttle for the day.  Even at this early hour we were still sinking in the snow.  A little less than the day before, but the going was still frustratingly slow.  We were expecting the snow to be much harder as the storm was pretty wet to begin with, the days after had been pretty warm, and the nights had been clear and quite cold.  It’s clear I still have a lot to learn about snow.

A little later we neared the terminus of the glacier coming out of the saddle, and Mike suddenly exclaimed, “Wow!  Look back at our camp!”

And there was our porter gathering the two bags together and beginning to hike up towards us.  He was making a lot better time than we were, and he met us at the terminus where we stopped and waited for him.  At this point the route got very steep and icy in order to climb the terminus.  The porter didn’t have crampons, and we weren’t sure how sketchy the route would be once we got onto the glacier so we paid him double for carrying both the other bags, and sent him down with instructions to come back to that point in several days and meet us.  We also paid him $15 a day for the days he spent sitting around waiting for us to come back because we really needed him to help us get the gear back down.

The terminus also had the only slab release we saw the entire trip.  The debris we had been hiking up had come off of the glacier, and there was a several foot crown exactly on the convexity at the top of the terminus for almost the whole width of the glacier.  We climbed up onto the glacier and began yet another slog.  We were still sinking up to our knees, so each step became a lot of effort and we started to feel the effects of the sun for the first time.  The sun reflecting off of the unbroken snow was very intense.  We had applied sunscreen several times, but it was like walking on mirrors that are all directed at you.  We were drenched in sweat and the heat just made the going that much slower. 

Stopping to melt some snow for drinking water
Photo: Mike McMahon

Reaching the top of the next knoll from where I am in this picture took one hour.  About 200m.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Bear feeling the sun.
Luckily, flurries would occasionally blow in providing relief, but the glacier seemed to stretch on forever.  At one point a flurry blew in which reduced visibility to basically nothing, so we pitched the tent and figured we’d wait it out.  In the two minutes it took us to pitch the tent the sun again came out, and we could see that the glacier was fairly crevassed from this point onward.  We roped up and again began to trudge upwards towards the saddle which we reached in an hour or so, and then had to return for the rest of our gear.  The second shuttle trip was much shorter because we already had a decent boot pack.  At the saddle at 5420m we pitched the tent between two crevasses and settled in for the night.
Hiking through one of the flurries.
Photo: Mike McMahon
 
Roped up just after a flurry blew through
Photo: Mike McMahon
 
Strolling past a yawning crevasse.
Photo: Mike McMahon
 
At the saddle feeling depressed as Kyajo is still quite far.
Photo: Mike McMahon

The views from this camp were pretty spectacular as we could see west as well as east.
Attempting to survey the route down.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Setting up at Crevasse Camp
Photo: Mike McMahon

That night was COLD; I was very happy to be in my sleeping bag. The next day dawned clear and also cold which quickly changed over to blisteringly hot as soon as the sun got working on the snow. McMahon and I were still quite short of our goal so we again downsized our loads and decided to make a long dash for the peak hoping to get to a closer camp that evening and start to climb very early the next day. We packed absolute essentials and set off for what turned out to be a very short dash.
Enjoying some hot tea.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Nightfall at Crevasse Camp
Photo: Mike McMahon

Looking to the west at night towards Teningbo Peak (5839m)
Photo: Mike McMahon

Two bears at night.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Fish eye lens
Photo: Mike McMahon

Applying the necessary sunscreen
Photo: Mike McMahon

Lifestyle shot
Photo: Mike McMahon

 


We immediately had to down climb some very steep terrain into the Kyajo Valley so McMahon put me on belay and I began to down climb.  The slope very quickly deteriorated.  With every step I kicked into the unconsolidated snow my toes hit rock.  I would try to weight a step in six inch snow on top of rock slabs and, unsurprisingly, the step would give out and I’d have a quick adrenaline rush as I scrambled not to tip over.  I searched back and forth for a way through the cliffs that didn’t involve down climbing the slippery slabs, but I couldn’t find one.  Even if McMahon managed to down climb with only a sketchy belay I could provide from below there was no way we would be able to re-climb the face up to the saddle on our way back out.  I struggled my way back up the face by wedging an ice axe into cracks in the rocks underneath the snow and scrambling up to a point where my foothold held and then repeated.  At the top McMahon was feeling the sun after sitting in that oven for about an hour, so we retreated to a shady spot and discussed options.
" Oh man, that is steep and scary."
Photo: Mike McMahon

Time was passing quickly and we would have to use one of our two ropes to set up a fixed line down into the valley and back up again.  We decided against doing this for some reason, but in retrospect I’m not sure why we did.  We had two ropes for rappelling purposes, but we probably could have gotten by with one.  Perhaps the task was just getting too daunting to pull off in the time frame we had left.  Anyways, we decided to give up on the peak and decided to do whatever climbing we could from our crevasse camp.  We set the tent up again, scaled down to day packs, and then began to climb the ridge just north of our camp.

I immediately began to sympathize with McMahon’s earlier belay of me as I belayed McMahon out of camp.  The sun was horrendous.  I tried to move as fast as possible to get into the shade when it was my turn to go.  By the time we reached the first true technical section we both were feeling pretty poor; the sun had given us headaches and we were both feeling dehydrated despite drinking as much water as possible.  We moved slowly up the rotten snow and loose rocks alternating leads as we went.  As the afternoon wore on we switched from finding belays in the shade to trying to work in the sun.  The temperature was dropping.  On the third pitch I had finally managed to battle my way up a steep gully with mushy hip deep snow in the middle and three inches on snow on the sides over laying rock when McMahon called out that it was getting late and if we couldn’t reach the ridge soon we’d have to turn back.  I could see the ridge was quite a ways off still so started a hasty down climb.  The sun quickly dropped behind the ridge to our west and the temperature went from sort of reasonable to cold very quickly.  McMahon lowered me down one of the trickier parts and then followed with a very impressive down climb of that section.  He had been sitting still for longer than I had so his hands were pretty cold from being soaked in the snow on the way up.  We hurried down and made it to camp just as it was getting dark.  After another cheese heavy meal we went to sleep with a very bright moon shining down on us.

Mike checking things out.


Crevasse Camp
 
Mike leading the spectacularly rotten first pitch


Mike gets to some easier ground on a little ridge.
 
Mike belaying me up.
Photo: Mike McMahon 

The view down the Kyajo valley.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Climbing up with Crevasse Camp in the background.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Getting onto the struggle bus.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Pitons!
Photo: Mike McMahon

Crevasse Camp catching some late afternoon sunlight.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Ama Dablam on the left looking east.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Evening falls in the Kyajo Valley
Photo: Mike McMahon

Last light on Ama Dablam (6814m).
Photo: Mike McMahon

Moonrise from Crevasse Camp
Photo: Mike McMahon

The next morning we decided to make a go at the ridge again.  This time it was much easier as we were climbing earlier and we had already broken trail for a good ways up.  The climbing was fun and the day was clear which gave us some truly amazing views.  We reached the top around lunch time and spent a while taking pictures, eating lunch, and enjoying the spectacular views.
Ama Dablam

Mike at Cravasse Camp

Crevasse Camp in the morning

Mike trying to warm up.

Everest

Enjoying the sun
Housework
Photo: Mike McMahon
 
Definitely the altitude talking...
Photo: Mike McMahon
Everst and Lhotse from Crevasse Camp

Moonset
The rotten section
Photo: Mike McMahon
Getting to one of the rock sections.
Photo: Mike McMahon
 
Mike climbing up on our second attempt

A tricky little rock section
Settling in for a nice sunny belay
Photo: Mike McMahon

Mike taking the lead
 
Mike leading some steep snow.
Photo: Mike McMahon
 

Photo: Mike McMahon

Getting ready to start the next lead
Photo: Mike McMahon
 

Mike cresting the top of a narrow knoll.
A cozy little belay
Photo: Mike McMahon
 
The last section!
Photo: Mike McMahon
 

Pumo Ri (7165m) on the left and Everest on the right
Fish eye vies of Kyajo Valley
Photo: Mike McMahon

Some very rugged and glaciated terrain make up the Tibetan border.

Kyajo Ri...The closest we ever got.

"Hmmmm..... let's see if we can get up this bit of loose snow...Nope."

A very interesting rock formation makes up the head of the Macchermo Glacier

Everest

Pumo Ri

Cho Oyu perhaps (8201m)

Mike with Kyajo Ri in the background

A nice icefall coming down from Teningbo Peak



Fish eye of the Khumbu
Photo: Mike McMahon

Fish eye of Kyaho Valley
Photo: Mike McMahon

Looking extremely fierce
Photo: Mike McMahon

Mike hauls this thing everywhere...
Photo: Mike McMahon

America!!
Photo: Mike McMahon
 

Too soon it was time to start working our way back down. We traversed down the ridge a ways to a big solid rock band where McMahon drove in a piton and we made a quick rappel down the steep ridge to the glacier.
 

Time to get down!
Photo: Mike McMahon

I hope that thing holds...
Photo: Mike McMahon
 

Rapelling off the ridge


Getting back to Crevasse Camp

 
 

Evening sunlight on Ama Dablam

Makalu in evening light

Makalu

Everest and Lhotse

Alpenglow on Makalu

Alpenglow on Everest

Neat colors in the sky with Ama Dablam

The next day we began our rally out to Lukla.  We strapped bags together and pulled another and teetered our way down with some very heavy bags to meet our porter who had come up to meet us at the bottom of the glacier.  We met, transferred gear, had a snack, and then started walking down the snow which had consolidated considerably.  That evening we were planning on stopping in Phortse Tenga, but the guest house was full so we pushed on up to Mong La, arriving shortly after dark.
 
The next morning getting out of the tent.  Mike was very proud of this picture as he got the sun directly behind the tent pole.
Photo: Mike McMahon
 
What I think is a Himalayan Snowcock, but not sure.  He was pretty unconcerned with our little camp.
 
 
Sharing snacks with our trusty porter
Photo: Mike McMahon

Photo: Mike McMahon
The next morning we had wonderful views of Ama Dablam and the other surrounding mountains so we spent quite a bit of the morning sitting in the sun, drinking tea, and taking pictures. We left in late morning and made the two hour walk to Namche Bazaar where we wanted to spend the night. We returned rented gear and in the late afternoon went for a little walk where we got to see Nepal’s national bird, the Himalayan Monal (Danphe in Nepali).

A fitting place for a Bear to sleep
Photo: Mike McMahon

The way back to Namche with the Kongde range in the background.
Photo: Mike McMahon

Mike was lucky to catch this specimen unawares.  Definitely European...
Photo: Mike McMahon
 

Everest, Lhotse, Ama Dablam
Photo: Mike McMahon

Neat sunset taken near Namche

The valley west of Namche and Sunder Peak (5368m).

Hunting bowhead at the head of the Kyajo valley

The Himalayan Monal (Nepal's national bird)  They are not this blurry in real life.

I attempted to call our previous porter who owed us a fair amount of money only to learn that he had gone off on another trek and therefore could not return our money.  Mike and I ran into a couple other employees of High Spirit and they were very helpful and nice.  They called the Greasy man, (who we had nicknamed “The Nubian” from Star Wars), but we would have to work out all the details in Kathmandu when we returned.

The next morning we rounded up another porter so ours would not have to carry two bags all the way to Lukla.  This kid was very small, and McMahon and I were sure he couldn’t be more than 11 years old, but he insisted he was 15…even after we paid him.  Mike and I rolled out a bit late and ended up in Lukla in the early evening.  We settled up with our porters, had a nice dinner, and then headed out to a little coffee shop after dinner for a snack.  Lukla is very touristy.  There is even a legitimate Starbucks…
Hiking back to Lukla
Photo: Mike McMahon

It's never a bad time for air guitar
Photo: Mike McMahon

The next morning we got up very early and headed to the airport around 5:30 to make sure we could get on the first flight out…which we did not do.  Unbeknownst to us, we had to give our ticket number to the hotel, and the hotel had to confirm our flight the night before in order to get on the plane.  They told us that since we did not do that we could only get on the second flight.  Well, as it turned out it really didn’t matter because both flights were extremely late (as seems to be the norm with Makalu Air), and the second flight only left 20 minutes after the first flight, at 11:30.
A bit sleepy at the airport
Photo: Mike McMahon

Our trusty steed for the return flight
Photo: Mike McMahon

The flight back to Kathmandu was a bit more turbulent that coming, and I was sitting pretty close behind the cockpit which makes all sorts of terrifying noises which are just normal alerts about various goings on, but they sound like alarms.  Every time I’d hear a beeping noise I would quickly glance at the pilots to see it they thought we were crashing, and upon seeing them calmly doing their job I’d relax again until the next horrible beeping noise.  Soon enough we were back in the chaos, dirt, and noise of Kathmandu.

We wasted no time in visiting our greasy friend at High Spirits because we figured it would take us quite some time to get our money back, if we were going to get it back at all.  We explained the situation with the porter, and also presented our trash receipt which was worth $250.  He explained to us that he could not get us our deposit back for two days, and that he would first have to talk to his porter to confirm the situation before he could return the money that the porter took.  He said that the deposit was not for him, it was for the Mountaineering Association so he had to get the money back from them, but the problem he had was that we paid his company for the deposit not the association.  His company was on the credit card receipt so HE owed us the deposit, not anyone else.  On top of this, McMahon’s flight was the next day, so two days wasn’t going to cut it.  We argued back and forth for a bit which eventually degraded into me screaming obscenities and told him if he didn’t give us our money then I would get the police.  He said, “Okay, get the police.”  So, I did.

They were not overly helpful, but they did get the talks moving a lot faster than we had been doing.  He quickly agreed to give us the $250 of our deposit, but it took a bit more haggling to get him to agree to give us the money his porter took.  Also, he couldn’t have it ready until the next morning, so McMahon and I left, had a nice meal at one of the many tasty restaurants in Kathmandu, and had a good nights’ sleep.  In the morning we went back and got most of our money minus about $30 which we let him have since we were both finished dealing with that bimbo. 

Then it was time to part ways.  I went back to Pokhara, and McMahon went back to the States with another successful adventure under our belts.

2 comments:

  1. Unless I am very much mistaken, the Macchermo Glacier appears to be one big tasty pillow line. Also, this is very rad. Go boys!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was thinking the same thing!! Big pillows, but nothing is unshreddable with a little help from Cali P...

    ReplyDelete