Crown of the World - The Snow Leopard Chronicles, Nepal

Crown of the World
or The Snow Leopard Chronicles [Gokyo Lakes Trek, Nepal - Sagarmatha National Park]

“Days and months are the travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by....I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind – filled with a strong desire to wander.....I walked through the mists and clouds, breathing the thin air of high altitudes and stepping on slippery ice and snow, till at last through a gateway of clouds, as it seemed, to the very paths of the sun and moon, I reached the summit, completely out of breath and nearly frozen to death. Presently the sun went down and the moon rose glistening in the sky.”                            ~~~Basho

                          “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”

12-19-2011 – Dole, alt: 4000m
Living the Maori Legend


I stand on the cliff edge & a surreally blue glacier river, Dudh Koshi, bubbles deep down in the gorge under my feet.

I cry out to the Great Khongde and count at least three echoes.

Little is small about this landscape. I remember some exercise where I was to examine my response to an object much smaller than me, one of the same size and then a huge one. And I get a lot of the latter response here – every time I realize that 360 degrees of my view is occupied by the jagged white spears that put Matterhorn to shame. It takes my breath away each time - they are just SO BIG! The timeless giants make one realize the origin of the word AWE-SOME. Here it's more like “AWE-A-HECK-OF-A-LOT.”

And then my glance drifts to the steep arid gray of the fine silt scapes that makes up so much of the higher Himalayas. After all, it was ocean floor some 50-75 million years ago. Oh, how quickly the top and bottom can change!

Then my glance stops at a shadow that could easily belong to the Little Prince – the hair and all – if it wouldn't be so huge. It's at least 10 feet tall.

For a split second I wonder if I've just encountered a formidable female yeti specimen. After all – it is technically their domain at this altitude. I spin around – oooooh, it's just me! Minus a shower for a week, that is. I touch the spiky shag that, according to the shadow, grows out of my head. More like a “hair don't” than a “hair do.”

I now understand the meaning of the “yak and yeti” named lodges that abound in this area. They must be for the guests like me. If I showed up there, I'd be right at home as a hybrid of both shaggy species. I chuckle at the thought that at about the same altitude up the Everest Base Camp route, there is an actual yeti scalp [or so the locals claim] at a monastery sporting a similar hair 'do. Small world!

 

You see, this is one of the glamours of the high altitude trekking that does not end up on the front page for some reason. The part where one merges with one's clothing so as to not expose one's pink body to the sub-zero temperatures. I now fully sympathize with Richard Haliburton's description of Ladakhis [he was one of the 12 pale faces that were allowed to Ladakh in the 1920s]: “Ladakhis have an excuse for not showering – it's SO cold in the winters.....and by summer they are out of the habit.” It reminds me of a Brazilian dish I once saw on a menu: “Mad beast in his natural juices served on flat bottom boats.” “One sympathizes,” as Bond would say.

However, what's it to be a “mad beast” for a few weeks if one gets to listen to the water tinkle under the crystal ice waterfalls, watch the eagles dance hypnotically against the glistening white caps and see herds of white yaks ring their bells down 40 degree grade raising dust clouds behind them? And aside from that – I seem to be the only one on the path. And that is the secret beauty of the the off-season trekking.

Yaks are an undying theme on the journey. As the Dalai Lama put it, they are “God's gift to mankind.” I, being a one-woman yak fashion show, can attest to that first-hand. The shaggy beasts are so much a part of the local psyche!

I once asked the apple-cheeked maidens at Dole if they've ever milked a yak. Both rolled over with laughter. I sheepishly inquired what that was all about. In very direct gestures, they explained that yaks don't do that – wrong gender. Naks do, though. Apparently, the word “cow” [“gai,” Nepl] and “cow-yak hybrid” [“dzo,” Nepl], stands for both genders. But yak is different, of course: boys carry loads and give wool; girls [“naks”] - milk and nurse. Lesson learned: don't EVER try to milk a yak.

A question for you, erudites: how do you make organic fuel year around where no wood is to be found? You got it – the answer again is “yak.” You take fresh yak “dumplings” and squish them against some flat rocks. A day in the sun turns them into “yak chapattis,” as the locals jokingly refer to these crispy pancakes. These “chapattis” of organic goodness are then fed into the tall cylindrical kilns to make fierce, long-lasting fire. And it is fragrance-free, in case you wonder.

I've developed quited an affection for these incredible beasts, as you can probably tell, - they are a gift that keeps on giving. Even after they poo. While they live. Even after they die.

Naturally, I tried to pet a few – their furriness was just too much for a girl to resist. But, alas, they are a strong, silent bunch, and quite shy at that. The two tactics they use to deal with unexpected visitors are: intimidation and avoidance. The first is when the huge shaggy horned beast shakes its formidable chest fur and begins to move at you first leveling you with a glare of no uncertain meanings. Yaks have the most direct eye-contact of any animal I've seen. The second – usually favoured by the younger ilk – is when the furry creature stops in its tracks when you get too close, eyes you curiously, and walks away. Their demeanor is much like that of a senior Buddhist Lama. Silent, present, unhurried, the epitome of peace.

The Himalayas bring to mind a Maori legend of creation. The Maoris believe that the world was created when Mother Earth and Father Sky were torn apart to make room for the living and breathing “middle world” - all sentient beings and their environment. Here it is as though it has all just happened – the jagged edges of the earth still longingly embraced by the sky, as though in hope to reunite. And heards of innocent fluffy clouts, way out of proportion to the landscape, graze on the edges of the “tear” - the proto-forms of life to be born....

12.20.2011 Luza, alt 4380 m
Superman's REAL Last Name

Today I met a Sherpa climber who has seen a snow leopard! He was leading an expedition to Chou Ou from the Tibetan side and came face to face with the elusive feline at alt. 5000 m. Just hours before, I picked up a mystical journey book called “The Snow Leopard” that attested to the incredible honour of sighting this archetypal Himalayan grace. Just a few people in the past 25 years have seen it. And here I'm sitting across from one of them. The first person I've asked about it, too!

Aside: if you are wandering around the High Himalayas as your own porter and guide and wonder how many hours are to the next night-stop, it helps to multiply the number given by any locals [especially – Sherpas] – by 2 or 3. No joke. These guys are jet-propelled.

The more time I spend with this incredible mountain people, the more I become convinced – the Superman's real name was Ken Clark Sherpa. They seem to be a different breed – physically and otherwise.

12.22.2011 – Gokyo, alt 4800 m
Under the Milky Sky

“What will you do in Gokyo for so many days?” - inquired a young Aussie trekker pushing his way through the famed Three Pass Trail when even the local guides don't think it wise to go there due to the ice coverage. Even though his body gave all the obvious signals to slow down – the man was visibly suffering the early symptoms of the acute mountain sickness [aka “AMS”]. “Oh, you know, look at the water, listen to the wind wander through the mountains, watch the sun bathe in the lake...” He looked at me like I've sprouted an extra head. How different our journeys seem to be, I reflect!

The Himalayan stars deserve a few words. When you go out into the fridgid night and look up, it's as though someone has sprinkled nano pixie dust and it stuck to the sky. It looks milky – like the Milky Way but throughout the entire heavens! As though many veils have been pierced by the immense peaks and one can see directly into the heart of our galaxy. Only the fierce Boreas and the yak bells make up the sound track to this mesmerizing planetarium show. Did you know that glaciers fluoresce in the moonlight? Ghostly greenish blankets between the jagged silouhettes, they seem to guard the valleys at night. It's them and the disembodied green yak eyes that pop out of the darkness once in a while.....

Crystal ice treasures frame the lake, and elegant cairns mark its boundary. The Force is strong here. “The sound of silence” is palpable. I feel like a tiny child before the immense, timeless might of the Himalayas – the pristine glowing slopes of Cho-Oyu watching over me paternally.

It is amazing that at 4800 m there are the warmest lodges of the trek – I was prepared to have my sleeping bag's “-18C/0F” rating tested here, and actually ended up getting hot at night! And the huge phallic dining room stoves are lit in the morning too here.

12.23.2011 – Gokyo, Ngozumpa Glacier trek to the 5^th Lake, alt 5000 m
Fields of Gray – Game Over

If you flew over the endless Ngozumpa glacier morraine, you'd see miles of lifeless gray framed by the white peaks. And if you looked a little harder, you'd see a tiny speck of life moving through the gray. The only thing you'd see moving, probably, would be wearing a silver rucksack – that would be me. The morraine is not a smooth going. Traversing it takes the form of boulder hopping – one of the most exhausting forms of high altitude exercise. Naturally, I haven't met a single soul in the 9 hours of my gray path. It is the farthest I've ever been from “civilization.” Nothing but the savage landscape all around.....and not a thing moves.

But where is the glacier? You see, looking at all the maps, I was prepared to walk along a frozen tongue of compressed blue ice covered by snow. Now that I was here, however, everything that met my eye below the white caps was gray silty dirt and a lot of it! Did it melt? Did the global warming get here already on such a scale?

After some hard looking, I finally spot some meek ice patches amidst the immense riverbed of gray silt. It is UNDER the dirt! Of course, later at the lodge, I ask some mountaneers: “what's up with the glacier?” and, after a hearty laugh, they patiently explain to the rookie that fast moving glaciers are always like that because they cut through the mountains [that are mostly silt], and the debris naturally land on top.Oooooh, good! So, it hasn't melted after all. Apparently, it's only the new glaciers that lay between the peaks that still show their pristine blue hues in the Himalayas.

Around two hours into the hike my head begins to pound with a frightening AMS-like flavour. For the next 7 hours the immense scenery cradling me is perceived through a veil of splitting pain. To add salt to the wound, it turns out that my water supplies are running low [water being the first line treatment for such cases]. By the time I make it to the lodge just as darkness descends, my head is falling apart and it takes nearly 4 hours of furious rehydration to feel life again.

That night I swear that I'd give up my intentions of going higher and just go down in peace if only my head shall return to normal. Bargaining, in short. After a day of rest, though, that does not sit right with my inner mountaneer – I have a peak with the supposedly best view of the Sagarmatha park [save, maybe atop the Sagarmatha herself] right in my backyard. And I'd go down without ever going up! But it's 400 m higher than the morraine route to the 5^th lake! I'm genuinely scraed of the AMS headache coming back. I almost succumb to my fear – after all, it's backed solidly by the safety concerns.

It's then that one local guide suggests that I go up as far as I can and go down if the AMS bites again. And then I realize that if I do not at least try, I will regret it for sure. After all, I've made it this far. My promise of living a life without regrets comest to mind in that instant. So I go up. And I actually feel good at the top! Simple joy and peace! This time, I have plenty of water and do not drink the local AMS prevention drug, Diamox, - a powerful diuretic, as it turns out [who was the genius responsible for developing a drug that dehydrates for a condition marked by natural dehydration?!]

Maybe it is the extra couple days of acclimatization. Maybe, the Mountain Gods chose to be kind to me today....or all of the above. Who knows, but now a profound sense of completion comes over me. I've never been held in the palms of the Himalaya so intimately. It's a rare moment when I get to experience the tipping point – it's as though I've done what I needed to do here – in the Himalayas, on the Journey. I can now go down with a light heart.

12.25.2011 – Gokyo Peak [Ri], alt 5360 m
The World's Crown – the best gift!

Today was the best Christmas I've ever had. I climbed my first real peak – Gokyo Ri, 5360 m. And, can you believe it, I had the good fortune to enjoy the top on my own, silence included, save the sound of the ferocious wind gusts and the flapping of the myriads of prayer flags. There, I feasted upon the well-deserved chapatti lovingly prepared at the Gokyo Lodge, taking cover behind a giant rock from the eager “wind horse” taboons [Tibetans believe the wind horses to be their ever-present deieties that unite the land and carry all the mantras from the prayer flags around the mountains]. I raised a glass of fizzy vit C to the Great Jomalungma that faced me point-blank.

Maneuvering through the dense web of prayer flag strings, I found myself at the edge of the peak. Talk about being surrounded! 360 degrees around me the saw-tooth giants are propping up the azure sky. Jomalungma, Nuptse, Chou Ou, Lhotse, Makhalu – the Atlas of the world standing silent witness to the turmoil of human existence. They are wearing luxurious adornments of thick blue ice sprinkled with fresh snow.

On a much smaller scale, I'm surrounded by cairns – many locals make those in honouring of the mountains and adorn them with prayer flag garlands.

I want leave one here too! Inspired by the thought that wherever my feet carry me, there will be an anchor, a part of me right here in the heart of the Himalaya. I pull together some hefty rocks and they fit together as if belonging to some jig-saw puzzle. Right on the edge of Gokyo Ri.

And then I spin around – my trekking poles high in the air – and scream joy to the silent Giants. The echoes are coming back from all directions, and this time I'm not counting. It's enough to know they hear. I'm moved viscerally by the gargantuan tectonic forces that shaped these mounts. They have imprinted their vialent shear marks upon rocks large and small – before me is a peak that is a grant testament to the tectonic plate theory – it's strata raise diagonally from the ground – as though some enormous fist has shattered the prehistoric ocean bed and thrust the broken pieces upwards....and there they stay to this day.

It occurs to me that it's only by a hair's chance that I'm here today. I was about to head back down to Namche Bazaar fearing a repeat of the splitting AMS headache, which was just subsiding after the long glacial morraine journey to the 5^th Gokyo Lake a couple days before. I've never been that afraid of a headache.