October 30, 2011
I am the master of the mountain. The champion of the climb. A goddess of the Himals. I knew I had earned each of these prestigious titles the moment a Nepali guide told me that I was "a strong sporting man", and loudly admired my ability "to eat like a starving Nepali boy". The poetry! He asked me what 'sporting' I did... And I put some serious thought into the best way to describe Dodgeball ("well the outfit is the most important part, but you see, you try to hit the other players with your balls...") Instead, I settled for the easy out, and told him that I was Arnold Schwarzenegger's personal trainer. The questions stopped there, and I continued on my merry way pretending that every step wasn't even more exhausting than the last. I'd sworn I wouldn't go all the way to Nepal to have someone else carry my bag, so with 15kg strapped on my back, I tried my damnedest to make the whole thing look easy. After the first five days it WAS easier, and I daresay extremely enjoyable, though this was apparently underscored by the fact that I eat like a pig. Ah, and I was still in better shape than Sander, which was very motivating.
The expansive Himalayas found us with no porter, no guide, no map ... sticking to the trip motto: "we'll deal with it when we get there". It's impossible to get lost when you have no destination, and you feel all the more clever for it. And besides, where's the fun in planning? This way when you turn up at the only accommodation for miles and find it full, you can just pretend you didn't want to stay there anyway. Very nonchalant. The only outline we'd given was to our loved ones, who were expecting our return to civilization within 8 or 10 days. So naturally, on day 13 I made emergency phone calls assuring everyone that (against better odds) Sander was NOT, in fact, dangling by backpack straps over a gaping canyon with hungry Sherpas sharpening yak-butter knives in the depths below. It was just too awesome to leave. And so, we remained trekkers without a plan and headed away from the only village large enough to have an international phone.
Every morning we struggled off of the wooden planks sometimes referred to as 'beds', at the leisurely hour of 7:00a.m. Some places were homestays and others were guesthouses, but every morning was perfect and crisp with the echo of woodfire stoves crackling under giant pots of masala tea. There is nothing more epic than brushing your teeth at dawn, watching the sun bathe 360 degrees of snow-capped mountains in golden light, and managing to avoid drooling toothpaste all over your hiking boots while you do it. As we ascended, fantastic emerald forests teeming with old world monkeys made way to rocky cliffsides perfectly covered in purple and blue wildflowers. By 4500m I was feeling inspired and completely invincible. So naturally, it snowed 15cm unexpectedly overnight and we woke to howling snow sweeping over the frigid lakes and through the yawning cracks in our goat-shack of a lodge. Someone who made 'plans' might have had a winter coat, but again, where's the fun in that? We're Canadians, after all. A skiff of snow is nothing! So instead of stay put, Sander squeezed into all three pairs of underwear at once and we hiked over the frozen Pass. No worse for wear, we survived the climb to continue bathing in shallow bowls of kettle-warmed water, playing 'walnut-rock' with screaming village kids, and sampling all kinds of dairy products lovingly produced by the illustrious yak. Finally, after 22 days we emerged from the wild and breached the Kathmandu city limits on foot. We had devoured the newly dedicated Tamang Heritage Trail, the charming Langtang Valley Trail, the super-climb to Gosaikund and the Laurabina La Pass, and finally the Helambu trail, which had dumped us unceremoniously back into the city. We have returned to hotel life, desperate for proper showers and falling out of clothes that no longer fit. I am now forced to go shopping: the master of the mountain could use a few new outfits.
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