All For A Pun

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DAY 365(!): If you haven’t figured it out by now, the reason I was so eager to make it to Mount Everest on my thirtieth birthday was all for the sake of the right to truthfully say for the rest of my life, the following pun (or slight variations thereof):

“When I turned thirty, I was on Mount Everest… and it was all downhill from there.”

(Get it?)

I could see myself using the pun at fancy dinner parties back home, talking amongst my peers over glasses of fine wine: 

“Oh Erik, ha ha ha!  ‘Downhill from there!’ That’s a real knee-slapper!  Are you always this witty?”

“Ha ha, yeah!  Now watch as I set one of my farts on fire!”

“Oh Erik, you’re such a hoot!”

Of course, my pun could always backfire at dinner parties ten years from now, when talking to my peers about “being over the hill” at forty, and people saying things like, “...but not you Erik!  It was all downhill after thirty! Ha ha!”

“Bite me.”

Either way, I was less than a day away from Nepal’s Everest Base Camp (as opposed to the one on the Chinese/Tibetan side that you simply just drive to), and it being October 18, 2004, my thirtieth birthday, I was a man on a mission to acquire my pun rights.  Sure, many people had warned me that Everest Base Camp was nothing special—there were no buildings or tents there and you wouldn’t even see Everest Summit, plus there were so many other Himalayan peaks that were so much prettier—but for me (and many others), nothing emitted that “Top Of The World” feeling like physically being on Mount Everest, regardless of its mediocre views.

And so, Tilak and I set off from Lobouche that morning in attempts to reach my goal.  Of course, saying you’re going to do something is always easier than actually doing it.

“ERIK!” CALLED A FAMILIAR VOICE from behind as Tilak and I were making headway northbound and upward towards Everest.  It was the voice of Wendy from Team Portland, who was coming from behind much faster than me with her hiking poles.  “How are you feeling?”

“Lethargic.”

I was slow-going, but steady like the tortoise in the proverbial race.  My pack was really weighing me down that morning, even with only the bare minimum inside (I had left the laptop and many other things in storage in Namche Bazar).  Wendy the Hare must have had a shot of something that morning because she was zipping up at an energetic pace to reach her goal by mid-day:  Kalapatthar, the nearby peak higher than Everest Base Camp that most locals recommended going to instead if you only had one choice because it did have a view of Everest Summit.

Anyway, she zipped ahead, ascending in altitude at a faster rate than me with no problem, leaving Tilak and me on our slow, but steady way—it was no race after all.  The ridge we were hiking kept on going, undulating over hill after hill, and just like the day before, it got to be a little ridiculous.  Every time we’d clear one I expected to see the next village of Gorak Shep, but it was always another hill.  The constant hills really started to piss me off.

Eventually, about three hours later, we made it to Gorak Shep (5150m. ASL), the very last outpost on the Everest trail.  From there the trail split two ways:  one towards the Kalapatthar peak (5545m. ASL) and the one towards Everest Base Camp (5350m. ASL).  It was common to check into a lodge in Gorak Shep and go to either endpoint and return back to town since both were a day round-trip trek away.

“Okay, let’s go to Base Camp!” I said to Tilak in the Snowland Inn lodge, a popular lodge with many signs, flags and t-shirts hung up from the many international groups that had made it to Everest Base Camp and beyond. 

“Yeah?” He was surprised that I was still willing to go after struggling the way from Lobouche.

“Well, I won’t have my bag.”

“The bag makes a world of difference,” said Canadian Greg who had come in after us.  He too looked beat and was going to sit out the rest of the day to recuperate; he wasn’t on any pressing pun mission I assumed.

Tilak was game—for days he was always bragging about his “six years experience” and having “been to Base Camp ten times” and was strong enough to trek on—and after lunch, we got ready.  I got my cameras, my water bottle, a Snickers and a Clif Bar, and bundled up.

“Bring your headtorch,” Tilak told me.  “It will be dark on the way back.” It was already passed noon, late for a departure to Everest Base Camp since the round trip would be “seven hours” (according to Tilak)—although I heard others say it might be three there and two back.

THE TRAIL TO EVEREST went up and down another annoying undulating ridge, perhaps at the average altitude of 5400m. ASL.  Once passed a brief flat land area—with memorial plaques for those who died there in 1997—and the initial uphill, it was fairly level and not too bad.  I could definitely feel the thinning air and really had to concentrate on my breathing with deep nasal inhales to fill my lungs—every time I forgot to do so, almost immediately I’d feel a headache or dizzy spell coming on.  I stopped every so often to really catch a few more breaths—and to admire the isolated avalanches on Nuptse across the valley.

Tilak trailed behind me, which wasn’t unusual, but it seemed this time the more I went ahead the farther back he became.  He was going at a much slower pace than me, and he blamed it on his worsening cough.  “My lungs… my heart...” he said, gasping for breath.  “My cough… it is hard to breathe when I cough.” He was coughing and spitting out yellow phlegm wads.  “Are you sure you want to go?  It will be ten o’clock when we get back.”

Ten o’clock?  Seems a bit of an exaggeration.

He was trying to tell me that we’d be all alone in the dark since we got a late start, but I pointed out the big Hong Konger group just in front of us that was also determined to make Everest and be back by nightfall.  I could tell he was just trying to make excuses not to go farther, which was weird because he was always bragging about his “six years experience” and having “been to Base Camp ten times.”

“I’m sorry, in my six years experience, I never get sick.  You go ahead, I’ll meet you back here.”

“Okay.”

So much for a guide, I thought.  What the hell?  How am I more fit than the guide? I continued on the undulating ridge for about another hour alone, in the trail of the two stragglers from the big ten odd-person group from Hong Kong, who were always one mountain turn ahead of me.  I concentrated on my breathing and tried to keep a steady pace, but it was getting harder and harder as the day wore on.  Every time I ran into a trekker on the way back to Gorak Shep, he/she would always give me a different answer as to how much farther it was to Base Camp—no matter how much I progressed, it was always “one hour, maybe a bit more” away.  Soon, the thin air was starting to get the best of me and I started getting a dizzy spell.

In front of me I couldn’t focus.  Or rather, I could only focus on the particular stone in front of me, but everything around it sort of swirled around in a blur.  I tried my deep breathing, but it wasn’t working this time.  I felt like I was on the verge of unconsciousness, sort of like when you’re drunk and everything around you gets all blurry—except this time it felt a little different.  It didn’t feel like my consciousness was slipping away, it almost felt like my life-force was slipping away.  It’s kind of hard to describe, like an out-of-body experience or something. 

Oh shit, oh no!  BREATHE. Luckily my brain was still functioning and kept me sane.  I searched through my mind for a memory to cling onto and focus on, but it was hard.  Oh no, is this what they mean by “life flashing before your eyes?” C’mon, you can do it; you’ve gone up Mount Kilimanjaro without these problems, and at a faster ascension rate too.

The ridge finally descended down to the valley (picture above), down to where the oxygen was slightly thicker and the path was no longer as strenuous.  I had finally caught up with the two straggling Hong Kongers, which I thought was a good thing because if I passed out, at least two people would know about it.

Hong Konger #1 (in Cantonese): Did you hear something?
Hong Konger #2: I think it was the thud of that guy who passed out and fell down back there.
Hong Konger #1: Oh, what a pity.  (long, awkward pause) So, want to see me set one of my farts on fire?
Hong Konger #2: Oh Hong Konger #1, you’re such a hoot!

It wasn’t far from the end of the ridge to the area where the rest of the Hong Konger group was.  “Welcome to the Base Valley!” their Nepali lead guide said.

“There is the Ice Palace,” an assistant guide said, pointing to the glacier nearby.  Also above was the beautiful snowy Nuptse peak.

“Is this the Base Camp?” I asked.

“It’s over there,” the lead guide said, pointing down the valley to an area that didn’t look like anything official, about twenty minutes farther on foot at the same level.  Some of the Hong Kongers continued to proceed there.  “I don’t know why they want to go there,” he said.  “You see the same thing there that you see over here.”

“So here, this is technically Mount Everest?”

“Yes.”

I was too lethargic to go any farther.  A check appeared on a checklist in my mind.  Everest, check.  Mission accomplished.  Pun acquired. The pun didn’t require to have the phrase “base camp” in it for it to work anyway; the name “Everest” was punchy enough.

“Here’s your guide coming,” the guy said.

Just behind was Tilak.  He made it.  He had kept with it to meet me on Everest after all, still coughing, perhaps harder than before.  I was happy to see him and greeted him to Everest, even though he’d been there ten times already.  It was a sort of triumphant moment for the two of us, and we celebrated not by drinks of champagne or by going streaking, but by simply sitting down and catching our breaths by a rock held up by ice.  I tell you, nothing was more refreshing than that. 

THE WAY BACK TO GORAK SHEP was the same way we came.  After the initial ascent to the ridge, it was fairly easy—more so than before because it was a gradual decline this time.  The sun started to set down below the western mountains, leaving a bright sunset effect reflect off the side of Nuptse, and eventually off just the peaks.  Tilak was still slow-going with his cough, and I waited up for him at every other curve.  “I’m sorry,” he apologized.  “I never got sick in my six years experience.  [Every time I cough I have to stop.]”

“It’s okay.”

I tended to Tilak from that point on and the two of us eventually made it down from the ridge by nightfall, around seven o’clock.  We hiked the flat muddy land back to Gorak Shep under the shine of our flashlights and made it back to the warmth of the stove in the center of the crowded lodge.  I was starving and a little dizzy, but still had to wait for my pizza to arrive; it took awhile because all the Western-looking foreigners got served food first—and I blended in with that second group at a glance.  No matter, the pizza eventually came after Tilak made a fuss, and I ate it at a table next to Andres the Dane, who spared me some Diamox to help me take in more oxygen that night.  I slept in the big bunk bed of the lodge aside Greg the Canadian and some French dude to rest up for the trek to Kalapatthar the next day.

AND SO, NOW I CAN SAY, “When I turned thirty, I was on Mount Everest… and it was all downhill from there.” And if you don’t like it after all that I went through to be able to say that truthfully, you can bite me—or at least wait until I attempt to light a fart on fire.


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This blog entry about the events of Monday, October 18, 2004 was originally posted on October 24, 2004 on the blog, "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World (Or Until Money Runs Out, Whichever Comes First)," hosted by BootsnAll.com. It is one of over 500 entries that chronicled a trip around the world from October 2003 to March 2005, encompassing travel through thirty-seven countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was this blog that "started it all," where Erik evolved and honed his style of travel blogging. (It starts to come into focus around the time he arrives in Africa.)

Praised and recommended by USA Today, RickSteves.com, and readers of BootsnAll and Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, The Global Trip blog was selected by the editors of PC Magazine for the "Top 100 Sites You Didn't Know You Couldn't Live Without" (in the travel category) in 2005.





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