Namche Bazaar, Nepal 2003

Namche Bazaar, Nepal 2003

The Swiss couple sat there silent, immobile, staring straight ahead, in the darkening Nepali lodge dining room. I was curious about them but also shivering in the chill October air. I wished someone would light the stove. My head was dizzy with the languages and accents that surrounded us -- Lithuanian, Dutch, Polish, French, Australian and American. We were in Namche Bazaar at 11 300 feet on the third evening of our trek to Goyko Ri and Kala Pattar and too confident we would climb in the high Himalayan air. We knew the risks – injuries and high altitude mountain sickness. We had read that each year ten people still die in that quiet mountain air.

I plucked my courage and asked the Swiss couple where they had trekked before arriving at Namche. In thickly accented English. Ilse described how she had developed an iron grip frontal headache at Gorek Shep, five or six days north of Namche. A few medics who were there conducting tests on the medication Diamox used for altitude sickness insisted they descend.

On the way back down, Klaus’s  pulse had dropped to 46 beats per minute. They were dispirited because this was their third attempt to reach Everest Base Camp. Wendy, my plucky friend, world traveler and trekking partner and I were sobered by their experience.  We knew the risks – injuries, High Altitude Pulmonary Edema or High Altitude Cerebral Edema. The Swiss couple’s descent took me back to a phone conversation I’d had with my daughter nine months earlier.

 “Do you think I can do this? Will I be able to climb the steep mountain ridges of rural Nepal?” I cautiously asked our daughter Susan?  Susan, who has been my mentor and guide on multi-day ocean kayaking trips, back-country ski and bicycle tours, knew my strength, endurance, determination and limitations. Six years earlier, Susan and her husband, Alan had trekked north to Gokyo Ri, the route Wendy and I had chosen,  I knew she would be able to assess the challenges I’d face. “Yes, of course you can, Mom,” she said. I was beyond relieved.

I knew that this adventure would never have flashed, even remotely, on my radar screen if Wendy had not clasped tightly to her childhood dream of following Sir Edmund Hillary’s 1953 route to Everest Base Camp en route to the summit, if she had not asked me to join her. Wendy and I had kept in touch over the many years and great geographical distances that had separated us from our heady Deep River, Ontario days in the 70s. I knew that Wendy, experienced in Asian travel and a greater risk taker than I am, would be my mentor on our journey of discovery.