Everest (Day 8) - Phortse Village

Phortse Village, Nepal

Welcome to the latest stop on my Nepalese tour, Phortse Village. About the only foreigners you'll find here are headed to or from Mt. Everest. It sits at 12,573 feet (3,810 meters).

Here's my tea house.

Today's trek took four hours, another up and down affair. Each day, the names of the villages change, but the hikes are almost identical - long,difficult, and tiring.

Still, even on the toughest days, the views can't be beat. I know. I know. You're heard it before, but the pictures just don't do the landscape justice. Pictures can't convey the smell or the sensation of the crisp, cold mountain breezes blowing against one's body. Pictures give no hint of the sound of solitude at the top of mountain passes. Pictures can't capture the satisfaction of making it successfully to the end of another hike.

Life is difficult here, especially the work.

Planting Potatoes 

One of the most important crops in the Himalayas is potatoes. These women are planting them by hand, after having dug up the rocky soil with simple spades. Subsistence farming is the norm.

Bulls are also used to make the task a little easier.

I discovered an interesting fact about meat. Because the country is overwhelmingly Buddhist, many Buddhists won't slaughter livestock, so meat has to be carried up from Kathmandu, just like everything else.

Imagine unrefrigerated meat after two or three days on the trail. That's why it's not recommended to eat it above Namche. Everest turns a lot of hikers into temporary vegetarians.

Before I began my hike, the owner of my trekking agency told me there are several mental challenges on the journey. I've already faced rain and fatigue. Today, it was illness.

My stomach has been out of whack for the last couple of days, which is understandable because hygiene tends to be lacking at higher altitudes. That's not a criticism. Water is a precious commodity, so there's not a lot to go around for things like hand washing. I've got hand sanitizer, but I can't control the rest of my environment.

This morning, I again awoke seeing my breath, with the added challenge of how to get through the day so far from a toilet. Sure, there's always a rock to hide behind, what my guide and I like to call the "mountain toilet," but, well, you get the picture.

A prescription pill got me through. I'm hoping my problem is short lived.

I realize though that it's all part of the experience. Lately, I feel each morning that I must answer to some kind of nameless, faceless, impersonal mountain god. He's got only one question, "Do you want to keep moving forward?"

That's it. He doesn't ask me if I've had a good night's sleep or if I'm sore or if I'm in the mood to hike five more hours.

It's just a simple, "Are you in or are you out?" It provides amazing clarity. My answer has been nothing but an enthusiastic "yes," each day. The only alternative is a long, disappointing walk home.

The bottom line is no one cares about my problems, which are minimal. All trekkers share a common goal, but we each are on our own journey with our own set of challenges.

At lunch, I witnessed the heartbreaking sight of a hiker limping toward his table, barely able to move. I wasn't sure if he was going to make it to the other side of the room, let alone any farther up the trail. I'm sure his journey is about to come to end.

That's the cruel, random fate of the trek. That's Everest.