We started hearing our first reports in Namche Bazaar. The news wasn’t promising. Heavy snow had temporarily closed Cho La pass. For almost a week as we journeyed higher into the mountains, the thought of a dangerous 10-hour trek over a snow-covered pass in the Himalaya lingered unspoken as we gathered around dung-fueled stoves in our nightly teahouse sanctuaries. The pass is the shortcut to Everest Base Camp (EBC) across the saddle between the Gokyo and Khumbu valleys, and it was where we were heading.

I sat quietly with the small group of Americans I had joined on the trail in Namche as two young German men shared the tale of their crossing. They had just come through the pass from the opposite direction and told of a treacherous decent on an obscured and slippery trail. “It was brutal,” one commented in accented English, as he told of a biting wind and fierce cold that swallowed them from behind just before noon. “It started as a gentle fog,” he continued, but it soon turned into a “swirling snowstorm,” reducing their visibility to less than 10 meters and covering the trace that marked the trail.

The Germans had trekked from east to west after visiting EBC. It was early May, the beginning of summit season on the mountain. Hundreds of climbers from around the world, and hundreds more Sherpa and porters, would be assembling in the transitory outpost at the base of Khumbu Glacier. Each year in May a brief weather window opens and the skies clear just enough to allow climbers a fleeting opportunity to summit what the Sherpa call Chomolungma, “The Goddess Mother of the World.” It is also a time when thousands of tourist trekkers share the trail to EBC and enjoy the calm alpine weather before the monsoons arrive in June.

After hearing their story we huddled around the stove with our guide Amber Tamang for a group meeting. Jim, whom I had shared the trail much of the way from Namche, had been battling the mountains with a newly diagnosed case of type-1 diabetes. The altitude and the exertion caused his blood-sugar levels to swing unpredictably throughout the long days of trekking, and he was tired. Lois and Joel, two fit and experienced hikers, had been struggling with the altitude, the bitter cold, and unrelenting gastrointestinal issues that are not uncommon in Nepal. The three decided to trek back to Namche where they would fly directly to Kathmandu on a chartered plane. That left me alone with a decision to make.

It would be just Amber and I continuing on to EBC. The question that confronted us was whether to chance Cho La pass, or walk down 1,600 meters the way we came up, and then climb back up 1,600 meters on the Everest Base Camp Trail? Cho La pass is one of the marquee achievements on the Everest trekking circuit. It is a 5,420-meter-high rite of passage for high altitude trekkers. On this trip, it was my summit, my “Everest,” and I wanted it!

Amber was confident we could make it, and despite a minor chest cold and a recently twisted ankle, I felt strong. We knew people were crossing through the pass despite the conditions, but we also knew that the helicopters we saw flying up and down the valley every morning were evacuating tourist trekkers who found themselves in trouble. Since we would be travelling the opposite direction from the Germans, crossing the pass would mean a long steep climb up a snow-covered ridge into oncoming weather.

It is easy to underestimate the power of nature and how quickly the weather can change in the mountains. Every day on the trail I witnessed the stunning panorama of jagged white spires piercing the florescent blue sky vanish into whiteness as the fog and snow descended from the east. Did I feel lucky that somehow tomorrow would be different? People die in these mountains because of pride and stubbornness. They go up when they should go down. American mountaineer Ed Viesturs is famous for saying; “Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”

Once the decision was made, I felt a sense of relief. The next morning we left Gokyo and retraced our tracks past the small villages of Machhermo and Dole. The trek down gave me strength as we descended into the valley. Since we were acclimatised to over 5,000 meters, Amber and I would go fast up the trail to Base Camp. We would only lose one day by not using the shortcut. We said goodbye to the group at Dole and soon crossed the Dudh Kosi River to Phortse for the night. Once again we were heading up.

A New Trail

I could see an elderly man out the window chopping wood in the distance as I snuggled closer to the warm stove at the trekkers’ lodge at Phortse. We arrived just as the first drops of heavy wet snow foreshadowed the predictable afternoon weather. Phortse is a small village with a scattering of lodges sprinkled among brick homes and fenced pastureland. Before foreigners started coming to the region in the 1950s Phortse was the highest inhabited village. Locals only used the grassy areas at the base of the mountains as summer grazing lands. The lonely clusters of buildings nestled amidst the peaks, like Dole and Machhermo, didn’t exist.

Before 1950, attempts to conquer Everest were launched from Tibet on a northern route to the summit discovered by English mountaineer George Mallory in the 1920s. Nepal was a mysterious and isolated land of myth and legend that very few Westerners had ever seen. But that changed quickly in the first few years of the century’s middle decade as the newly formed People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet, effectively shutting off the northern route. A year later, Nepal’s King Tribhuvan ousted the hereditary family of prime ministers known as the Ranas who were the de facto rulers of the country for centuries, and Nepal cautiously began to welcome outsiders.

Almost immediately the French, British, Austrians, Swiss and Japanese sent expeditions to Nepal, unleashing what would come to be called the “golden decade” of Himalayan mountaineering. The people who grazed their yaks, goats and sheep in these mountains started building permanent structures and began servicing the waves of mountaineers who where using the old trails to explore northern Nepal and climb her lofty peaks. They started with small shelters, which grew over the years into today’s “teahouse” treks and full-service accommodations.

The teahouses along the trails are simple, and very little effort has gone into making them comfortable. Rooms are typically constructed with thin plywood walls and contain a cot or two. There is often no electricity and the shared toilet is a porcelain-framed hole in the ground with adjacent bucket of water for flushing. A shower is a rare indulgence. Most have one main dining and gathering room with a small stove to provide evening warmth for guests. At night our porters would sleep in this crowded but warm space as we retired to our frigid plywood boxes.

From the gateway town of Lukla to EBC trekkers will climb 2,540 meters. What makes this a slow journey of many days is not the difficulty of the trail, but the daily altitude gain. Typically trekkers ascend no more than 300-400 meters a day as they acclimatise and their blood begins to make more red blood cells, carrying more oxygen to vital organs. Going too high too fast can lead to Acute Mountain Sickness, or worse—an emergency helicopter evacuation. Teahouses have popped up every few kilometers so trekkers are rarely more than a couple hours walk from shelter.

With no such elevation restrictions Amber and I pushed hard up the trail, stopping only briefly at Pangboche to visit the oldest monastery in the Khumbu. Most climbers stop at either this monastery or the monastery at Tengboche for a blessing on their way to EBC. Every climber also participates in a Puja ceremony officiated by a lama in front of an altar built of stone at Base Camp. Harnesses, helmets, ice axes and crampons, as well as the expedition flag, are blessed to bring good fortune for Sherpa and climbers as they attempt to summit the mountain.

As we entered the 400-year-old building, we could hear the drums and temple bells of the local monks. We removed our shoes and entered the prayer room. The walls were lined with Buddhist shrines draped with hundreds of white scarves known as kata. Murals framed the windows where the monks sat before tables chanting and sipping yak butter tea. Ceremonial masks and beautifully painted thangka hung from the wooden rafters, while along the back wall butter candles illuminated the offerings of pilgrims, trekkers and climbers.

On to Everest

Leaving Pangboche, we climbed quickly past Pheriche through fog and snow before stopping at Dughla. When we arrived, the main room was already filled with two dozen porters, Sherpa, and trekkers speaking a half-dozen different languages. Amber and I joined a group of newly arrived trekkers from Bosnia for a dinner of daal bhat, a traditional Nepali staple of rice and a spicy lentil stew often made with chicken or goat meat. The rooms were all filled, so we stretched out our sleeping bags on the floor among the porters.

The night was short and we had a long trek in front of us following the terminal moraine of the Khumbu Glacier to Gorak Shep and then EBC. The beautiful triangular peak of Ama Dablam was at our back as the path crossed the top of a ridge covered with memorials to lost climbers and Sherpa. I stopped for several minutes at a stone chorten that stands in memory of Scott Fisher who died in the infamous 1996 disaster, recounted in Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air.

When Amber and I finally reached EBC, we were met by his brother Karna, a mountain guide who summited Everest for the first time last year. He was at EBC waiting for a client from Slovakia whom he would lead on a summit attempt later in the month. There was very little activity in camp as we walked through the tent city around massive boulders and under prayer flags. Karna’s camp was at the edge of the glacier and consisted of various sized tents used for cooking, dining, sleeping and a toilet.

After dropping my gear in my borrowed tent, I lay down for a nap in the warm late-day sun as the mountains started clouding over. I woke to the clanking of pots and the chatter of an unfamiliar language. Amber and Karna were in the cooking tent with two other Nepali guides and two Indian climbers. I joined the group for a supper of daal bhat. We shared stories and jokes while sipping tea in the flickering light of our headlamps. Darkness came quickly bringing with it a bone-chilling cold that lasted throughout the night.

For the next two days I wandered unnoticed around camp. There was no urgency, just the opposite. I witnessed a practiced routine of daily chores familiar to campsites all over the world. I sat for hours marveling as climbers snaked their way around the towers of ice and bottomless crevices of the Khumbu icefall that flows down the slopes of Everest. Mine was a rare opportunity to spend time living among elite high-altitude mountaineers. Most tourist trekkers who visit EBC are content with a short day trek out of Gorak Shep, the last teahouse village on the trail, or an ascent of the 5,545-meter peak Kala Pattar for amazing views of the summit. Many are surprised to learn that there is in fact no summit view of Mount Everest from Base Camp; it is hidden by the icefall and its own western ridge.

Several times each night I was woken by the rumble of an avalanche. They began with a crack that sounded like a gunshot in the distance, followed by a roll of thunder that swept over the valley like a storm. What a precarious place we had chosen to lay our beds. Well before dawn on my last night at EBC, Karna set out across the icefall to begin preparing his first climbing camp on the Western Cwm, also known as the Valley of Silence. As his crunching footstep faded into the distance, I contemplated why so many people are prepared to risk so much to challenge themselves against the mountain. It is an old and valid question.

Why?

In 1923, a New York Times reporter asked George Mallory the apparently simple question, “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” His often-quoted response has been called the most famous three words in mountaineering, “Because it’s there,” he quipped. A year later, Everest took his life along with his climbing partner Andrew “Sandy” Irvine who disappeared only a few hundred meters from the summit. It wouldn’t be until 1953 that New Zealander Edmond Hillary, and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay finally reached the summit of Everest and returned safely.

As all of the 8,000-meter peaks were conquered, the reason to climb the world’s highest mountains shifted from the military-style “conquest” sponsored by nations to a more personal test of one’s own limits. Italian Reinhold Messner, considered by many to be the greatest climber in history, made the first ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen in 1978. He also became the first person to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in 1986—the mountaineering achievements of the 1970s and 1980s were triumphs of the individual.

Just 10 years later, the history of Everest took a tragic turn when eight climbers died in a single day. The ill-fated climb that took the life of Scott Fisher and respected climber Rob Hall has come to represent a different, less romantic view of modern mountaineering. To many observers, what was once the noble quest of history’s most celebrated adventurers, has turned into an industry—a life and death commodity where inexperienced climbers desperate to reach the summit pay enormous fees to be literally dragged up the mountain on a seemingly irrational quest.

Yet the lure of Everest is inexplicable. The little city on a glacier draped in prayer flags and the nation flags of a dozen countries, is just the temporary home to a dream. For climbers it is a dream to stand on the top of the world. For Nepali Sherpa climbing Everest is a job and a dream to earn respect, fame and money in a desperately poor nation. At almost every teahouse there is a photograph of a family member who has achieved this dream. Everest is also the destination of 30,000 trekkers a year who push themselves harder than they thought possible, struggling against the altitude and elements, for just a passing glimpse of her majesty.

As Amber and I made our way back to Lukla, we made one final stop at Tengboche. Once again the fog rolled in to shroud my final views of distant mountaintops. In the dimly lit dining room of the lodge, I met Jon, Karna’s client from Slovakia. It was a chance encounter, an unexpected meeting as he made his way towards EBC and his summit attempt. The two of us sat in silence as the stove warmed the still air and raindrops pattered on the steel roof of the building.

I noticed the top-of-the-line running shoes he was wearing and broke the silence by asking, “Are you a runner?” “Yes,” he replied, which launched us into a conversation about our mutual interest in distance running and pushing through the pain of a marathon—an ability he would no doubt call upon in his summit attempt. Then I asked the question I was dying to ask; “So what inspired you to come to Everest?”

His long stoic stare immediately informed me that I had crossed a line. A line behind which I could never retreat. The question had already been asked. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said as his eyes drifted back towards the stove and silence returned. We were both drawn to the mountain and found ourselves together in this particular place, at this particular time. Our pasts and our futures were thousands of kilometers away. At that moment I realised that although we faced different challenges and different risks, the reasons why we came to Everest were our own. Ultimately…we came because it’s here.

See more of David’s photography from Nepal at: Everest

© David Noyes, 2012. All rights reserved. Please contact David at david@noyestravels.com if you would like to use or reprint this article.