63March/April 2018 —Three, the climbing began in earnest. After
tracking the Dudh Khosi River, we slogged up a
sustained switchback that brought us to Namche
Bazaar, the administrative and commercial centre
of Khumbu at more than 3,500m.
On my previous Island Peak trip, I’d had a
Sherpa guide and a porter to myself. Free to set
my own pace, I set it too fast. I knew that now, for
unlike 10 years before, I had no raging headache.
Others were not so lucky, but Subal was ever
watchful. One of us had only to refuse a second
helping of food, or wrinkle a brow, and he was
over to check on us. Altitude headaches can be
the sign of much worse to come and anyone
suffering repeatedly was quickly put on Diamox
which eases the symptoms at the price of having
to pee more.
Even more pervasive was the Khumbu cough,
a niggle in the throat caused by breathing in the
poisonous concoction of rock dust and animal
dung that hangs in the air on well trafficked trails.
In Namche we had our first acclimatisation
day, hiking up a ridge above to get our first
view of Everest where a lammergeier wheeled
photogenically as we took group portraits.
The world’s highest peak had to share the
adulation though. Everest was just a distant squat
triangle while much closer reared the curvaceous
‘mother’ peak of Ama Dablam. It was fated to
dominate our photos for days – as it does for
everyone that walks this way.
From up there, Namche had a Lego-land
orderliness, grey stone walls topped with roofs in
primary colours. Its busy streets full of branded
outdoor gear, real and fake, were a sign of the
relative affluence of this part of Nepal, thanks to
tourism. That has brought a latter-day nomadism
to Khumbu with many Sherpa families now
wintering lower down, or in Kathmandu where
many of their kids go to school. Conversely,
farms are increasingly tended by lowlanders, who
migrate uphill for greater opportunities.
Our own nomadism now resumed with
a hike to the monastery at Thyangboche andonwards, next day, passing 4,000m and climbing
above the treeline in reaching Dingboche.
Peaks of 6,000m and more now lay in every
direction, but we had only disconnected glimpses
at first. It took an acclimatisation hike up a
drab hunchbacked ridge to unveil the ice-white
dazzlers behind. None outshone Ama Dablam
still, while to the north lay our first goal –
Kongma La – still two days distant.
That night, an oximeter was passed round
with the tea after dinner and we checked our
oxygen saturation. We were all pronounced fit
(enough). The first pass was on.
The climb next day swung up and out of the
valley and trended north to finish in the lee of
an almighty rockfall, some boulders the size of
houses. Here was planted our first ‘wilderness
camp’, as World Expeditions terms them.
None of us had drunk a drop of alcohol since
Kathmandu, but now we were ‘mountain drunk’,
wandering the hillside, clambering to viewpoints,
greedy for fresh wonders. Matt had proved aETERNAL BOND
Dying sun illuminates cloud over the ever-
photogenic ‘family’ of Ama Dablam, with its central,
‘mother’ peak, and ‘daughter’ peak to the right.