MORNING DASH
Eyes wide open, body inert, I lie prostrate and paralysed – gripped in the grey zone between wakefulness and slumber which hijacks your body sometimes when sleeping at such lofty altitude. The spartan timber chamber in the “Yeti Lodge” beneath the shadow of the mighty Massif Everest shimmers with a ghostly pre-dawn glow. I slip silently from the confines of my puffy down sleeping bag, craning and straining to peer through the frosty frozen pane above my rickety timber bed. Looming sheer – towering kilometres into the thin lavender atmosphere stands the breathtaking granite pyramid of Ama Dablam, completely encrusted in shining ivory crystal ice. The tip of her summit glows vibrant vermillion charged with the first sparkling beams of far away sunshine which will not reach the valley floor for many hours to come.
Without shedding my toasty bed time thermals, I slide on my warmest coat and cotton trousers, grab my camera and sneak thief-like through the rabbit warren of thin plywood passageways (ensuring not to disturb the dozing of my weary fellow trekkers) drawn by the allure of the clear morning skies and the promise of a magnificent view to enjoy.
I clamber breathlessly up a small rocky rise behind the squat hand hewn stone building of the hotel, every movement an effort of almost heroic proportions in the thin rarefied air here thousands of metres above the level of the sea. The point of this spur affords stunning vista – above, below and in every direction around. I stand spellbound staring at the soaring snowy, stark rocky tors shooting towards the early morning sky in every direction. Peaks and glaciers above and the lush sinking winding snaking verdant valleys meandering miles below. Some of the mountains are black and craggy like humongous barnacles with fluffy beanies of icy white, others sport terrifying plunging walls, banded and marbled with countless colours, unyielding barriers of sheer inpenetrable ancient stone.
I gaze eastwards towards a stark stony ridge of rock and snow several hundred metres above. I visualise what new and marvelous ranges I might be able to view from way up there and I move magnetically towards it’s boulder strewn arch ridged back.
Puffing like a steam train, I plod steadily up the winding switching grinding pebbly mountain track and before long I am so warm despite the crispy dawn that I shed my thick downy jacket and bunch it under my arm. Hiking in pajamas!
Blood pumps through my brain like a bellows as I finally trudge beneath the gaily coloured fluttering prayer flags which festoon the gap between these mighty valleys. I stand there shocked to see before me dozens of stone memorials, like the chortens and stupas of this region – some as simple as a cairn, others constructed with great care and craftsmanship. Some painted and decorated, others as bleak as the slate from which they are made. Some display polished marble tablets displaying names and dates and times and loving messages from afar. Each and every one which stands lonely on this desolate windswept hillside, gazing up towards the world’s highest peak is a tragic reminder of a life or lives or even teams of lives lost to the savage beauty of this wild and unforgiving realm. Silent sentinals to courage, fear and folly – a glacial graveyard with views to die for.
As I move upwards to read yet another stark merciless plaque – name, dearly loved, born and then lost (usually way too young) on the harsh mountain face – I realise that all the snow beneath my feet is still frozen solid enough to support my weight but sufficiently yielding to kick in the toes of my boots forming little ledges and giving me grip on the sloping ice leading away above me, allowing me to ascend easily to the very top of the ridge.
With renewed vigour, I make a beeline for the summit – punching and crunching my old leather work boots into the steep flanks of the slope until finally, gasping and enthralled, I clear the edge of the ridge. I totter on the knife edge of the highest ground around, dwarfed by peak after jagged snowy peak – each thrusting itself away above the next in an age old race to pierce the atmosphere of our world and rise up to where there are only gods and stars.
Sheer mind altering mountain magnificence.
As my heart throbs and my ears sing, I am struck by the first welcome warming rays of pure brilliant sunshine beaming in from where she rises above a vast hulking monolith of ice and stone far off to the east. Crazed with joy and head swimming from a dazing deficit of oxygen, I peel off my remaining clothes and turn myself slowly, rotisserie like – five kilometres high – soaking in that distant star’s amazing radiation. My goose-bumped skin sears with sensation, the tang of sharp morning rays almost unencumbered by atmosphere on one side and prickled all over my naked form like a hedgehog massage by the icy biting waft of freezing alpine breeze.
Charged, vitalised and energised to the max, I need to get off the hill before the snow can soften and I am caught wallowing in the drifts. I clamber, climb, slip and slide my way back down the frozen slopes, past the pass and all along the rocky path clad now only in my cotton pants and boots with a great bundle of garments in my arm returning to the little refuge far below.
Bare chested and exhilarated, I burst into the as yet sub zero timber dining room of the tiny trekking lodge to the utter astonishment of my fellow trekkers who are rugged up and cosy savouring their morning meal.
Minutes later, well wrapped up again, I order a steaming mug of chai and devour a hot hearty breakfast.
I feel very much alive!!!!
Wow 😀 xx
What a wonderful gift you gave yourself in trekking up to the crest of mountain dawn in your thermals. To stand half naked before such splendor! To share your story with such evocative words is also a gift to the reader. Thank you.