Nov 9 2024 – Everest Base Camp (Almost)
One of the more bizarre things that happens to the human body in hypoxic conditions is you have really weird dreams. You also don’t necessarily have full control over your bodily functions. I had a dream in which I went to the bathroom, and woke up to discover I had shit and pissed myself. Not my finest moment. A good friend did remind me that astronauts, SR71 pilots, flight medics, and snipers, all have to piss or shit themselves at some point. That made me feel a little better. But not much.
I also have developed the Khumbu cough. Most people up here get it. The cause is believed to be related to the fact that by the time you get to this point you’ve been inhaling aerosolized yak shit for nearly two weeks while you’re open mouth gasping for air. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not life threatening.
Once I cleaned myself up I began my hike up the Khumbu Glacier to Everest Base Camp.
Remember kids, when you’re using a day pack for a side trek be sure to transfer all your essential items. I fell victim to the rookiest of all backpacking mistakes and completely forgot to put toilet paper in my day pack. So of course halfway to Everest base camp my colon announced that I had two choices. 1. Continue on and most assuredly shit myself, again. Or 2. Turn around and hope I make it back to the lodge before shitting myself. I opted for 2, and thankfully there was no shitting myself that time.
Anyway. Energy is not something I have an abundance of at this altitude. I discovered that my PulseOx just displays an error message when your SpO2 drops below 70%. I’m somehow not showing symptoms of acute altitude sickness here. Still, wasn’t about to head back up for a photo, so, this is as close as I got:
Right now I’m sitting in my lodge drinking hot chocolate at an altitude that hot chocolate has no business being at. And tomorrow I start to descend.
My original itinerary was going to have me go over two more high passes to see other valleys. That’s not going to happen. Because I came up one side of the valley I can to some extent do down the other side and see new places, and the lower I get the easier it’ll get.
Anyway. I’m probably going to spend the rest of the day napping, and tomorrow I begin the trek down. Part of me feels disappointed in myself for not making it to base camp proper, but then again, the only thing to see there that I couldn’t see from where I turned around is the boulder on the glacier that has “EBC” spray painted on it. At these altitudes you can walk miles and although the rocks in front of you are different, everything else looks exactly the same.
