Things to love about China: 16 of 100

Mount Everest

(Mount Chomolungma in Tibetan,
or Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng in Chinese)

When I think of Everest, I think of Nepal. I recall the smell of incense, the colorful prayer flags, the smiling people and rooftop cafes. I remember warming my hands near the yak-dung-burning stove and eating warm soup and pasty dumplings. I remember how thin and clean the air was, I remember the rocky paths and the snowcapped mountains, I remember gazing off into the distance at the great mountains- at Everest.

Nepal stands as the highlight of all my travels. I loved my adventure there and I will always long to return. Someday I will return. But every mountain has two sides and, before I return to Nepal, I feel compelled to explore the other side of Everest- China.

China hasn’t always been “the other side of the mountain” but when the People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet in the 1950’s, they made sure Everest would thereafter carry a red flag. Not as many people try to climb Everest from the Tibetan side, but people do.

I stated before in my blog that there are four types of people in the world. One of these types is the Mountain Climbers. Only about two-thousand people have climbed the beast, in the history of man, and I have met some of them- these mountain climbers. Mountain Climbers are people who must conquer something- get to the top of something- and they will risk everything to do it.

I’ve hiked to the south base camp (just over 17,000 feet) and that did me in, but if someone wants to climb to the top (29,000) you’ll need some help. You’ll need money, you’ll need oxygen, and you’ll need a Sherpa.

Now, technically Sherpa is an ethnicity of people who live in the Himalayas, but it is also what people call the guides they employ to get them to the top of the mountain. Sherpas have evolved -from us lesser men- to climb. They can run marathon’s in the Himalayas. What took my group five days to hike can take Sherpas two hours. While we carried small day packs, our Sherpas carried our bulky supplies (they carried over a hundred pounds each)

Sherpas are born Mountain Climbers, but even Sherpas must fear “The Death Zone”. Everest’s death zone is located in the last three-thousand feet of the climb. This is where oxygen starts to drop and any parts of your body exposed to air can be frost-bitten- the cells die and never recover. While you climb this zone you will pass a hundred or so dead bodies- climbers who didn’t make it- climbers who needed to reach the top.

People climb Everest because it is the biggest that there is and- unless you want to go to Mars- one cannot find a bigger mountain. Men searched for decades to find the highest mountain and once they had found it, it wasn’t long before people wanted to climb it. Why? Because it is there.

Now I’m not going to lie. If I were to win the lottery tomorrow, I would climb the mountain. In these days all it takes money and a drive to succeed (Same as anything else). Several years ago I met the oldest man to climb Everest- it took him four tries and millions of dollars to do so, but he did it at the ripe old age of seventy-two. I have to admit that much of my personality is a Mountain Climber personality, which is why being in the presence of the mountain is so awing to me.

Will I gaze upon Everest again? Undoubtedly I will (or die trying). I’m sure many adventures await me on the other side of the mountain (the Chinese side of the mountain) So, here I go again… Everest, here I come.