Monday, 7 April 2014 – Dingboche, Nepal
It’s Phil’s birthday today, and at breakfast everyone sings Happy Birthday. I don’t join in myself, for the simple reason that Phil doesn’t appear to enjoy being serenaded. In fact, he looks as sick as a parrot, and I find the expression on his face so funny that I roar with laughter for the entire song.
Everest and Lhotse are visible again across the camping ground in front of the lodge. The sun touches the front yard just as we leave at 7.15. It’s a short morning walk up to our next lodge at Dingboche, but these three hours are the best I’ve spent in a long time. The trail is not especially busy, but the scenery is as breathtaking as anything I will ever see.
I came this way in the opposite direction five years ago when I returned from Island Peak. It was a total whiteout, snow fell for much of the walk, and I could see virtually nothing of the surrounding countryside. Today I see what I was missing, and my camera is rarely out of my hand.
We start with a gentle descent through thick and gloomy rhododendron forest. We reach the valley floor and cross over the Imja Khola River on a short footbridge. On the north bank the trail climbs again to the village of Pangboche. The sun hangs high over the armchair shape of Ama Dablam, providing only a hazy view, but up ahead the black fortresses of Everest and Lhotse are clear and bright, bounded by the battlements of the Nuptse ridge.
I walk at the back with Dia and Louis for much of the way. This is Dia’s first time in Nepal and she seems to be enjoying it even more than I am.
Beyond Pangboche the broad trail winds high above the river, lined with chortens and mani walls. These are Buddhist symbols, the first a bell-shaped monument and the second a line of slabs. They are inscribed with the mantra om mani padme hum, a phrase whose literal translation – praise to the jewel in the lotus – is obscure, but full of significance. According to tradition we have to pass to the left-hand side of them, ensuring the inscribed prayers are read the right way. These diversions sometimes take us up steep banks on narrow trails.
Across the valley to our right Kangtega changes from a silver saddle to a narrow needle. Eventually we see another slender peak behind it, and I’m unsure which is the true summit.
After climbing above 4,000m I reach a broad, dry plateau strewn with boulders and scrubby juniper bushes. Here I catch up with Louis, Dia, Margaret, Edita and Ricardo. Kangtega is behind us now, and every bit as spectacular as Lhotse in front. Everest has disappeared behind the Nuptse ridge.
We take it in turns to pose for photos. I get out my mini tripod and set up a group shot of the six of us using my camera timer, an exercise that often produces giggles when I fail to get into the shot in time.
Beyond the plateau the trail branches either side of a small hill. The left branch leads to Pheriche, where there is a small hospital and a helipad, while the right branch drops down to the river, crosses over, then leads steeply up again on the right side of the hill.
The view is magnificent. I have only ever been here in a whiteout, but I recognise the parting of the ways from the features on my map. Although Louis, Margaret and Edita have all been this way too, in much better conditions, they are content to let me lead. I stride confidently ahead and keep turning around to film them coming up behind me. Every time they reach me, instead of continuing onwards, they stop and wait for me.
‘You are the leader on our Lhotse climbing permit,’ Edita points out. This is true – on the expedition paperwork one of us had to be designated leader, since Phil himself will be climbing Everest rather than Lhotse. It fell to me to take on the role, despite the fact that the only thing I’m likely to lead them on is a merry dance.
‘But you’ve all been here more than I have,’ I reply.
We cross another plateau, crest a rise and see Dingboche across an open area between hills. As we begin our descent to the village I turn to film them again, only to find Margaret pointing her own video camera at me as she walks.
‘Ahead of us is the famous blogger Mark Horrell,’ I hear her say. We’ve bumped into a few people over the last few days who have admitted to reading my blog, and Margaret always finds this funny.
‘Are you getting your own back?’ I shout back at her. ‘And here comes the famous Supergran,’ I say to my camera as she approaches.
At 10.15, we reach the Mountain Paradise Lodge at the far end of the village. It’s another spectacular setting here in Dingboche. Ama Dablam rises right above us, its twin summits looking very different from any other angle I’ve seen them from. Its sheer north face now looks horrendous, a giant wall of rock draped in ice. These lily-white sheets are marked with stripes, the telltale sign of avalanches hurtling down its surface.
‘You were walking so fast at the end,’ Edita says as we settle into the dining room. ‘We thought you must have taken some pill.’
There is a mischievous glint in her eye, and I clock what she is talking about.
‘Don’t tar me with the same brush as Robert.’
Robert once admitted to taking Viagra on a climb, and he said it helped him significantly. Last year he even encouraged Margaret to try it during their Everest expedition, but she declined.
‘I know Robert says it helps him to get up,’ I say.
The lodge is comfortable, and there are windows across two walls of the dining room, providing a grandstand panorama of Ama Dablam and Kangtega. But the furniture seems to have been designed for lighter people than us. I sit down next to Margaret on a plywood bench and hear it crack beneath me, causing her to roar with laughter. Then Phil sits on a plastic chair and it breaks. He stands up just in time, but this sets me off laughing too. Despite watching us destroy her furniture, the lady owner of the teahouse doesn’t seem to mind, and she joins in with the laughter.
After a short snooze in the somewhat darker bedroom that I share with Ian, I return to the dining room at six o’clock. The others are already celebrating Phil’s birthday; I see empty tins of Tuborg and Everest beer on the table. At the end of dinner Dorje comes over with a proud expression on his face. He announces that we have drunk the whole village out of Tuborg. But if we want any tomorrow night, they can send someone over the hill to Pheriche to see if there’s any there.
I arrive to dinner carrying my copy of The Ascent of Rum Doodle, W.E. Bowman’s great comic novel about an expedition to a fictional mountain. Mel has picked it up before I can start reading it, and by the time our dinner arrives he is already on the second chapter. When I tell him he is welcome to hold on to it as long as he carries it up to Base Camp with him, he gives it to Edita. By the end of dinner she has passed it on to Ricardo, who says he was looking all over Kathmandu for a copy.
Luckily we have finished eating when Phil decides to tell his peanuts story.
‘I think it was 2008. I was sitting on the South Col preparing for my summit push when Tim Rippel of Peak Freaks put his head into my tent. He asked if I wanted a bag of peanuts that he didn’t want to carry down with him. They go down well, and by the time we leave for the summit I’ve eaten most of the bag. We go up, summit, and come back down again, but by the time I get back to the South Col my stomach’s feeling a bit dodgy. I decide to continue all the way down to Camp 2 in the Western Cwm where I know we have a toilet tent. When I get there I’m desperate to go, but find I’ve got the worst constipation you can imagine.
‘I hear over the radio that one of my clients is having problems higher up the mountain. I’m in no position to go and help him. I’m having problems of my own just trying to shit, so I go over to the Himex tent and ask Phurba Tashi if he can help me. He agrees right away and begins getting ready.’
Phurba Tashi Sherpa is an Everest legend who has climbed the mountain twenty-one times. It’s a record he shares with the equally legendary Apa Sherpa.
‘You asked Phurba Tashi to help you go to the toilet?’ I say in astonishment.
‘No, with the fucking rescue, you idiot,’ Phil says. ‘It was a bit of an epic, but the guy survived. Meanwhile I’m struggling so hard in the toilet tent that I pass out. I fall forward with my pants around my ankles, and when I wake up there’s a group of people taking photographs.’
‘Hang on a moment,’ Kevin says, brow furrowed. ‘What’s the significance of the peanuts?’
‘I think that’s what blocked him,’ I reply.
‘I realise there’s only one thing for it. I’m going to have to unblock myself by hand,’ Phil continues. ‘I go to the kitchen tent and ask our chef Jangbu if we have any laxatives in the med kit. “Do we have any lubricant?” I ask. He goes into the store tent and returns with a bottle of oxygen. “What am I supposed to do with that?” I say. Then he produces a tin of tuna. “That might just do the trick.” I take it to the toilet tent, and with a bit of prodding around I’m able to get my bowels working again.’
This time everybody around the table is looking on with open mouths. If last night’s story had shocked me, I have no idea what to say this time. Two things I won’t be trying at Base Camp are peanuts and tuna.
We turn in at 9.30, not long after Phil’s peanuts story, but before I fall asleep, I overhear voices through the plywood wall that separates our rooms. There is more laughter, and I hear Ricardo quoting passages from The Ascent of Rum Doodle to Kevin. It makes me smile.