This piece, inspired by a distant trip to Nepal, is about our human need to share experiences with others, and the way in which social media has amplified this need.
On the penultimate day of our Himalayan trek, we were to ascend the 17,500-foot Gokyo Peak to see views of Mount Everest. Helicopters hovered over the mountain and carried hikers with altitude sickness to medical centers, while I lay in my sleeping bag with a fever, my body wracked with sweat and chills. I almost saw Everest, I imagined telling people, but I was sick that day.
You haven’t been? People would ask. Oh. You haven’t lived. (Who were these people I thought were going to ask me this? How many times has someone said, “If you were in Nepal, you must have seen Everest”? Zero.) But I had to go, regardless of how ill I already felt. At nineteen, I thought I could find myself through travel—having a photo of Everest seemed essential, as if it were a key that would unlock some unknown part of me. The peak was the last 500 feet of elevation gain, and so I crawled out of my tent, clutching water bottles and steadying myself.
A few minutes into the hike, my fingers and feet became swollen and puffy and it felt like liquid was pressing inside my skin, ready to explode. I bent over my knees, trying to breathe, but was only able to wheeze. Up at the top, I saw my friend engulfed in fog, and I dragged one foot in front of the other, my scalp tightening around my skull like a vise.
“Come, take a picture!” she said.
I staggered toward her, faded prayer flags snapping in the wind. To my right was Everest’s jagged iciness, hidden by storm clouds. I got a shot of it and a part of my sluggish brain thought, Saw Everest: check.
I needed to place the glossy 4×6 into an album as proof, in the way people now post Facebook updates of their lives—their dinners, their cat videos—so they can elicit “likes” and comments. If we go on a trip and don’t post photos, did the trip really happen? It’s the urge to be heard, to matter, to live and have something to show for it. See? Can you see me? Do I exist?
To an outsider, the Everest photo might seem impressive. To me, the cloud-obscured peak conjures memories of nausea and wheezing, and of a then insatiable desire to experience without actually tasting.