Heavenly Himalayas

(Navyn) Nepal has been on my to do list forever. I wanted to come here on our honeymoon but apparently it was leech season and instead we went to Canada. This week we can instead celebrate Nepalese Mother’s Day (I got to eat an entire homemade warm chocolate cake) and New Years (it is 2072 by the way). I love the beauty and power of the mountains and take photographs at an exorbitant rate. Do you have any idea how hard it is to pick a few shots from the 1,500 I have taken here? Our first stop was Kathmandu, a bustling, dirty city where crossing the street appears to be as dangerous as summiting Everest. Colorful, freestanding triple-decker buildings crowded most of the space on this valley floor and a polluted haze hung above us. Electricity and clean water are hard to come by and many people earn just $1.50 per day. Trekkers sustain some of the economy but the real problem here is a severe lack of job opportunities. 30% of remittances come from those working in other countries and sending money back to their families.

As we are here during peak season Paul and I are rereading Into Thin Air, the infamous 1996 expedition that was struck with a freak storm that left twelve climbers and sherpas dead. This is the week that the trekkers are at Base Camp working on their acclimatization strategies by hiking up to Camp One and Two to prepare their bodies and lungs for the lack of oxygen at 29,085 feet. It will take them another month before they are ready to attempt the summit. The weather has been unseasonably bad this year, with a snowfall of two feet hitting Base Camp and further delaying expedition plans. The headline in the Himalayan Post debates allowing helicoptering supplies up to Camp One for the first time in history to save the sherpas untold numbers of trips up and down the dangerous Khumbu Icefall to stock the camps with oxygen, ropes and food for their clients. Nepal struggles with the need to keep tourists happy with the purists who would scoff at such an allowance. Last year on this day, sixteen sherpas were hit by an avalanche, making it the deadliest single day on Everest.

Paul and I would of course signed up for one of the big expeditions to the summit but unfortunately we have four children with us and therefore we were forced to take a helicopter to try to see Everest. Our journey took us over steep, terraced farms that clung to the hillsides where subsistence farming is the way of life. Evergreen pines and junipers covered the lower mountain region. Amongst all of this green, bright pops of pink, red and white rhododendron trees looked almost out of place as we entered the frozen, snow-covered base of the storied Himalaya.

Nepal is home to eight of the ten highest peaks in the world, Everest being the tallest but least photogenic. We were able to touch down at 17,800 feet for about ten minutes before we had to get out to avoid clouds coming our way and the potential for altitude sickness to set in. We felt a little dizzy but I am not sure if it was altitude or simply the magnitude of our awe-inspiring surroundings. Towering jagged peaks covered in fresh snow, the yellow tents of Base Camp, the famed Lhotse Face, all things I had only ready about and imagined in my head while reading Krakauer’s book were now all displayed in front of me.

I told Jolie this is where your fleece got its name, The North Face. You see those flat, steep sections up there that look impossible to climb? Those are called faces. She looked at me and said, “Mom, the faces are part of Mount Rushmore, I don’t see any here.”

Next stop Pokhara, a smaller, more scenic city that sits in the valley of the majestic Annapurna range and home to two of the highest peaks. This is a trekker’s paradise, with dozens of options for all levels. Here we stayed in a small, rustic hotel perched on the side of a green mountain overlooking Pokhara city below and above, impossibly high mountains. On a hike we could see right over the cloud line, where prodigious, snowy peaks appear where you think only the heavens could reside. Picture eighteen Empire State buildings stacked on top of each other.

We hiked through rural, hilltop villages to explore our new home for the next three days. The path led us right through the backyards of the villagers. We trekked through their kitchens, their shelters, past the chickens, goats and water buffalo, tiptoed on the edges of their tiny plots of farmland terraced into their backyard, and while life is very simple here, boy do they have a killer view.

The weather is in the high 80’s as summer has just begun. While it was sunny every day on our hikes, the mountains mostly held on tightly to their cloud cover. Every morning, I would peak out my window just before sunrise to check if it was clear, then climb back into bed. On our last morning, again I rose at 5:30am and lo and behold, the entire Annapurna range showed itself in all it’s glory. I roused my roommate Zara out of a dreamy haze and dragged her up to the lodge’s patio to watch the sunrise. We were the only guests in the hotel that morning and enjoyed a quiet cup of lemongrass tea as the sun cast its first light of the day onto the top of Machhapuchhre. Also known as Fish Tail (22,943’), this peak is one of the few places on earth where no human has set foot. The Hindus have declared it a sacred peak and the home of Lord Shiva, a place only intended for the presence of God.

If you are collecting good-parenting tips as you read along with our escapades, here is another example of questionable judgment. We decided to let the girls take a solo microlight flight. Yes, that would be launching them up to 10,000 feet in a cross between a go-cart, a large kite and a lawn mower. This is the coolest invention ever and I am considering building my own to cut down on my work commute to the new factory in Quonset next year. Once up in the sky, these paper airplanes can fly close together like a swarm of mosquitos buzzing through the air. To look out of my cockpit and see Jolie, Maya and Zara flying by me with the backdrop of the endless snow-capped Annapurna Mountains was completely exhilarating and surreal. (See more photos in the Photo Gallery, and I added a mini movie under Video Gallery).

A huge thank you to Alka, our superb guide for putting up with us for 5 weeks!! You will be missed.