My breath plumes from my sleeping bag in the dim 6am light. My legs are a little sweaty, my chest is warm, my nose and the tips of my ears are cold. This is how it goes each morning here, dreading the moment I have to unzip my sleeping bag. At first, I’d do it bit by bit, marveling at how I could feel the warmth flow out of my sleeping bag like a dammed-up lake slowly let loose, even at my feet I could feel the warmth fleeing. It would run over my hand and out into the dry Himalayan cold never to return. Finally, in one last tug I’d let out the rest, jump out of my bag (as we’ve climbed higher, I’ve started wearing more clothes to bed. At first it was just my underwear, then my thermals, now it’s my thermals and my sweater) and get dressed as quickly as possible.

It feels good to be back in rhythm with the sun. Back home I have little respect for the sun, when it rises or sets, but here I live by it. How strange it is in this age of abundant light that the sun has taken on a secondary role in our lives. To think that the sun God was near always the king of any divine pantheon and now he has been dethroned by the Instagram algorithm. The sun brought life and the digital divine takes it, trading warmth for blue light. People used to spend their hours on minutes, but now we just get data, and though I have an unlimited amount I still wonder if I’m the better for it. Up here there is no data, just sunshine and the breeze.

We stayed another day in Namche Bazaar and did a very steep, short hike to get our bodies acclimatized. Namche Bazaar sits just under 3,440 meters with the Everest Hotel some 450 meters above us. As we hiked, we heard the Nepali National anthem echoing through the valley. We glanced over the trail’s edge to see a schoolyard full of children arranged in formation doing calisthenics while singing, all at 3,500 meters. There’s something mesmerizing about children singing, while far from on tune, there wasn’t a single note of melancholy or trepidation in their voices, they were just singing at the top of their lungs while swinging their legs or doing jumping jacks. They sounded so happy. There’s little electricity in Namche Bazaar, no heaters and little hot water (save what a family boils). There are a couple inns, an Irish pub, lots of stray dogs and animals wandering the town, but the career prospects are slim. Some, with world-class lungs, will carry the luggage of portly Americans and old Europeans up the steep trails, and they’ll be among the highest earners in the town.

We watched for a while; David needed the time to catch his breath. We could tell the height was getting to him. He was sore from yesterday and between the cold and the altitude he slept little last night. We took it slowly, but after about 150 meters of climbing he fainted. Christian narrowly caught him and David came to a moment later looking directly into Christian’s eyes, faces so close they looked like they were about to kiss. This seemed to startle David back to a quick and alert consciousness and, after some water and pats on the back from Sam, Sam escorted him back down into Namche.

Christian and I finished the hike up quickly with helicopters landing and taking off at least one every ten minutes. Those who don’t want to make the hike to the hotel can fly here from Kathmandu for hefty price, the height of the surrounding peaks and ridges making it so the pilot must fly through the valleys, not over them. The last leg to the hotel was made of handcrafted stone steps leading up to the lettering, large and proud, “HOTEL EVEREST VIEW, 3,880M.” The hotel is nice, luxurious by Nepal’s standards, built of stone and deep red wood. The hotel has a large stone patio with about a 150-degree view overlooking the valley and the Himalaya’s tallest mountains.

This was our first view of Everest from the ground. Everest, it seems, is not a boastful mountain, it never allows its admirers anything more than an off-angle glance. It sat humbly, couched between Lhotse and Nupse, and were it not for a plaque to designate it I’d have had no idea it was the tallest of the three. From this point on the most striking peak would be Ama Dablam with its shear sides and jagged top. We were only up there long enough to quickly admire it all before Christian insisted we rush back down to be with David. Personally, I didn’t see the need to rush, it wasn’t like David was going anywhere, but I acquiesced.

We hurried down to Namche at a near jog and found David at the hotel looking well, though fatigued. The remainder of the day was spent resting. Outside our window, puppies trotted along a stone wall that separated the street from a dirt lot for livestock. When I was a kid there was a row of rocks in my backyard which I would skip across, generally toting some stick or club while I pretended to be on some great adventure. I would sail with pirates in the Caribbean, explore Middle Earth, roam markets in Persia, and sometimes I’d even climb mountains in the Himalayas. Now I’m here among black yaks, stupas, the monasteries I saw on Discovery channel, where men carry big packs with their necks for days to bring their families basic necessities. I had a great imagination as a kid, I must have imagined traveling the circumference of the globe ten times over. I never imagined any of it coming true though. Before I went to bed I called C, the girl in West Virginia, to tell her all about what was happening, but the reception in Namche is poor and we only got out a few words before the call dropped.

From Namche we hiked to Tangboche, which Sam informed us would be difficult, mostly downhill till lunch then straight up till we reached the famous Tangboche monastery, an UNESCO world heritage site. When we got downstairs for breakfast David was there and in a far livelier mood than we had seen him yesterday. Sam wanted David to stay here at Namche till we finished the hike, but David insisted he continue. We munched stiff toast spread over with a crumbly, cold butter which came from some animal that I doubt was a cow. It had to be sucked on before it could be chewed. By the meals end Sam had been convinced, so David took a Diamox pill continued on with us.

The hike down was quick and we were eating lunch before breakfast had even really settled. Given, the bread up here digests like wood. I wasn’t hungry so I just ordered potatoes with cheese and ended up getting the whole harvest, a heaping mound of boiled potatoes with no butter, no salt, just a thin layer of very stinky cheese over the top. As we slowly plodded up the switchbacks to Tangboche the potatoes solidified into something brick-like in my gut. David hiked easily aided by the Diamox and suddenly I was the one struggling to keep pace. I kept my feet moving at a slow trudge and thought of C.

She’s a small girl, about 5’4, almost small enough to fit in a suitcase. She has dirty blonde hair that reaches her shoulders and bright blue eyes that light up easy, even the hazy streetlights in Lisbon were enough. It was the last stop on my European backpacking trip, I had just left Christian behind in Rome and was on my own for a few days till my cruise left for New York. I got into the hostel late and woke up tired. As I popped my head out the bunkbed curtain, I saw Lisbon’s vivid colors freshly illumined out the window, then to the right, C.

She has wide lips and big cheeks that plump up like crab apples when she smiles. Her face is very expressive, I don’t think she could hide an emotion if she tried. She told me later her first impression of me was how green my eyes were in the light of the window, her second was to mistake me for her friend. “Kai?” she said. “No, I’m Josh. Kai must be a good-looking guy though.”

We would talk for hours before I left. She is a wonderful listener and asks great questions, which is a trait that never fails to impress me. She walks through the world in a state of quiet wonder, a trait I think is quickly being lost. I knew none of this when she and her friend invited me to tag along with them, but I was alone in the city so I said yes, happily.

I tried to talk her into coming here with me, but she insisted she stay home and make money. Fair, I admit. As I hiked up the switchbacks, I thought she probably made the right decision. Sweat was dripping off me, dark clouds threatened rain, and by the time we reached the monastery snowflakes the size of sand were beginning to drift down. The grey weather muted the bright exterior colors of the monastery. The walls were beige-stone, and in the front stood a large torii, an ornate gateway to mark the transition between the mundane and the sacred. The torii was bright red with a gold-leafed roof, adorned with animal hybrids and painted with colorful motifs and Buddhist symbols. At it, we left our packs, our hats, and our cameras as we entered. We had to wait in the monastery courtyard for someone to open the door. As we waited snow drifted in over the red roofs and spun around the courtyard, the cold squeezing down as we stopped moving, the world silent.

As we sat, hands tucked in armpits, I thought of a quote from Fred Rogers when asked if there were any people who had helped him in his journey: “Oh a lot of people,” he said, “but a lot of people who have allowed me to have some silence, and I don’t think we give that gift very much anymore. I’m very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence. How do we do that, in our business, yours and mine, how do we encourage reflection? I trust that this book will do some of that, but, oh my this is a noisy world.” In the silence of the monastery, I wondered, how can I give that gift to others? After about five minutes or so the door was opened.

I’d like to say the experience was deeply spiritual, that I felt connected to the greater divinity of life, that this became a holy place for me too, but it didn’t. There was a liminal sense to the space, a type of other-worldliness perhaps, but even that I suspect may have been placebo. We took off our shoes when the door was opened and entered. The stones sucked away any warmth left in my toes. Inside the monastery was overwhelmingly beautiful, each panel so meticulously painted that some of the men were no larger than the size of a thumbnail, and on each panel was painted a different Buddha. In the center were cushions and tables for the monks who lived here to study and meditate for hours on end. At the front was a large statue, 3 or 4 times the size of a man, depicting the Buddha, in front of which pilgrims would leave offerings. I was humbled by the ornateness, the thousands of hours of work this place must have taken, but I fear my faith crisis, despite being years ago now, has left me numb to the spirituality of these places. I found myself respecting the piety of the monks but I had no affinity to them. That type of devotion, it seems, is lost to me.

Sometimes I miss God, the idea of Him. I miss praying. I miss having that type of kinship with the cosmos. The smell of fresh cut grass, or fir trees in spring when the sap oozes, the sight of large bodies of water, of mountains, or the sound of glacial rivers are all good substitutes and perhaps more substantive, but when it’s cold and dark and quiet, I do miss God. I miss the way He’d lovingly cross his legs and listen and say nothing. There have only been a few times in my life when I thought He’d spoken. When I was nineteen, I was a missionary who was beginning to doubt. I knelt beside my bed one night and offered up a long, tear-stained prayer about my confusion in life. At the end, I asked in gasps, “what, what God, what is a kid like me supposed to do?” Behind me, calmly, words came, with the force of great profundity, “get a good night’s sleep.” With them came peace, the tension in my body eased, and I climbed into bed and slept better that night than I had in weeks. It was the last thing He ever said to me.

After Tangboche we hiked a bit further, the snow coming down harder. The trail was steep and muddy, and all around us were barren rhododendrons that were dark greys, blacks, sometimes faded crimson. On their twiggy branches were midnight green leaves and light, wispy moss hanging down. Even the shrubbery in the Himalayas is full of sharp contrasts. In the snow all was quiet save for the distant rumbling river below and the occasional cowbell of a grazing yak.

The tea house is packed since it was the only one for miles. The only fireplace is in the dining hall, which was all wood and made me think of an old Yukon saloon with rough looking men whooping and hollering, laughing away the cold in their bones. The tea house is three stories and the bedroom walls are thin, meaning you can hear noise from every direction. It sounds like a human beehive, making it hard to write. Out the window are the mountain’s silhouettes with the only lights on the horizon being the two electric lights at the monastery. I’m wearing every coat I have, a beanie, my hunting hat, and a neck gator. I write a little, then put on my glove and tuck my hand in near my chest for warmth, then write a little more.

Every night here forward, before bed, Sam will check our oxygen levels and pulse. I did well as did Christian, Reyshawn did ok and David did great. Diamox is a hell of a drug. But enough, I’m off to bed. Much love, and safe travels,

-Josh