When I was young, I was raised on a billionaire’s farm, which was only really called a farm for tax purposes. Most farms don’t have driving ranges, stocked lakes, multiple hot tubs, an arboretum, or a waterfall. My grandfather was the horse trainer and my grandmother did odds and ends around the mansion house. When the owner was around, we were relegated to our little corner, a pre-build some half-mile away on the other end of the property, but more often than not he was gone. As a kid, it took me some time to realize we weren’t the rich ones.
When I was around eight my grandma and I got an offer from the helicopter pilot to go for a ride. It was a thrilling offer, it set my rambunctious brain scurrying with dreams of flying, yet when the time came to hop in, I got nervous, so nervous I curled up into my grandma’s leg and begged not to go. I’ve always regretted I didn’t. I never got another opportunity.
That’s the memory that I kept thinking of when Christian and I were offered a helicopter ride to Lukla rather than taking the plane. We got up at 5am to meet our guide and neither of us had slept well. Nerves, excitement, a combination of both. Half of our gear we would carry ourselves, half we packed into a large duffle bag for our porter, which was a blow to our pride but we were assured that’s how it needed to be. After grabbing us, our guide, Sam, drove over to pick up our other two hiking partners. We hoped for two beautiful girls, models on a leisurely vacation to Everest, but it was not to be. Instead, we picked up David and Reyshawn, a father and his son from Singapore, and left for the airport.
Kathmandu sleeps in late, it seems, since by seven there was no one on the roads. My half-hour ride from the airport was now only ten to get back. We were funneled through light security and our bags were weighed, though I’m not sure why; mine was five kilograms overweight and the person didn’t even bat an eye. We then filed into the back of a cargo truck and were driven to the helipads, passing long lines of soldiers running. We stood for a bit, watching the helicopters take off with unsmiling pilots, all of whom looked grizzly and war-torn. Finally, our turn came and we filed in. I volunteered to sit in front but was too heavy: 80 kilos max to take shotgun, turns out. We lifted off into Kathmandu’s smog and eventually above it, the soldiers shrinking, the tight, overpacked city streets becoming a foggy maze, then an ant farm.
It was unlike being in a plane—if I dropped an egg I could see where it would land and if I looked up, I could see the thin rotors whose violent spinning alone held us up. I began thinking of the billionaire, a few years after I turned down the helicopter ride. I remember, vaguely, hearing the news that he had died with his wife and daughter in a helicopter crash. It threw life into chaos for some weeks after that, and the memory of it twisted my gut. I’d like to say that during my helicopter ride I felt my childhood dreams of flying come true for a moment, but the truth is I just sat there pushing in deep breaths with a manufactured look for pictures while I fought off my old childhood worries. I had heard of people surviving plane crashes, but I’d never heard of anyone surviving a helicopter crash.
The smog was particularly heavy that day, reaching out of the valley and into the Himalayan foothills, which for the most part meant my views were constrained to distant peaks rising over the brown haze and the ground right below me. The mountains crept closer and, eventually, we stopped flying over the foothills and started flying between them. I admired the beauty, but for the most part, focused on my breathing. One moment stands out though: our guide signaled our attention and pointed at a small peak off in the distance, clouds trailing off the crest of the mountain, “that’s Everest!” he shouted a couple of times so we all could hear over the whirring. It’s my first glance at the mountain and the nerves, the racing thoughts, it all dissipated in an instant at the sight of the top of the world. For a moment my mind was completely blank, only awe. It wasn’t impressive, sharp, or jagged, from here I couldn’t even gauge its height, but knowing it was Everest was enough. When thoughts did come back to me the first one was “damn, looks a long way off.”
We landed in Lukla, a one-runway town. The town is built into the hills and the small, steep airstrip is the predominant feature. Whoever looked at this place and said, “looks like airport material to me” must have had a crooked eye. The airport’s runway is short, built on a steep hill, and has a cliff-like drop-off at the end. It is marketed as the world’s most dangerous airport, an unusual marketing approach for an unusual airport. Perhaps it was for the best we took the helicopter. As I hopped onto the landing pad I strutted off the airstrip, we all did. “I just flew in a helicopter through the Himalayas,” I thought. It’s funny how quickly emotions turn.
The air is much cooler up here, fresher too. We ate a somewhat leisurely lunch in Lukla at a hotel perched atop the town. From there we could look down into the valley where farms were stacked on top of each other, descending along the river like snake scales. The farms were hedged around by an overgrown escarpment. There were no roads in sight, just trails for livestock. To the right is Nupla, a mountain with a small snowcap that lasts year-round, though that is changing. These high alpine climates don’t hold up well to climate change, we’re told. Every year the snowpack rescinds further and comes back less.
As we began our short hike to Phakding we first passed a small disheveled dog who, from posture and personality, I ascertained was the gatekeeper to the Himalayas. He was quiet and still as stone despite people bustling all around him. He hardly glanced at us as our party passed, which I took for silent approval. The hike was almost all downhill and I could see the tendrils of change beginning to creep into the towns and homes wedged into this valley: a sign for burgers and fries here, “sim-cards for sale” there. For the most part, the valley felt untouched. Centuries-old Mani stones, boulders with Tibetan scripture carved into them, mark the path. The Tibetan alphabet looks like a mix of Arabic and Kanji, each letter complex, some taking ten different strokes to make. Zoomed out and cropped into a square, the white writing overlaid on black rock looks like some ancient QR code. These rocks were carved some hundreds of years ago and contribute to the Himalayas’ mystical feel, like relics from a bygone age of giants. The towns were usually no more than five to twenty buildings, their entrance and exit marked with a prayer wheel which travelers would pass and spin clockwise and recite the mantra “Om-Mani-Padme-Hum.” We asked Sam what it translates to, he thought about it for a few moments, then said “it doesn’t translate. We say it to center ourselves.” I liked that.
The mountains here seem to have been built on an entirely different scale. We can feel the thinness of the cold air, crisp in our lungs, and still, the mountains tower over the lush green valleys of the lower Himalayas. When I think about trying to capture even a tenth of it in something as feeble as a paragraph I’m overwhelmed. So much of life is untranslatable, first loves, sights of awe, gut feelings. Ironically that’s why I write. Only in a few, select poems have I ever felt language scratch at these experiences, and to stitch words into sentences and weave sentences into this facsimile of experience is a fulfilling challenge. I often struggle with how amazing, beautiful, and vast life is and knowing that it’s all passing by so quickly. I feel compelled to try and catch as much of it as I can in this little net of words, but the finest sights and experiences always slip through.
We arrived in Phakding early, caked in dust. Below the town is a light-blue river that retains the same glacial blue as the ice it comes from, the rocks are rippled in patterns of light grey, on the hillsides are small purple flowers and above the town lies a faded red monastery. We crossed a long suspension bridge to reach our teahouse and immediately took off our shoes and collapsed into the lawn chairs outside, journaled till dinner came, listened to the river buffeting the rocks, and stared into the lush green mountains as the evening fog rolled in. I often forget how important it is to do nothing, to stare at something with no desire to pick it apart but to simply try and take it all in. It’s hard to do that back home, the sights and faces are all familiar and life moves so quick that stopping feels like being one of those boulders in the river. It makes me think that, perhaps, being sedentary is a strength.
After our meal Christian and I hiked up the hill behind us to the monastery. At the entrance was a small room they used as a museum which described many of the Buddhist items we’d see along the trail as we walked, their histories and their meanings. Buddhist prayer flags, I learned, which are stretched around, across, and through the valley at every high and windy spot, are made to disintegrate in the blustery mountain air, that way the prayers written on them are blown out and into the world. We had wondered why they don’t replace them, but upon learning that we began to see the beauty in the tattered riggings of flags—beauty akin to a life well lived. As we read, above us, kids in monk’s robes threw dice, or rocks, or sticks, something we couldn’t see, and laughed as they played. We hiked back down and went to bed early.
We slept in a small cabin and woke this morning to the windows thick with ice from the condensation, but when we cracked them open we saw the steep, green foothills vividly in the cool, clear morning air. I am still no fan of mornings, but I appreciate the way the world looks at first light. We ate a quick breakfast and began a very steep hike. Today we head for Namche Bazaar, the largest town on the trails, which is about 800m higher than Phakding. Only for a short section along the river was the trail flat, otherwise we were always going either up or down. At the end, it was just endlessly up. Our 800m climb from the river started with 100m of steep switchback stairs. At the top we crossed a suspension bridge overlaid with countless prayer flags, some fresh, some faded, some near gone, and as I looked at those that were at the end of their life I thought about the prayers they’d given to the wind and of a quote from Marjorie Pay Hinckley:
“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”
For the most part while I hiked I zoned out, focused on my feet maneuvering over the rocks, the scent of sweat, the taste of dust, the sound of wind navigating the valley and its offshoots, the sun beating down, the sweetness of shade. When I was thinking, I was remembering the conversation with Christian a few nights before about being a traveling community builder. What kind of good am I putting into the world? Sometimes I worry I’m just taking.
The porters carried packs twice as heavy as Christian’s and mine and still they would take the goat trails that cut up and through the never-ending switchbacks. I was tired but wanted to give more, push harder, so I began to follow the porters. Following them wore me down but one porter from a different group looked back at me from up the hill, smiled, and nodded. It was a needed boost of serotonin that carried me for a bit. A little later I caught up to him. “You are a strong man,” he said in a thick Nepalese accent. I smiled, it was a compliment I needed, but replied, “only on the outside, on the inside I’m crying,” and he laughed. Then he said, “strong is strong,” smiled, and walked on while I waited for Christian, David, Reyshawn and Sam. That interaction carried me the rest of the way to Namche Bazaar.
Finally, as we neared Namche we left the lush, green valley behind. We can’t see far here, what were clouds last night is fog for us today. Through the fog Namche emerged around a bend, far larger than any of us had imagined. In the town are restaurants of all sorts, cafes, knick-knack shops and outdoor outfitters with a selection that could rival most REI’s. There’s even an Irish pub. All supplies in the town have to be either hiked or helicoptered in.
To Christian’s and my immense glee we stayed in a Comfort Inn, though not like any Comfort Inn I’ve ever seen before. This Comfort Inn is only heated in the dining room by a stove that burns Yak pies, it has one shower heated by a poorly installed propane water heater (the only source of hot water in the place) and when one showered one had to keep the window open, letting all the hot air out and cold air in, but if you didn’t you would suffocate on the exhaust from the water heater. I wanted to explore the city more but as soon as I took off my pack my shoulders seized up, then my back, then my legs. I’ve spent the whole evening waddling around the hotel like some two-meter tall Himalayan penguin.
I’m sitting on the bed, I can see my breath when I breath. Outside our window puppies are playing in the dusty street. There is reception in Namche and C, a girl I met a few months ago in Portugal, just texted me “miss your voice.” Even with the full-body aches, I feel lucky. When I was eighteen, I could have never imagined that I’d be in the Himalayas for my twenty-fifth birthday; many times, today Christian and I just looked at each other and said, “wow, can you believe it? We’re here, we’re really here.” I’m so grateful I have him here with me. To have so much and no one to share it with is been a different kind of burden, a deeper kind of loneliness, but I have him, and I have these letters, and maybe I’ll have C too.
I’m off to bed. I’m cold and stiff and sore but happy. Life is so wonderfully good up here at 3,500 meters. I hope things are well with you and that your life can remain pleasantly surprising. And please, don’t inconvenience yourself but feel free, and welcome to write me back. Respond@joshwanders.com is the best place to get to me. I know it’s a pretty bland email address, but I don’t really have a mailbox, I’m afraid. Anyway, I’ll write again soon!
Much love and appreciation,
Josh