Remarks From Everest... Experiences of Life and Death

On the summit of Imja Tse 6,189m (20,226ft)

I am writing this post from no place other than Upstate, NY. It's been a smooth but chaotic past couple of days, traveling for more than 30 hours back home and readjusting to the Eastern time zone. It feels good to be home, but some things feel like they're missing. When I wake up, I don't hear the guys walking around with bicycles yelling "APPLES," "BANNANS," "GRAPES!" When I look out my window, no Tibetan babushkas are walking around my cul-de-sac with their mala beads reciting hundreds of Om Mani Padme Hums. And when I shake my head side to side and say "dhanyabaad," which means thank you in Nepali, to the American cashier, they give me a strange look of confusion. Besides these missing quirks, it does feel good to be home.

The world's most beautiful mountain: Ama Dablam

I last wrote when I was in Namche Bazar en route to Tengboche. We finally saw blue skies and some of the massive peaks on our way from Tengboche to the next village Dingboche. The first stunning view was of Ama Dablam, which means "Mother's Necklace" in the local Himalayan dialects. We stayed two nights in Dingboche completing an acclimatization hike up Nangkartsung Peak (~5,000m/16,700ft) and then trekked from Dingboche to Pyramid, which was one of the most stunning and emotional days of the entire trip...

Ben and I with our Russian friend Alexey on top of Nangkartsung Peak. Unfortunately, we were stuck in a cloud and could not see the stunning views that surrounded us.

Standing in front of the breathtaking Tobuche and Cholatse peaks at Thukla Pass.

To reach Dingboche from Pyramid, one must trek through Thukla Pass, which is home to hundreds of monuments and stupas to commemorate the fallen climbers on Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks. At the entrance of the Pass is the Rob Hall monument- which if you've seen the famous Hollywood film "Everest," you know who he is. One can also find the American climber Scott Fischer's memorial, another famous character in the film "Everest." It felt surreal to stand in front of the monuments of climbers I've looked up to my whole life. The Pass serves as a beautiful tribute to Everest's victims but also as a forewarning of the consequences one may face beyond the Pass.

The Scott Fischer Memorial

After Thukla Pass, we stopped for lunch in Lobuche, where we met a climber attempting Everest. The climber's name is Rebecca Long, and she happened to be a Boston University alumnus (spoiler alert: she reached the summit and made it back down safely!! You can find her blog and articles in the Boston Globe). This was by far the closest person to home I had met since the start of the trek and the first person I had met attempting Everest. After exchanging some classic BU vs BC banter, we got along talking about our personal lives and current expeditions. Rebecca shared that she was on her way to a lower village called Pheriche to rest before her summit push. She also shared that her teammate had died days prior due to HAPE or High Altitude Pulmonary Edema. Just coming from Thukla Pass, I was emotionally impacted by the news. It's always devastating to hear about a climber's death, but it's even more surreal when you're near the base of the mountain it happened on.

For the rest of the night, there was a dampened mood. I was feeling emotionally jolted from the death of Rebecca's teammate and had a headache from the change in altitude. For the first time in a while, I felt scared and began questioning my childhood dream to one day climb Mount Everest. The terrifying feature of high-altitude climbing is that altitude doesn't care how strong you are. It is a silent but deadly killer. Despite my fear, I was able to get some sleep that night and felt better in the morning. I think the outlandish and utterly hilarious conversations I had in broken Nepali that night with my guide and other Sherpas were of aid. Humor in the mountains truly is an effective remedy for any illness.

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I began writing this post on May 20th and resumed writing on May 24th. I wrote about my experiences up until the day we reached Everest Base Camp. The picture above depicts Ben and me standing with two members of the Asian Trekking Company's 2023 Everest Expedition Team. The man all the way to the left is Doctor Ben, the expedition team's head doctor. When he is not leading expeditions in the Himalayas, Dr. Ben trains British special forces soldiers in emergency medical procedures, such as how to perform amputations. The man to the right of Dr. Ben is named Jason Kennison, an Australian climber who was inspired to scale Everest after nearly becoming paralyzed in a car accident in 2006. It is with the utmost sadness to report that Jason passed away on May 19th during his descent from the summit.

I learned of Jason's passing on May 21st and was heartbroken. My day at Base Camp and meeting Jason was easily the highlight of my trip. The reason I met Jason was all because of Dr. Ben's friendliness and hospitality. When we walked past Trekker's Rock and entered Everest Base Camp proper, Dr. Ben approached us and invited us into his expedition team's main dining tent for some tea. Sitting inside the tent were Jason, a girl, and a Sherpa. Jason welcomed us in and greeted me with a warm smile and a firm handshake. Initially, I thought the girl and Sherpa were a part of the Everest Expedition team, but I later found out that they were trekkers invited into the dining tent like us. The girl was a cute Russian named Viktoria and Jason was "chatting it up" with her. There was a little bit of friendly flirtatious competition between Jason and me once he heard me speak some Russian to her. I learned that Jason spent time in Kyrgyzstan for work and picked up some Russian there. However, he embarrassed himself a bit when he forgot the word for meat and I had to help him out. But, I quickly learned I had no chance with Viktoria once she asked me how old I was, as when I told her my age she replied, "Oh you're just a baby."

Jason told us about his plans to visit Antarctica after Everest for work and how he was excited to live with the penguins. I'm not exactly sure what his job was, but it had to do something with mining. We talked about climbing the 7 Summits and Jason's desire to scale Mount Vinson Massif, the tallest peak in Antarctica. Dr. Ben interjected and stated that Jason would become the first, and I quote Dr. Ben, "non-binary penguin to scale Mount Everest." We burst out laughing at his joke. What made it so funny was that Jason is a 6-foot, buff dude who gave off special forces soldier vibes. No one would ever peg him as a guy who had an obsession with Penguins.

Ben, Gopal, and I on top of Trekker's Rock with the Khumbu Icefall and Everest in the back.

We then explored the rest of Base Camp and on our way back to the front of the camp, we ran into Dr. Ben and Jason. Jason invited us to see the inside of his tent, which wasn't much of a tent at all. Rather, it was a luxurious igloo-like white dome. Inside he had a double-person-sized bed, snacks, books (one being "What Doesn't Kill Us" by Scott Varney and Wim Hoff which I happened to also be reading at that time), a speaker, and an empty bottle of rum, among many other things. Jason gave us some cookies and I left the name of my blog in the notes section of his phone before saying goodbye and wishing him good luck on his expedition. However, after departing from Jason and Dr. Ben, waiting to take pictures at Trekker's Rock at the entry of Base Camp, I saw Jason and Dr. Ben walking towards us. In Dr. Ben's hand was a Coke bottle, which was actually hot water mixed with rum. They advertised the drink as "Pimsdai" which is a spin-off of the popular English cocktail Pimms and a play-on-words with the name of the famous Nepali mountaineer Nimsdai Purja. According to Jason and Dr. Ben, Nims was branding his own drink called Pimsdai, which will soon be sold in Nepal and the UK. I didn't quite understand in full, but Jason claimed he was the one who created the beverage and Nims stole it. A little buzzed, Jason and Dr. Ben watched the dozens of trekkers take their picture on top or in front of the famous rock. Their number one form of entertainment was watching novice trekkers from around the world take pictures with several signs and flags they brought with them, representing their country, expedition team, or workplace. Dr. Ben, Jason, and I got a kick out of this because some groups resembled families at Disney World who make shirts that say "Smith Family Vacation 2023!" I then handed my phone to Jason to take a photo of Gopal, Ben, and me on top of the rock. Jason played up the role of the photographer as he began to take photos of random people and offered to stage a fight with Dr. Ben so we could cut the line of people waiting to take a photo. After the guy in front of us took about 15 minutes taking photos with 6 different flags he brought with him, we climbed to the top of the rock and got the classic Everest Base Camp Photo. After the photos, Jason was "chatting it up" with some Irish girls who had just arrived. We said our goodbyes for real and headed back to Gorak Shep, where we would stay the night.

Meeting Jason and my time at Everest Base Camp are memories that will last a lifetime. This kind of experience is something I have dreamed about ever since I was a little boy. I am forever grateful for Dr. Ben and Jason's kindness and hospitality and I hope this blog contributes to keeping Jason's memory alive while showcasing how amazing of a person he was. Jason is one of the most inspirational people I've met, and that's not just because he was the first penguin to summit Everest, but because he has an attitude that is lacking in today's world. He embodied the beauty of climbing and the balance one must find while scaling any mountain. One must be easy-going and carefree but still possess the alertness and vision of a hawk. One must be willing to give all it takes to reach the top, but not be overly ambitious to the point of burnout. Most importantly, one must not only be a kind person but live out kindness, respecting the mountain, others, and themselves. Jason embodied all of these virtues.

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Golden Everest during my sunset acclimatization hike on Kala Pattar

After returning to Gorak Shep from Base Camp, I went on a solo acclimatization hike just a couple hundred meters up Kala Pattar to see the sunset. I had been feeling extra tired from the altitude but was feeling a bit better when I decided to go, most likely because I had spent 3 hours at Base Camp acclimatizing. Once I started up the hill, I found my zone. Everything seemed to click. The fear I had felt after learning about the passing of Rebecca's teammate faded away, and I felt one with the golden-colored Everest. It was as if the mountain was calling me.

I sometimes curse myself for having such a dangerous ambition. I struggle with the feeling of wanting to climb big mountains like Everest, especially after receiving news of what happened to Jason. I think about my Sherpa friends who do this as a career and desire to know what keeps them going in a profession where one feels on top of the world (literally) but constantly dances with death. Perhaps the intrigue of mountaineering is the fact that the sensibility of it is beyond human conceptualization. I argue that there must be a more significant spiritual draw that keeps people climbing mountains year after year, and I want to return to Nepal to unveil this curiosity.

The day after my sunset hike, we woke up at 4:30 am for a sunrise hike up Kala Pattar, where we saw the most stunning views of the entire trip. We then trekked back to Dingboche, where we rented technical equipment for the ascent of Imja Tse. The next day we headed to Chukkung and then to Imja Tse Base Camp. It was here when I had the earliest bedtime of my life, having to go to bed at 5:30 pm and wake up at midnight to begin the summit push. Our guide for Imja Tse was Karma Sherpa, one of the toughest and most elite people I've ever met. He has climbed Imja Tse over 20 times *just this season* and has scaled Everest 7 times along with Ama Dablam 4 times. The trip was successful and we summitted the peak at 6 am, making very fast time. My biggest takeaway from the ascent is that altitude is no joke! The experience was both humbling and motivating, all the while keeping me wanting to climb more peaks.

View of Everest (left center peak) and Nuptse (Dr. Seuss-looking peak on the right) from the summit of Kala Pattar (~5,500 meters, 18,600 feet)

The team on the summit of Kala Pattar, featuring Gopal's Himalko modeling skills

The final ridgeline to the summit of Imja Tse!

Absolutely spanked on the summit of Imja Tse!

After summiting Imja Tse, we commenced the trek back to Lukla stopping at various villages along the way. The return trek was filled with much laughter, partying, chang (the local rice wine beverage), and even a Sherpa lady asking us to make a Tik Tok with her. The Sherpas truly know how to party, and I felt like I was back at college for the last few days. We even went to the world's highest Irish Pub. The most fun night was the last, when we partied with our three British friends, their guide Prem (who happened to be our guide's brother-in-law), and our Canadian friend Manoj. Despite our British friends' flight being canceled and having to spend another night in Lukla, everyone made it back to Kathmandu safe and sound. We then had a celebratory dinner at the Crimpanzee climbing gym, which is, along with the Edge and Rocksport, my second home. I was blown away by the generosity of my friends there, who made us a congratulatory summit cake and presented us with Katas (a Buddhist blessing in the form of a scarf that drapes across the shoulders).

I am extremely grateful to everyone who made this trip a reality. It was everything and more than I imagined it to be. A huge thank you to our guide Gopal, our porter Mingma, and Lhasso Adventures for facilitating the trek. And a major thank you, or "Tuche," to all the residents of Khumbu who take care of thousands of climbers every year. There is still so much more to share and reflect on, but I think it will have to wait for another post...

A picture in front of the Guru Rinpoche temple with our incredibly strong porter Mingma, featuring my unshaven, unshowered, and windburned face.

Ben, myself, Doug (aka British Trevor Lawrence), Ned, and Alfie in the Lukla Airport before departing to KTM

Babin, myself, Bishnu, Gyalzen, and Gopal at the celebratory dinner

With Gyalzen and Nimma

All caked up with Ben Dorje