Advertisement

Rediscovering Nepal After April's Earthquakes

Nepal's Himalayan peaks can make a man feel very small indeed.

On June 30, 1950, Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal conducted the most famous conversation in mountaineering history.

The two French climbers were on the frozen upper slopes of Annapurna, pushing towards the mountain’s 8091-metre summit. In a desperate bid for speed, they were wearing their light leather boots. As they crunched through the ice, Lachenal felt an ominous numbness spreading through his feet. Fearing frostbite, he stopped.

“If I go back,” he asked Herzog, “what will you do?” Crazed by summit fever, Herzog’s reply was to the point: “I should go on by myself.” “Then I’ll follow you,” said Lachenal. And so the two men
climbed on.

In the end, both would make it to the summit, becoming the first men to summit an 8000m Himalayan peak, three years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay would summit Everest. But as they began their descent, Lachenal’s fears were horribly realised. Frostbite gripped the feet of both men.

Crippled, they were forced to bivouac for the night in a crevasse. Frostbite took hold of their hands as their eyes gave way to snowblindness.

By the time a rescue party had dragged them off the mountain, the hands and feet of both men were black and swarming with maggots. The expedition doctor promptly sawed off their fingers and toes.
Despite all this, Herzog remained dazzled by the experience of standing on the summit of Annapurna, the world’s 1oth-highest peak. “I believe what I felt that day closely resembles what we
call happiness,” he would later write. “I also believe that if I felt such happiness in such rigorous circumstances it is because the planned, organised, predigested happiness that the modern
world offers is not complete. It leaves certain sides of man’s nature unsatisfied.”

True, after the suffering the Nepalese people have endured over the past few months, it sounds horribly precious to rhapsodise on the rigours of mountain climbing. Nonetheless, Herzog’s words still strike a note, don’t they?

Where:

Tour:
After the April earthquake, Nepal’s mountains are again open to trekkers.
World Expeditions run the Ultimate Annapurna Dhaulagiri circuit trek. The 16-day trek costs $2490 per person. World Expeditions also run several other treks in the Annapurna and Everest regions, ranging from entry-level walks to technical climbs that demand intricate mountaineering skills.

Accommodation:
World Expeditions has established 16 eco camps in Nepal, with seven in the Annapurna region and nine in the Everest region. These semi-permanent camps aim to limit the environmental impact by burning yak dung instead of wood (deforestation and subsequent landslides are a huge problem in Nepal), using solar or hydroelectric energy, and employing spring-fed water tanks. The beds are comfy, too.


Sure, down pillows and cold beers are nice.

But there’s something ultimately satisfying about overcoming hardship, about gritting your teeth and pushing through suffering.

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself as I struggle up the knife-edge of Kopra Ridge, an icy blade of rock that rises towards the great granite cliffs of Annapurna’s southern face. A bitter wind is tearing in from the south, the flecks of ice numbing my lips. I’m sucking hungrily at the thin mountain air. I turn and look back down the ridgeline – all I can see is a dense grey fog rushing towards me. I turn and look back up at the distant peak of Annapurna – more fog’s tumbling down the cliffs at me. Sucking in another thimbleful of air, I turn my attention back to my ice-reamed boots and trudge on.

An aside: I don’t mean to suggest that my jaunt up Kopra Ridge bore any real resemblance to Herzog and Lachenal’s ascent. There was no frostbite, no blackened flesh or severed appendages. But we were pretty high, and it was damn cold, and there was plenty of snow and ice. So I’d like to think I have the faintest inkling of what Herzog was talking about when he mused over the phenomenon of happiness through challenge . . .

By the time we set foot on Kopra Ridge, our group had already been climbing for eight days. There were 11 of us in the expedition, commanded by a nuggety sirdar named Rinzin and supported by a veritable army of sherpas, porters and cooks. We’d gathered in the lakeside city of Pokhara before catching a rattling bus out to the foothills of the Annapurna Massif. When I say foothills, of course, I mean foothills in a Himalayan sense – that is, sheer walls of rock falling thousands of metres to rushing streams of snowmelt. Clinging to these precipices are enchanted forests of pink-flowering rhododendron trees and tiny stone villages surrounded by terraced farmland green with wheat, corn and cauliflower.

These valleys are the ancestral home of the Gurung, a warrior people who have filled the notorious Ghurka Brigade in the British Army for the past two centuries. Even now, walking through the medieval alleys of these villages, you seldom see a man of working age – they’re all overseas serving their old colonial masters.

True, the forests are beautiful and the villages are wonderfully exotic, but it’s not what I’ve come to Nepal for. Instead, my eyes are constantly drawn upwards to the glittering white peak of Annapurna that looms over the valleys.

“When do we get up there?” I ask Rinzin. He laughs knowingly and wags a finger: “Soon enough.” Day after day we climb higher, ascending endless stone staircases and winding through shadowy forests. Then, suddenly, on the seventh day we emerge from the tree line to find ourselves in a different world, a windswept place of rock and ice where tortured tussocks of ice-scoured grass cling to the rising flanks of land. Yaks ruminate while birds of prey turn circles in the sky. On cue, the snow begins to fall as a cold grey mist closes around us.

At last, we’re in the mountains.

With the snow gathering in feathery drifts and the mist growing thicker, the complexion of the land changes. What was colourfully exotic suddenly becomes coldly foreboding. The path disappears and footing becomes treacherous as we find ourselves tiptoeing along ridgelines and inching along cliff tops, the land falling away to a grey nothingness below us.

By the time we get into camp that evening, we’re sodden and spent but oddly elated.
The following morning we wake to a white world and a piercing blue sky – a perfect mountain day. Tracking an old deer-hunting trail, we cut along the upper reaches of a vast circular valley before tackling a final brutal ascent up to the stone blade of Khopra Ridge.

And there it is before us: the immense bulk of Annapurna’s southern face, soaring pink granite cliffs topped by glittering pillows of overhanging ice and snow. How Herzog and Lachenal ever managed to get to the top of the thing is beyond me. The scale of the mountain is so big, its aspect so wild, it’s almost frightening to behold. In the thin mountain air it looks so close I imagine I can reach out and touch it.

We push up the ridgeline until deepening drifts of snow and a fast-rushing mist tearing in from the south leave us in a complete whiteout. Our lungs are hungry, our heads buzzing, our feet cold, but the next swathe of ridgeline beckons. Do we push on? Wade off into the whiteness? A breathless voice rises out of the mist: “Nah, let’s head back to camp and crack those flasks of rum we bought at the last teahouse.” Without further discussion we turn and trot back down the ridge. Herzog might demur, but the siren call of comfort is a strong one.

Left: The author kicks back with a yak. Right: the local rum - best consumed sparingly. Photography by Mark Tipple.


THE AIR UP THERE

Altitude sickness is a constant spectre above 3000m. Decreased oxygen in the blood forces the dilation of blood vessels, a process that can lead to swelling of the brain. Initial symptoms are headaches and sleeplessness; end-stage symptoms are confusion, loss of co-ordination and death. Avoid the lash by following these simple rules.

TAKE DIAMOX
This respiratory stimulant accelerates the body’s acclimatisation process. Start the dosage two days before you hit altitude and take 125mg every 12 hours.

ASCEND SLOWLY
Climb at a funereal pace and never sleep more than 500m higher than you did the previous night.

EAT OFTEN
A hungry body is particularly prone to altitude sickness. Aim to eat a solid meal every three hours.

DRINK CONSTANTLY
Despite the frigid temperatures, mountain air can stoke serious dehydration. Chug at least five litres of water a day. If your water is melted snow, be sure to add electrolyte sachets.

World Expeditions have a Nepal Earthquake Appeal. To donate, visit gofundraise.com.au