A shared summit

by Fruzsina Gal (Australia)

I didn't expect to find Nepal

Hiking is a solo activity – it’s what I discover on my group trek to the base of Mount Everest. As pine trees fade into rocks and altitude begins its relentless work on my body – making it harder to breathe and my legs feel like dead weight – I’m left with myself amidst the mountains. Our main guide is always last in our moving line of eight. Two guides, six guidees. I’m slow and breathless, and so the rest of the group disappears ahead each day, leaving the two of us to work our way through the beautifully unforgiving terrain. I try to revel in the experience, to claim this time and place as my own and to turn it into some sort of internal advantage that’s mirrored in the scenes that follow us, but I find it difficult. On our third day, we meet a lady in the common area of our teahouse. In her sixties, Anne is doing the tour alone with a personal porter. She looks like most other people we encounter along the trek, confident in a way only tourists visiting the same place twice can be. But while it’s her second time doing the trek, she didn’t make it to Everest Base Camp the first time around. That was 15 years ago. She is now back, to concur something that has nagged at her for over a decade. As we wish her good luck I think about the days that lie ahead, and how I would feel should I not make it. The Himalayas have a paradoxical quality, one of vast space and unimaginable proportions against the agonising smallness of individuals. Its effects on me are quite the opposite to what you expect from nature – I become restlessly anxious, telling myself over and over again that it’s okay, that this is the sort of experience one should live out by themselves, in isolation yet observation of the surrounds, but the Zen moment never seems to come. I’ve had months to prepare, physically and mentally, yet following the winding path up and down, over and around stupas, stray dogs, and back-bent, working locals doesn’t feel real. We run into Anne again some days later. She looks pale and sickly as she sips her tea by the fire. It’s altitude sickness; her guide has advised her not to go on. We stare at her, unable to offer comfort, and I think about doing this alone, not in the sort of internal aloneness that I have felt during the trek, but real aloneness, with a guide who barely speaks English as your only companion. We say our tentative goodnights, but I can’t stop thinking about her. I try to imagine whether I'd come back in 15 years’ time if I failed to make it; whether I’d go through the same physical and mental preparations, knowing it could all be for nothing – again. The landscapes change with every step, offering a raw and crude insight to what life must be like for those living here. To wake up and step outside and be greeted by the mountains, so God-like in their immensity. Walking among them offers a lot of head-space, yet I still cannot get my thoughts to follow a coherent order. Maybe it’s the altitude, maybe not. Perhaps it’s the person you become when you’re in your own company for so long, in such an extreme environment. We make it to Everest Base Camp in a somewhat anti-climactic fashion. It’s the only windy day we’ve had, cold and biting, and the sense of personal achievement I hoped would await me isn’t wholeheartedly there. We are taking our pictures when I see Anne approaching us. She is touching her face as if to make sure she’s real – that all of it is real – and suddenly we’re all cheering her on, and there are tears and congratulations and a shared feeling of elation. As if, this whole time, we’ve all been in it together. As we make our way back to the teahouse that afternoon, I feel proud and relieved, not only for myself, but mostly for Anne. Hiking might be a solo activity – but reaching the summit is best shared.