Uphill Both Ways

by Shea Bramley (Canada)

Making a local connection Nepal

“You need to accept the possibility of failure,” I told Pat, between Christmas Day's second breakfast of tempeh fries and a pre-flight Dunkin Donut eaten in the Kuala Lumpur airport basement. “We might not make it.” I shifted on the plastic chair, avoiding contact with my sunburnt shoulders, a souvenir from Vietnam. “Winter in the Himalayas, bro. The Mother Goddess is angry.” “EBC or bust!” he shouted and flipped over to continue napping on the concrete floor. His tattoo peeked out from under his shirt: Strong and faithful in war. Days later, high above Lukla, I realized just how angry the Mother Goddess of the Mountain was. I spent much time critically evaluating my headache – was it a brain aneurysm or was my wool cap just too tight? The tapping of poles on icy rocks and the soft swish of puffy down jackets and Patrick's laboured breathing behind me were occasional distractions. We plodded up and down the dusty “Nepali flat” trail, alongside the milky, glacier-fed river where Pat built inukshuks, through stands of blue pine and tart juniper, past sun-faded, white-painted mani stones and snapping strings of prayer flags. I ate Mars bars smuggled across Tibetan passes and watched how my silent brother entered every town. Despite sterile dzo lingering in fields and anorectic roosters hunting under rhododendron bushes, towns reminded him of the village where an IED killed his section commander. I couldn’t tell if anticipation or the effects of being at 4620 metres increased his pulse. “Everything is harder this high,” he declared the night before EBC. “Even eating.” Then he narrated the on-going problems with his GI tract and tried to convince the American he didn’t have pneumonia. I drank mint tea with Wendy. On New Years, we’d shared Tim Tam Slams; her boyfriend Peter had hauled the biscuits from their dental school in Australia and that - I thought at the time - was true love. “84%.” I stared at the pulse oximeter on my finger. “Not bad.” My chest tightness was due to thin air then, not water on my lungs. Sleep was elusive; even expired codeine couldn’t reduce the band of tightness behind my eyes. I laid in bed counting Pat’s laboured breaths and the length of the silences between them. At one point, I wondered idly if he regretted telling everyone just two days ago that “Diamox is for pussies”. “Shea,” he said at 0400, pulling on his third pair of wool socks, “I hate you.” He told me again once fully dressed. It seemed fair. Standing in the common room, where wind had pushed drifts beneath the entrance, he said, “This seems like a terrible idea.” He loosened and tightened the straps of his pack rhythmically. “There’s a foot of snow on the trail and we’re first out the door?” He knew risk. During the winter of 2009, he’d led an Afghan infantry section through the poppy fields of Maywand province. At several points on the hike, I felt like parts of him had never left. The only light came from our headlamps and the waxing gibbous moon. The guide broke trail through a foot of new snow along the ridge of the Khumbu Glacier's lateral moraine wearing desert combat boots and aviator shades. As the lightening sky revealed clouds ahead and behind, I turned to Pat and said, “I hate myself too.” This was like war, moving toward certain danger against your better judgement. Disappointment and relief warred within me when our guide made the executive decision to turn us around after an hour. Heads bowed, we plodded back. “Head goes up, feet stop.” This was both gentle encouragement and mocking admonishment from the trail guides on the first day. I lifted my head only when pausing to take a photo or answer a shy namaste or turn a prayer wheel. “Three times to purify your soul,” one boy instructed me, seeing my cracked fingers pause next to the burnished metal cylinder. I hadn’t thought my soul that dirty, but I did love two too many married men and so I turned every wheel. Clockwise, of course, to not anger the gods. *Sometimes a local connection is someone you used to know.