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Penn State Beaver Roar
Features
December 2013
Student treks to Mt. Everest base camp Mike Brayack
Senior Staff Writer mib5566@psu.edu
Imagine this scenario. For days, you have been trekking higher and higher through the mountains of the Himalayas with your companions, the air getting thinner and thinner with the rise in altitude. Each day, you wake at 6 a.m., have a meager breakfast and then, aside from an equally meager lunch, you hike until you are too exhausted to move. Yet for that day of herculean effort, you only gain 2,000 feet of elevation. Why? Because you had to go 800 feet down to find a way forward. For four months, you have prepared your body for this, walking, hiking or running 15 miles per day. Now you realize you did not prepare nearly enough. You are sick from unclean water. By the end of your month-long trip, you will have lost 40 pounds and you will require antibiotics for two months after. However, in the distance, you can see Mt. Everest rising above you, beckoning. And you know that it is worth it. For senior psychology student Brandon Cahall, 40, this scenario was more than idle fantasy: It was a reality. In May 2012, Cahall and two friends, Chuck Jesky and Pete Friday, along with a small group of others, trekked to the South Base Camp of Mt. Everest in Nepal. The South Base Camp sits at an altitude of 17,598 feet and is a rudimentary campsite used by those seeking to climb Mt. Everest itself. Jesky’s and Friday’s motivation for the excursion was the extreme nature of the hike, said Cahall. But for him, the trip was also a pseudopilgrimage: Nepal is the birthplace of Buddhism. Cahall said that though he does not know enough about Buddhism to consider himself a Buddhist, he does find the principles both
interesting and appealing. Along the way to the Base Camp, Cahall and his group stopped at a few villages and towns. At those places, Cahall visited the small Buddhist temples. “They might have 10 or 15 monks who live there and have never left, having lived there their whole lives,” said Cahall. Much of the time for the trip was spent traveling through the mountains, where the temperature would “feel like 60s” during the day before plunging at night, said Cahall. After the day’s trek, camp would be made and the dogs would arrive as usual. “They wouldn’t beg; they would just bark all night and then follow you for a little while the next day before stopping,” said Jesky. One of the local guides told Jesky that Americans say the dogs keep them up all night, but people like him can’t sleep if the dogs stop because the barking keeps evil away. “It was almost like they were protecting you,” said Jesky. Eventually, the group arrived at their destination, the South Base Camp. Due to the season, there were no other climbers. “It was desolate,” said Cahall. “You wouldn’t even know what it was by looking at it.” Though at that point Mt. Everest looked close enough to be an achievable goal, Cahall knew that was misleading. The true dangers of the climb would still be ahead and were not something their group had planned, prepared or paid for. Going any further up the mountain would have required a more expensive permit. Getting to the camp was challenge enough, Cahall said. “I’m very proud I could do it. It was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” said Cahall. Not all the excitement of the trip happened outside of civilization. Before heading out into the wilderness the group spent five days in Kathmandu, the capital and largest
Pete Friday, Brandon Cahall, the Sherpa guide and Chuck Jesky arrive at the South Base Camp at Mt. Eve
city of Nepal. At the time of their stay, Nepal was in the midst of political unrest, with protests and shutdowns taking place in the city. Cahall and Jesky were on a rickshaw during such a shutdown. When the man pulling the rickshaw encountered a group of protesters, he abandoned both the cart and his clients, leaving them to face the crowd alone. By taking clients, the rickshaw driver had broken the rules of the shutdown. One man came out of the crowd with a knife and cut the rickshaw’s tires. Then he turned to Cahall and Jesky and asked where they were from. “I told him ‘We’re Americans,’ and he said ‘Don’t you worry; this will be OK,’” said Jesky.
Americans are popular in Nepal because of money they provide, Jesky said. “Americans are the best tippers in the world.” The group’s time in the city also gave insight into difficulties beyond politics faced by the people of Nepal, even in urban areas. Only 40 percent of the Nepalese have access to electricity. And even those connected do not have constant access due to power shortages. “At our hotel they would provide power for three hours per day. All the people were so grateful, but all the tourists and Westerners were like, ‘Wait, you mean there’s no air conditioning for these other 21 hours?” said Cahall. The time spent trekking was an even deeper lesson in lifestyle differences.
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