10-5-19 - Mount Everest!!!!!!

Day 112. Kyle & Leanne joint blog.

We are up at 5:30 am in order to catch the sunrise over Mount Everest and the Himalayas at the Qomolagma mountain pass. We are all bundled up and prepared for the coldest weather of the trip. Kyle and Leanne are incredibly thankful to Justin and Corey who last night gave us their comfortable beds to spare our middle aged backs and taking our concrete beds. 

It takes about an hour to get to the mountain passes but it includes about 100 hairpin switchback turns in the pitch black.  After the 40th hair raising switchback, Leanne wonders aloud if this sunrise plan was a good idea.  In the dark, you can’t see what’s coming at you on the other side of the road so at least Kyle doesn’t have to squeeze his eyes shut.

But then we reach the top of the mountain pass and we all are amazed by the beautiful vistas overlooking Mount Everest and the Himalayas while we are at 17,000 feet ourselves.  As the sun rises, the light patterns and reflections on the clouds and mountains change making for incredible pictures. After a while, the kids pile back into the van while Kyle and Leanne can’t tear themselves away from the viewpoint even after 45 minutes of photo taking. 

The view from the mountain pass is still across the valley from the actual Himalayas. So to get the closest view of Mount Everest possible for non-mountaineers, we head to Rongbuk monastery right outside Everest Base Camp on the Tibet side. We park and take an Eco friendly bus that takes us all as close as we can get. When we emerge from the bus we see a thick cloud layer that is completely blocking any view of Mount Everest, we mean completely and utterly fogged in.  We immediately flash back to Mount Fuji in Tokyo back in July when the same thing happened.  At least Mount Fuji was only an hour bus ride vs a three day hellish sojourn. 

Disappoint courses over us in waves.  To make matters worse, the kids make it clear that they are not planning to spend the day at 16,500 feet staring at a fog bank.  Attempts to use the bathroom (which is more of a hole in the floor) are aborted due to the lack of running water and strong odor.  The kids are looking accusingly at Kyle with the look that says “so it was your brilliant idea to spend three days of hell in a van with no food and bathrooms so we can see a gigantic cloud?”  Kyle is considering hiding in the outhouse despite the smell.  The kids start demanding that we get back on the eco-bus and go back to our Tingri hotel so they can use the western toilets and go back to sleep.

“Well, we’re here, so let’s at least go see the Rongbuk monastery,” Kyle suggests. Some kids boycott and plop right down in the courtyard while some of us venture in.  Leanne grabs a photo with a Buddhist monk after obtaining the required permission from him.  Inside the monastery, Kyle jokingly asks Bemba where the Buddhist statue of clear skies and no clouds resides.

After twenty minutes in the monastery, we emerge to crystal clear blue skies, not a cloud in site and behold the majestic Mount Everest sitting right there in front of us.  Kyle’s joking aside, we conclude that we have just experienced a Buddhist miracle on Mount Everest.

In the blink of an eye, the three day journey, hospital visits and oxygen-deprived headaches from the altitude are all instantly justified as we look out on one of, if not the, most spectacular displays of natural beauty any of us has witnessed in our entire lives.  We stand in awe of our second Natural Wonder of the Modern World (Great Barrier Reef being the first) but we expect this one will most likely be the most impressive one of the seven natural wonders on the list.

We hike down the road to the base of the mountain as far as we can go, taking photos as fast as our iPhones we will click. We get some great shots of the world’s tallest mountain and could have stayed there all day but after a couple hours of absorbing the scene, we head back to Tingri to rest up for the big drive towards Nepal tomorrow. Just one more day of altitude.  Yes! 

In the category of some things happen for a reason, we reflect on our decision to stay in Shigatse an extra day and go to the hospital.  Per the original schedule, we were supposed to stay overnight at the Rongbuk Monastery’s guest house. Leanne was originally a bit disappointed we had to make the change until we all saw the tent accommodations with no running, outhouses with holes in the floor and 24 hours at 16,500 elevation. With us all a bit under the weather, the original schedule would have been a train wreck. Yes, some things happen for a reason.