Dingboche Nepal
2:44pm
Today is a rest day in Dinboche. We now sit at 14,500 feet! We have been instructed to rest today and not push our bodies up to a higher altitude for fear of altitude sickness. The risks are high and AMS (acute mountain sickness) is a looming possible reality that threatens us every moment we spend above this altitude.
After 14,000 feet is when most people begin to get sick. Acute mountain sickness can progress to high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) or high altitude cerebral edema (HACE). High altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) is a life-threatening form of fluid accumulation in the lungs. High altitude cerebral edema (or HACE) is a frequently fatal form of altitude sickness. HACE is the result of swelling of brain tissue from fluid leakage. Symptoms can include headache, loss of coordination, disorientation, loss of memory, hallucinations, irrational behavior, and coma. It is so hard to tell if your morning headache is just a culmination of your surroundings and hard trekking or if it is really AMS. Everyone up here is worried about this, death is a very real and likely reality if you do get AMS and do not quickly recognize it and return to a lower altitude. The pressure of being able to be clear headed and understand your body is incredible, as we step closer and closer to Everest I can feel it growing and growing. So far the altitude medication is working, I have had no symptoms and neither has John.. but it is a constant worry always in the front of your mind.
So today we rest our lungs and brains and hope they get adjusted to their new high surroundings! I am still blown away that we are 10,000 higher than our 4,500 home in SLC. Yesterday we walked out of Tengboche, away from the monastery and its monks prayers and into forests of paper bark birches and huge rhododendron trees. With every step we walk further from flora and closer to wind, rocks and glaciers. We are above the timberline now and the environment is harsh, unforgiving and unwelcoming. Dingboche is a very small little village of less than 200 people. I can't help but wonder what it would be like to be born here, live here, love here, grow and develop here. Life is so so different here from our little life in the states - they must think the same about us..wonder.
Today John and I washed a few of our very very dirty clothes. There are no washing machines up here, so the lodge owner gave us one large bowl filled with hot boiled water and one smaller bowl with cold water. Although I did learn my "plunge and scrub" technique from the movie Far and Away, I must admit some deeply rooted instinctual subconscious led me to know exactly how to hand wash clothes. Maybe it is the pioneer roots I always hear about that are in me somewhere deep deep down; but for me to be out under the Himalayan sun plunging and scrubbing seemed strangely natural. That is not to say however, that I will not also hug my washer and dryer as soon as I get home.
Today John and I went on a hike into the foothills around Dingboche without Lhapka (which never happens). Lhapka told us where to go and watched us leave the lodge and head into the foothills. After a lovely 1 1/2 hour walk we got back to the lodge and hung out before we went to lunch at 1pm. When we walked into the dining room, Lhapka was nowhere to be found. This was very strange as Lhakpa never EVER leaves our side. So we ordered our lunch (which by tradition is done by the guide) and we waited for our guide. After about half an hour I began to get worried, where was Lapka? His disappearance was so out of character! Finally a little while later I see out the window in the far distance, Lhapka running down one of the foothills across the field, into the gate and burst into the dining room with a sick look on his face. Apparently he had been out searching for us thinking we were lost! He was so worked up that when he realized we were ok he turned around walked outside into the sun and fell onto a mat and passed out. He has been asleep ever since. I feel bad we worried him so!
We have been in the mountains now for 9 days. I have not showered, washed my hair or shaved my legs or pits for 9 whole days! We have 10 more days to go on the mountain! I must admit that today I am frustrated! I want to get to our goal points! Being stuck acclimating here in this village makes me begin to squirm and get antsy! I can feel the thin oxygen in my lungs! Being inside our tiny little room makes me feel like I need to get out! Would it be awful today to say that I want to go home? Only today, just for today, I want to go home! Tomorrow when we begin walking I know I will get back on track and be highly energetic to continue our climb.. but today, my allergic reaction rash is very painful, I am tired of the food, the hole, my uncomfortable bed..today I want to go home. Enough is enough! Tomorrow will be better. Everest is so close that we can't even see it. We know it is there and looming.. just invisible. We are so close and yet so far away!
Tomorrow we go to Loboche for the night and then we climb to our last (and highest) village, Gorek Shep.
more soon..
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