July Poetry, Day 12 – Dante Ocariz

Tonight we take a little walk on the wildside and get into to the outlaw poetry world with a piece that’s right in your face by Dante Ocariz and a photo by and of yours truly ZD Blue from the Khumbu Valley of the Himalayas, enjoy! ~ ZD Blue

Photo by Z Deacon Blue

I hate to tell you but…

Dante Ocariz

Help is not coming.
You were sold a great line of soap.
And you still can’t afford the water or the gas.

You’re now sharing the front page
with a flu pandemic
and the face masks have made the general population
easier on the eyes.

the groceries have gone bad

the bullet
was really meant for you.

And if you survive this next round of lay-offs
the pay cut will be such
that the only sushi you can afford will be canned tuna
served over a soiled maxi pad.

One thing I learned from all those wasted days in porno arcades:
There are really only
two types of people in the world.
Those who take it in the ass
and those who take it on the face.
But in the end
they all must finish
with a smile.

Himalayan Travelogue Part 14 – Namche Reunion, Back to Lukla

Had a great night sleep in Namche, woke up and took my morning constitutional on an honest to goodness sit down toilet, ah the joys in life we take for granted on a daily basis.  Fantastic breakfast and with my back still a bit sore and finally tired of walking I decided not to go up to Thame to meet the group and instead spent the day in Namche.  I walked around the town for the day, did a little shopping and looked at some amazing Thankas (religious paintings), did some internet, sat in the sun and ate apple pie at the Everest Bakery, damn good apple pie.

The rest of our group came in that night and it was a raucous and emotional reunion, we ate a lot, we drank a lot, and general relaxed.  It was also starting to set in that we would be leaving each other soon, people were tired and emotions frayed, so like any good family party people were on edge.  Over the last three weeks we had become a family in some sense of the word, we’d bonded over hard work and high altitude and had gotten very close.  Like every family however, you had your obnoxious loud cousin, the weird family members, the quiet ones, the mom – I can see all of my former companions reading this and trying to figure out who I thought was who.  We’d been living together for three weeks and that brings with it all of the positives and all of the negatives.  However what I will say is that in doing these sorts of adventures, I’ve noticed that the people who show up to these things are typically a little easier to get along with than the general population.  I do not like to be part of groups as a general rule but anybody willing to pay to walk up mountains and used squat toilets for a couple of weeks has an adventurous nature and those folks are always easier to get along with, our group was no exception.  In our group, after we picked up a couple of stragglers, including scientists, teachers, computer programmers, business people and a doctor.  The countries represented included the United States, France, Hungary and Slovenia a pretty diverse group.  The age range and I’m guessing a little bit here, ranged from late 20’s to the early 60’s and every shape and size, this diversity provided for great conversation and a full rewriting of the Slovenian National Anthem.

Our Group

The morning after our Namche reunion we walked down to Phakding, on the website for Project Himalaya it says this walk we came up two weeks before will seem remarkably easy and quick and it was true.  It really is amazing after two weeks in the high country how much easier it was to walk at 10,000 feet and lower.  We spent the night at a lodge in Phakding eating popcorn and watching Bollywood music videos.  The next morning we were off to Lukla.

The next morning uncharacteristically I was one of the first people to be ready and I set off down the trail toward Lukla.  I was the second person out and was wondering down the trail looking at some of the amazing Mani Walls in the areas:

Mani Wall

Some of the beautiful homes and gardens:

The Little Bridge

I was even stopped for awhile so that a train of mules essentially could go through, and at times stopped to let some of the unbelievable porters to come through:

10 Sheets of plywood on their backs

Porter with a 4 foot high load

The porters are absolutely amazing, small men by American standards, thin, wearing sneakers and sometimes even sandals and they are carrying crazy loads from 9000 to sometimes 15, 16, or 17,000 feet.  I saw porters who were carrying five foot high stacks of can goods, with ten sheets of plywood (the picture above) and the most amazing, a five foot man carrying eight, seven-foot long pieces of rebar.  The rebar was so long that he had to go backwards downhill, the same downhills I was carefully picking my way down with trekking poles.  Effectively the porters and Sherpas of the Khumbu are supermen.

Now one of the questions I often get was aren’t you afraid you’ll get lost and I always said no, the trails are fairly obvious and they were.  Particularly on the way to Lukla, it’s a trail, mostly stone covered that thousands of people walk daily.  Of course, this was the day I got lost.  It was a short detour, I missed a turn around a little school and instead went off along the river.   The trail kept getting narrower and I stopped seeing people come the other way so I realized pretty quickly I’d gone the wrong way.  It was a nice little diversion down a quiet part of the valley and I was happy for the mistake.

I backtracked to the trail and ended up coming up behind the group and freaking people out as they were all sure I was up ahead of them.  We walked leisurely that day, stopped for tea on a highpoint and enjoyed the sun.  There was one last hill to climb and then we entered Lukla a full circle in the Himalayas

Gateway to Lukla

We dropped down through the village and stayed at the lodge next to the airport and settled in for lunch, it was Thanksgiving Day back in the states but there was no turkey on the menu in Lukla.  I was hungry and so I decided to order the sizzling Yak platter and when it came out steaming and sizzling I was the envy of the lunch crowd.  We spent the day in Lukla picking up souvenirs, catching up with the world on the internet and then me, Mark and Tom decided to have a beer at the Everest Rock Bar.  It was a fabulous little place, just us and the bartender who I’m sure thought we were nuts, we drank, we laughed and listened to the same loop of music over and over and it was wonderful.  The girl who hiked in a skirt and her boyfriend even stuck their head into the bar in a nice little coincidence and said hi.  It was a good afternoon.

The Everest Rock Bar - Lukla

That night was Thanksgiving Dinner, our last night party, we bought a box of wine and we all ordered the sizzling Yak, within minutes of our dinners coming out the steam had fogged up the entire lodge and they were opening windows.  The other groups in the lodge, Italians and Japanese couldn’t stop watching our table.  We were happy and rowdy and then it happened, perhaps the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.  One of the add-ons to our group, Chris had gone to an international nursery school as a small child and had learned a Japanese Nursery Rhyme.  Suddenly, with no warning Chris leaped up and burst out in full Japanese song mode and started dancing and singing the rhyme.  Some of the older Japanese ladies jumped up out of their chairs and joined right in, it was madness as the other Japanese trekkers went for their phones to video the whole affair.  Every once-in-awhile I search YouTube hoping someone has posted it, the search continues.  A late night and lots of drinking would be followed by an early flight to Kathmandu.  As I was nodding off Philippe came into the room and proceeded to spontaneously launch into a flying Tatanka massage.  Nothing like being half-awake, buzzed and having a 250 pound flying Frenchman land on you full force to give you a full body Tatanka massage.  After my screaming stopped I heard lots of laughter from the other rooms of my mates.  I would sleep with one eye open for the rest of the night.

Himalayan Travelogue Part 11 – In the land of Na and Gokyo

The morning was spent making the trek back down from Dingboche to Phortse, retracing our steps once again to meet up with my little beard pulling friend.  A nice night back in Phortse but the lodge is crowded, the snow has created some log jams both going up and coming down the trails.  Being at a lower altitude feels amazing especially when just days before this was the thin air we were getting used to.

The next morning we said goodbye to one of our group who was sick and would be heading down to Namche and then the rest of us hit the trail moving up again.  The trail to Na was by far my most difficult trail of the entire trek.  I don’t like exposed trails, I mentioned that earlier, and on the trail to Na we spent a very large portion of our seven hours of walking on the edge of about a 1000 foot drop off, with the trail winding out around outcroppings and the conversation for most of the day unfortunately centering on the guy who disappeared on this trail the year before.  The physical part of the walk was not an issue, it was the mental drain of having to focus so intensely on where to put foot after foot after foot.  By the time we reached the river drainage that led up to the lodge at Na I was spent, the last half hour was a long slow slog.  The high point of the day as well as the most embarrassing moment was watching a 50-something grandmother come up over mountain trails carrying her 4-year-old grandson and moving at least as fast as I was, it put things into perspective.

The lodge at Na was a bit of a throwback to old trekking days, the outhouse was well outside of the lodge and a good distance away, the Yak dung stove smoked up the lodge and the rooms were chilly and our Yaks were huddled up against the wall under our window.  However like the rest of the region it was beautiful, the shot below is the trail coming up the valley:

Trail to Na

We lit out of Na, across the river and started upward again toward the Gokyo Valley, saw what were quite possibly snow leopard prints in the snow, very cool.  We took a rest stop at the entrance to the Gokyo Valley on a little bridge over a raging river.  I had been looking forward to seeing the valley, there are five sacred lakes in the Gokyo Valley and we quickly came upon the first.  It looked  a bit like a damned up wide spot in the river but was absolutely beautiful set against the snow.  A little further up the valley we came to the second lake and it was magnificent, the lake is long and over a 100 feet deep.  Looking back down the valley from the head of the lake and my favorite peak was gleaming in the sun, this instantly became my favorite spot in Nepal.

My favorite spot in the Himalayas

We spent a little time resting by the shore of the lake and then made our way up to Gokyo and the third lake.  The first view of Gokyo (15,700 ft) was awesome:

Village of Gokyo

The third lake was like a small Lake Tahoe set in the Himalayas, the lodge we were staying at sat up over it with a magnificent view and had attached with it the outhouse with the best view in the world:

Outhouse with the best view in the world

The lakes as I mentioned were sacred lakes so there is no one on or in the lake in any way.  The lakes remain perfect and calm framed against the snow-covered shores of Gokyo Ri (17,585) and in the shadow of Cho Oyu one of the world’s highest mountains at 26,900 feet and pictured below:

Cho Oyu - 26,906 ft

We had a rest day in Gokyo and I spent the day shooting, here’s a sampling enjoy:

Rock piles on the shore of first Gokyo Lake

 

Gokyo first lake

 

Gokyo Lake Reflection 1

Gokyo Lake Mani Wall

 

Gokyo Lake Reflection 2

 

Gokyo Lake Reflection 3

Himalayan Travelogue Part 7 – Higher than I’ve ever been

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.  ~Lao Tzu

We headed out of Namche on what passes for flat in the Himalayas, this then led to a climb, a very long climb up to Mong La on the top of a mountain for lunch (12,795 ft) this was the highest elevation I’d ever achieved and it felt great.  I needed the rest at that point and we had a leisurely lunch.  Then it was down, down, down to the river and then up a really magnificent hill to Phortse at 12,400 ft and a really great lodge.  My favorite part of the lodge was the owner’s grandson who was a bit of an urchin and who was utterly fascinated by my beard which he proceeded to try and pull off of my face. 

Himalayan Beard Pull - photo credit Mark Laws

Also had my first experience with an Asian squat toilet, they’re hell on the legs, must be one of the reasons the locals have such strong legs.

Asian Squat Toilet

The next morning I made the mistake of running up the stairs and suddenly felt lightheaded, so I grabbed my pack and went outside to try and get my breath back and feel a bit better.  About 10 minutes later one of our guides, Lhakpa, comes jogging around the back of the lodge to get me, the group was already well up the mountain ahead of us.  The adrenaline burst took my mind off how I felt and I slowly climbed my way back to the group.

We spent the rest of the day on exposed trails heading to Pangboche, a really difficult day hiking for me as I started out feeling off and running late.  Plus exposed trails really wear me out mentally, not to mention that we ended the day at Pangboche (13,040 ft), and during the day on the hike we hit (13,500 ft)  my new highest point, a recurring theme for the next couple of weeks.

We’ve been passing a peak from different angles over the last couple of days and it is quickly becoming my favorite, it’s called, Khan Tiega and it is pictured below:

Khan Tiega in the Mist

Took a very cold shower in Pangboche and then walked out to take some shots of some truly magnificent vistas behind the lodge, an example below.

 

We would be doing an acclimatization day in Pangboche and the optional hike was to go to base camp for Ama Dablam, the mountain shown below.  The peak of Ama Dablam is over 22,000 ft and features a huge ice climb.

Ama Dablam

Upper base camp at Ama Dablam which we visited is at 14,800 ft, which is higher than any mountain in the continental United States, so I decided to go and here I was only a few days into my Himalayan experience standing at a point higher than anything in the continental US.  It was an accomplishment that hit me at the time, one I was proud of and also hit me because I was feeling the effects of the altitude and was happy to drop back down the 1500 ft back to Pangboche.

My actual notes for the day:

“It was cool to see base camp at Ama Dablam today with all of the tents set up.  Walking through the valleys it was amazing clouds, snow and 6-8000 meter peaks (20-26,000 ft) and so quiet, except for the sound of the occasional far off avalanche.”

Himalayan Travelogue Part 6 – Moonlight Lodge and the Yeti Skull

Today we start to go uphill, after doing some walking and crossing several suspension bridges we really started to climb, and at the two and a half hour mark we stopped at what I started calling a Himalaya Rest Stop, where several local women were selling fruit to the trekkers.  I was excited to make friends with one of the ladies and buy the “last banana” at least the last one until we were up the trail I’m sure.  The stop had a much bigger significance however, it was the first spot where we had a view of Mt. Everest. 

Woman who sold me the last banana

 

First View of Everest

As the day closed we arrived at Namche Bazaar (11,315 ft) essentially a giant swap meet in the middle of the mountains.  Namche is the place where Tibetans who have walked over the mountains, often in sneakers, come to sell their wares.   The village also has internet shops, bakeries and most importantly hot showers and the last sit down toilets on the trail.

Getting to Namche was great and I was thankful for an acclimatization day the next day as I wasn’t feeling great, but then again, 11,000 feet, a tough day walking and a bit of sunburn will do that to you.

The next morning has me very excited, I’m a big believer in Bigfoot and its Himalayan cousin the Yeti, to the point that my brother and I produce a website related to this and related topics, www.dystopiantimes.com.  I’m excited because today we will visit a Gompa in Khumjung where they monks have a purported Yeti Skull.

Me and Stretch on the way to Khumjung

Acclimatization day does not mean rest day, in fact the goal is to go up a thousand feet or so and then come back down to sleep lower than you climbed.  We climbed up above Namche with amazing views in the clear November skies including Ama Dablam, Everest and Lhotse.  The crazy thing is way up here on the mountain at 12,000 feet we came across a dirt airstrip and actually got to see a plane take off, it was wild.

We walked to Khunde for lunch and visited one of the mountain health clinics and then the big attraction for the day, the Khumjung Gompa and the Yeti Skull.  Arriving at the Gompa we had to make a donation to get the caretaker to open the case with the skull in it, but once he did we got to get up close to the small glass container that contained the skull.  Unfortunately the glass and the lack of light made getting a good shot almost impossible so here’s my best one below:

The Khumjung Monastery Yeti Skull

I’m a big fan of cryptids like the Yeti, but I’m also a scientist and the fact is the Khumjung skull is not a Yeti skull, it has been previously investigated and it turned out to not be the real deal, the link below can give you more information.

The history of the skull:

http://keithinnepal.blogspot.com/2007/12/yeti-skull.html

A link to a picture of Sir Edmund Hillary with the scalp and it’s debunking:

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/hillary-08/

All in all it was still a thrill to be in the land of the Yeti and be talking to people who truly believe in its existence.  Here’s a piece on another Yeti expedition to the Himalayas and some really interesting results:

http://www.dystopiantimes.com/content/tom-slick-expedition

On the way back to Namche we stopped and took some photos including my favorite one of me in the Himalayas and here it is.

 

Himalayan Travelogue Part 5 – Going To Lukla

We landed at the Kathmandu Airport (elevation – 4300 ft) with all of the associated crowds and insanity, standing in line to get our visas, customs, changing over money and then trying to find our connection and ride to the Kathmandu Guest House (KGH).  We did find our connection and a large crowd of gentlemen happy to help us with our bags for a tip of course.   The other thing that happened, of course, was we had to wait for another flight and other guests before going to the KGH.  While waiting we got familiar with all of the operations at the airport including the taxi line, and it became obvious that gas prices are high in Nepal as the taxi drivers were not willing to waste money idling.

Taxi line Khatmandu Airport

During the ride from the airport we would find out there was a general strike on, we saw marching crowds in the street and the traffic was unbelievable.  At one point our van driver actually leaned out fo the window and tried to push the vehicle next to us out-of-the-way.  Then suddenly traffic would part for a cow in the middle of the road, it is a Hindu country after all.  Finally we made it to the KGH, checked in and met our guide briefly, we were told when dinner would be and were left to relax and nap.  Eventually we crawled out to the dining area and met a couple of folks from our trek and sat down for a beer and a snack.  It felt good after traveling for two days to finally just sit and relax with nothing to do.  We had dinner at a place called the Road House, met the whole gang and got instructions for the next morning, a very early morning call for our flight to Lukla.  We did a quick bit of last-minute shopping, had a beer and crashed for the evening.

Up and out pre-dawn we piled our bags and ourselves barely into the van and made our way to the airport.  The airport was already bustling with other trekkers and we hustled through the ordinary madness of the airport morning to finally find ourselves waiting on the tarmac for our Yeti Airline’s twin engine otter to be ready to go.  It was a spectacular morning as the sun came up and gave us our first clear views of the big hills.

 

We boarded the plane, listened to the props start to fire up and a lovely tiny flight attendant in full uniform came through the cabin, I believe she actually sat on some of our luggage in the back the plane was so full.  She came through the cabin with a tray that contained cotton for earplugs and Japanese Melon candies, actually one of my favorite candies.  We rolled down the runway with the engines roaring and took off, flying the route to Lukla with the Himalayas out my window, it was truly spectacular and Lukla loomed in the distance.

Now let me tell you a little something about the Lukla airport, it is the exact minimum length an airport can be.  When you are landing in Lukla the runway ends with the vertical rock face of a mountain.  When you take off from Lukla, you take off downhill and the runway ends in a 1000 foot vertical drop off.  About 10 month before our journey a plane full of German trekkers had not quite made the take off and crashed in the valley.  We had been warned, this would be the most intense part of our trek and this is what I was thinking about, looking up through the aisle and out the window past our pilots to see the runway below us.  When you land in Lukla you come down to the runway at a desperate angle and can see the runway screaming at the windshield at what seems like an impossible speed.  You hit the ground violently and then you see the pilot literally jump on the breaks as the co-pilot drops the throttle and you start swerving back and forth as you fly up the runway.  Just as you think you are about to hit the face of the mountain the pilot whips a right turn and drives into the unloading zone.  If you don’t like to fly, don’t go trekking in the Himalayas, this was as intense flying experience. 

The link below has a perfect set of images of what the trip into Lukla  looks like:

http://delaheaven.blogspot.com/2010/07/tenzing-hillary-airport-lukla-adventure.html

It was both a joy and a relief to make it to Lukla (9350 ft), we ate a quick breakfast and hit the trail, our first day walking would effectively take us downhill with our first day ending in Monjo at (9300 ft).  We hiked for 5 hours at a calm pace and arrived at Kailash Lodge, a really nice place, albeit with a cranky hiker on his way back down, the lodge even included in-room hot showers.  One of the things that you hear before you trek is how horrible the conditions are going to be, smoky lodges with bad beds, no chance to shower, human fecal matter on the trail and terrifying wooden bridges across the gorges.  It’s not true for the most part, over my 22 days I saw only one small wooden bridge, only one slightly smoky lodge, enough showers to feel comfortable and absolutely no human waste on the trails.  The beds, well hell, you can’t complain about anything that can reasonably be called a bed, even if it is a wooden frame with a piece of foam for a mattress.

Here below are my exact thoughts that I wrote that afternoon as I made it to Kailash Lodge:

“It was beautiful all along the trail, big mountains, crazy blue rivers, yaks, shrines, paintings, the bridges are all steel cable so not nearly as terrifying as I expected.  Sherpas carrying insane loads, happy, dirty, crying and playing children, smiling people greet us, Namaste.”

A good meal, a shower, a snoring roommate and a surprisingly good night of sleep.

Himalayan Travelogue – Part 3, Welcome to Utah

Truly it may be said that the outside of a mountain is good for the inside of a man.  ~George Wherry, Alpine Notes and the Climbing Foot, 1896

I was fortunate enough during my time off to have access to my aunt’s cabin in Utah.  The beauty of that place is almost impossible to put into words, the sage brush, the clear air and the amazing sunsets with a flock of turkeys as my constant company.  There is a peace that pervades you out there that is hard to find anywhere else, I was blessed to have that for three months.  My schedule for the time there was perfect, get up, eat breakfast and drive over to Bryce Canyon National Park, spend four or five hours hiking and come home.  Eat, take a nice little nap, do some reading or work around the cabin, shoot the sunset, eat and the do some writing before bed.  Life the way it should be moving exactly at the correct pace.  I could spend time in this space today writing about all of the magnificent hiking trails and experiences I had there, but that isn’t the point of this piece, we’re on our way to the Himalayas and it’s time to get there.  So instead, from my three months in Utah, today I’ll give you nothing but images to tell the tale, enjoy.

My Aunt's Cabin

 

Navajo Queen Trail

 

My companions, "the girls"

 

 

Even Scientists Don’t Believe in Global Warming

“Even scientists don’t believe in global warming,” said this older woman to me today.  Well, that can’t be true I said because I’m a scientist and I know the world is warming.  She told me I was wrong she saw it on the news.  People, don’t get your science in 30 second sound bytes from CNN or Fox News, science is complicated and in fact it actually takes more than 30 seconds to explain a complex idea like global climate change.

Shallow thinking will kill us all.  Honestly folks I need some help on this, how do we get people to think deeper than a sound byte?  I think the reason newspapers are dying out is because they can get the written equivalent of sound bytes off of the web and not have to read any deeper, plus there’s a lot more celebrity gossip on the web.  I’ve even had some interesting comments about my blog, comments that were obviously made about nothing but the title of the post.  How do we get people to stop and consider the complexities of the world we live in?  I’m not sure we can, I’m a cynical bastard and honestly I don’t think people want to know, they just want to bitch.

The woman after she realized I vehemently disagreed with her and knew a bit about the topic decided to end the discussion by saying, “I guess it all comes down to which side of the (political) fence you’re on.”  I reminded her that science is not about political position but about data.  Every time I have a conversation like this I feel closer and closer to folks at NASA who have to put up with the whole, we didn’t go to the moon bullshit.

For those of you who want to argue the global warming idea you’re stupid.  The world is warming, that is a fact, look at mean global temperatures over the last 200 years they are increasing, no scientist who can read a graph can argue with that fact.  The argument is about how much of the increase is as a result of man’s actions.

Of course some people will still argue it’s not warming, I mean hell it snowed in Vegas the other day.  So my question would be if it isn’t warming why is the Antarctic Ice Sheet melting, why aren’t the seas in the arctic freezing the way they used to, why are mountain glaciers disappearing – have they gone on vacation?

Below is a link to some comparative photography using old photos with new photos taken from the same vantage point:

http://sites.asiasociety.org/riversofice/comparative-photography

Recently in the news you see things like oh the IPCC said the glaciers would melt by 2035 and they’ve had to retract that statement.  People jump on this to say, see global warming is bullshit.  In fact, the number 2035 was wrong, maybe it will be 2050, but having the year wrong doesn’t change the simple fact that they are melting.  Sometimes I think the human population deserves to die some horrible environmental death for being so damn thick-headed.  Happy New Year.