Defeated by the weather Gods

Sometimes you give it your best shot and it just doesn't work out. But hey, it's not the end of the world and it's all in the journey, right? Or as Jan Wenner said in Rolling Stone towards the end of the '60s: "What a long, strange trip it has been."
Ditto for what I've experienced here in remote Nepal for the past three weeks, culminating in my "assault," if you can call it that, on Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar, a rocky ridge about 1,500 feet above Base Camp, which offers an awe-inspiring view of the world's highest mountain and other great Himalayan peaks like Lhotse, Nuptse and the lower, but ever so much sleeker, ice tower known as Ama Dablam (Mother and Child in the Tibetan language).
Damn! Or should that be "darn" in a family newspaper?
Whatever the case, I was able to defeat altitude sickness quite easily -- though above 15,000 feet, I started gasping for air at night. My legs were able to surmount the incredible ups and downs along the way -- up a 1,500-foot headwall, up and then down almost the same amount only to climb another. I managed to keep my upward focus while walking through an incredible rhododendron forest in dazzling bloom, monasteries like the one at Tengboche that must have been the inspiration for James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" with its fictional account of the mythical, utopian Shangri-La, and the Sherpa children coming home from school in their colourful and scrupulously clean school uniforms. What an inspiration for students here! But most of all the mountains.
Much like the Rockies, admittedly, but you've got to add 20,000 feet. And it's not just that they're so high. Many of them start in almost jungle conditions at their feet (Nepal is further south than Miami) and then they lunge themselves at the sky through conifer forests below and great spires of speckled granite above, ending in jagged, knife-edged ridges from which greats blocks of ice and snowy white cornices cling. Something like Fisher and the Steeples overlooking Cranbrook (Fisher in its shape has been called a miniature Everest). But don't forget to add that 20,000 feet! It's on such a grand scale that there were times I was literally rubbing my eyes and my ever-accommodating guide Gopal had to keep saying, "Mr. Sir, we have three hours to go today." But, if nothing else, I'm a slave to my camera and pictures had to be taken.
The first time I choked up was when we did a high ridge walk to a Buddhist stupa (shrine) festooned with multi-coloured prayer flags rippling in the always stiff breeze looking straight across at Ama Dablam, which towered over us like a giant Yeti with an ice wall that I couldn't even imagine climbing. It is considered a far more spectacular mountain than Everest itself and much more difficult to climb even though its "only" 22,000 feet. It was just too much. The last time I got that kind of rush of adrenalin was when I was in Zermatt 40 years ago and got my first look straight up from the youth hostel at the mighty Matterhorn looming over town.
What helped drive this almost spiritual experience was clear, sunny, almost cloudless skies on the way in. I was sunburned the first day and couldn't wear my shorts anymore but it was still cool at nights with the Sherpa farmers only beginning to plant their crops of potatoes, wheat and greens. But as we got further and higher up the Khumbu Valley the weather began to break down. Soon the Great Peaks disappeared and by the time we got to Lobuche at 16,200 feet the landscape was enveloped in dark,heavy clouds that seemed intent on making the mountains disappear. Gopal dragged me up the lateral moraine of the Great Khumbu Glacier that spills down from the Western Cwym of Everest itself; because it's a constantly moving river of giant seracs (ice blocks), it has killed almost as many climbers as Everest itself. From this vantage point at 16,400 feet, according to my GPS, I could see some of the tents at base camp about a four-hour walk away. That was as close as I got.
That night snow started spitting out of those malevolent clouds and we soon realized it wasn't meant to be. An early monsoon front was coming through and the forecast was for three more days of inauspicious weather. I don't know what Dan Mills would have done in this situation but if I can't take pics, especially in a place like this, it's an existential crisis.
We got up the next morning to a three-inch blanket of snow and visibility of about 200 feet. If you try hard enough in life, you can defeat a lot of things, but not the Weather Gods.
So we turned back. But am I disappointed? How can I be when I just went, unscathed, through one of the great experiences of my life. And I look forward to showing all of you the best of my pics when I put on a digital slide show for the Cranbrook Public Library this fall. See you there.
Gerry Warner emailed this report from Namche Bazaar, Nepal.