Pangboche - pride and remorse

Woke up at 0600 and left Namche at 0830. Coffee with Nima and Suren, the last warmth before the grind. Then the long slow crawl uphill with the fat herd of tourists. Alvaro groaning already. I longed for silence and pace. Thirty minutes stuck behind yaks and doddling fat bodies shuffling uphill with blank faces and bags carried by men half their size. Something inside me just snapped. I could not stand watching able bodied, fighting aged men and women letting Sherpa porters carry their loads while they still couldn’t put one foot in front of the other with any conviction. It filled me with anger I didn’t want to admit was there. My legs sped up. I broke free.

I left Alvaro behind. Abandoned him really. Told myself I needed speed, clarity, solitude. Truth is, I wanted to outrun myself. I wanted the mountain to strip me clean. I wanted to feel something pure even if I had to leave a friend behind to get it.

The trail opened up. The climb to Tengboche hit hard but clean. My lungs burned and the silence pressed into my skull. For the first time in days I felt awake. Alive. Useful. My head cleared. The blood in my legs felt electric. I reached Tengboche before lunch.

Tengboche feels older than the mountains around it, even though it is barely a century old. Prayer flags snapping in the wind, carved dragons curling around the doors, the whole place balanced perfectly on a grassy ridge as if placed there by something other than human hands. Ama Dablam, Everest, Lhotse, Thamserku, Kangtega, all standing around it like guardians. You hear the prayer wheels before you see the monastery. You feel the quiet before you understand it. Tengboche anchors the valley. It doesn’t explain itself. It doesn’t need to.

I met a monk called Loma at the entrance. Thirty something, bright white smile against a sunworn face. He offered me fruit and let me meditate in the main hall. I tried. Kate rose up. Cancer. The journey. All the failures. All the guilt. All the thoughts I pretend don’t live inside me. My mind cracked open. I cried, quietly, forehead pressed into my hands. When the tears dried I felt lighter, legs ready to move again.

The clag swallowed the trail to Pangboche. The mountains hid themselves like gods pulling a curtain. I reached the village in around seven hours, Tengboche still echoing inside me.

At the tea house I met Rai, a retired Gurkha sergeant major. Twenty seven years in the service. Shoulders like a house, voice soft like a confession. We traded stories like old soldiers do. He told me he had attempted Lobuche East only days earlier but had turned back before the summit, heart struggling. He laughed about it. No shame. Just honesty. That humility hit me harder than any altitude. It made me want the summit more, not less. I wanted to earn it. I wanted to measure myself against something bigger than my own bullshit.

Night crept in. A group of Iranian trekkers arrived, loud voices, tired jokes. One of them had two prosthetic legs and was surrounded by his friends. At first I admired him. Then he started bragging about his Instagram followers, desperate to show me his account, his numbers. Something bitter flared in me. I hated it. Hated him for it. And hated myself because I knew the bitterness wasn’t clean. It wasn’t righteous. There was jealousy in it. Shame too. Because even here in the Khumbu, even at altitude, even surrounded by gods and silence, the idea of being seen still got under my skin. I judged him because I recognised myself in him. That hurt. That’s the truth.

I needed to get away from humanity before I said something unkind. So I climbed higher for the evening. Climb high, sleep low. A rule drilled into me years ago by some drunken senior officer in some forgotten mess hall. The wind bit. The boots crunched rhythmically. At a small monastery at 4400 metres I found quiet again. I meditated but my mind was wild. When I came back down, a pack of village dogs settled around me. Two big mastiffs pressed against my sides, one licking my ear like an old friend. Their calm was better company than anything else that day. We sat there on the rock, looking at the valley below as the sun collapsed behind Ama Dablam and the world widened for a brief moment.

By the time darkness took the valley, Alvaro arrived, escorted by Baboo and a client. I felt the judgment before they said a word. I could feel my own ego scrambling to defend itself, building excuses, wrapping them around me like a cloak. It did not work. A part of me knew I had fucked up, but I was not ready to admit it out loud.

The next morning the walk to Dingboche was easy. Two hours alone on an empty trail. I walked beside a porter half my size carrying twice my body weight on his forehead strap. Quiet dignity. No complaints. No drama. He made my self importance feel ridiculous.

Dingboche was meant to be acclimatisation. Climb to 5000 metres, sleep low. I found shelter at Mima’s place, Nima’s aunt. Fierce, proud Sherpa woman in her forties with eyes like sharpened obsidian. Within minutes of talking she decided I would climb Lobuche East. She found me a guide, crampons, ropes, her husband’s down trousers, and a helmet. She laid the whole plan out like it was obvious. I would go to EBC with Alvaro, acclimatise, drop down fast, meet the guide, summit, run back to Namche in one day. Something inside me clicked into place. The ego that had been thrashing around finally went quiet. I felt at peace with staying by Alvaro’s side for now. Enough selfishness.

I went up the acclimatisation trail with no backpack, just food and water stuffed into my pockets. The track narrowed and steepened to 5084 metres. At the top I sat alone above the clouds. On the way down I found a small alcove of rocks and meditated. That was when the thought returned. The one I try to outrun. Since leaving Kate she had healed. She remarried. She found joy again. And then the darker question. Had I been the weight that kept her ill. Had I been the cause. Did my leaving free her. The guilt came like a punch. I cried again. The mountains do not let you hide from yourself.

By the time I got back, Alvaro was cooked and already asleep. I wandered the village and found a café serving oat mocha lattes. A fat middle aged tourist asking for gluten free milk. Loud scientists arguing about something pointless. Swedes, Israelis, the whole circus. No Nepalis inside. It felt like West London had dropped itself into the Himalayas. The wilderness I wanted slipping through my fingers.

I walked out and returned to Mima’s hostel.