As usual, it was the best feeling in the world to actually and finally be walking toward Mount Everest. It is one of the peculiarities of this mountain that before one really gets down to heart and lungs and legs working to climb, one must talk for endless months about hearts and lungs and legs working on Mount Everest.

It only took me a few steps out of Base Camp to fully remember the difference between talking and doing. Doing is better. Headed straight south, I crunched my way through the loose rock and gravel that forms the Rongbuk Valley. Before long, I'd come to the beginning of the recognizable trail which forms up when travelers get squeezed into a narrow little gully between the present-day central Rongbuk Glacier moraine and some far bigger and older central Rongbuk moraine. I marveled at how good it all felt as I cruised along under a fully loaded pack, with my ski poles clicking and tapping along through the rocks. How easy it all seemed with health intact and the stresses of expedition logistics dropping away to insignificance with every stride.

In no time at all, I was nearing the East Fork junction and the beginning of the big altitude gain. That gain has some drawbacks, obviously, as the oxygen we humans are so fond of gets spread kind of thin. Additionally, there is little doubt that steep uphill grades work the leg muscles (and the aforementioned lungs and that little heart) a bunch more than the flat moraine squeeze I'd been coasting along. But an uphill workout is not exactly unexpected on this trip and can be pretty darn pleasant when it brings on the flood of jagged mountain scenery that the East Rongbuk corner affords. Walking slows, the trail narrows to about six inches in a few places, the dropoff left of those six inches becomes substantial as you rise, but the big view of Pumori, Khumbutse, Everest's West Shoulder, and the jeweled blue seracs of the live ice portion of the Rongbuk ought to take the pain of exercise down to reasonable and enjoyable levels; that happened without a doubt. In fact, it all felt so darn good that I could imagine that the intervening 10 months since my last sweat and exertion on this particular mountain path had only been a matter of days. That would be great, of course, picking up where I left off as it were. Since last year's trip got me to 28,000', this one would get me at least to 29,000' or thereabouts. Such are the wandering thoughts that fill one's head while walking...in that first hour or two, I knew a hundred things I would get done just a little better in the next year or two of my life.

Boundless optimism, boundless energy, visions of great glacial ranges, favorite tunes streaming into my headset...it all made me reflect on how many times in the past month or two I'd had to try to answer somebody and their big 'why?' question when I wasn't feeling all of this Rongbuk Junction emotion but was simply keeping faith that it was out there and might be tapped into once again if I got good and lucky. Chugging along in the 18,000' dust, I accepted once again that while, for the benefit of others, I may never get the 'why?' just right, for myself, it was clear again that 'why?' was just one of a thousand nagging cares and burdens that fell away neatly. John Muir said such things long ago, of course. 'Climb the mountains, and get their good tidings....' I know there is a line in there about cares dropping off like falling leaves, and I feel sure there is one more line in there that says 'go back for a fourth or fifth time if the particular mountain is big enough and keeps messing with your head.'

Reaching my own poetic limits, I rounded a boulder and came upon the west end of an eastbound yak. Ours had gone the day before, so these were hauling gear for the Ukrainian team across the valley. Smelled just like ours though. Even this set of circumstances had me feeling right at home, as if the picture was then complete. The yak drivers had the air full of whistles and high pitched yelps and yips as they kept their team of 30 or 40 loaded animals grinding up in low gear. No way I was going to get past them on such a narrow track, so I just relaxed down to yak pace and turned off my head-tunes to get the full Tibetan trail-drive sound of bells and hooves and wind and 'git along little doggie' (Tibetan translation, naturally).

The Ukes and their yaks took a break at the old Camp I area, and I took the opportunity to boogey on past them. 'Camp I' is one of those places I always associate with the old British expeditions of the '20s and '30s, and so my mind drifted to the numerous debates we'd been having about old George Mallory and his last climb. It does seem to keep coming down to George as we now can easily picture Sandy Irvine being swept up in Mallory's obsession. Irvine was just in his early 20s, and Mallory was a third-time Everest man in his mid-30s. Easy to figure then that the story of their last days was really the story of George.

In our evenings at Base Camp, we'd each been asked to state flat-out our belief (or lack thereof) in a possible summit by Mallory or by Mallory and Irvine together. We'd gone around the tent and argued our knowledge of either the mountain, the men, or the age they lived in (or all three, in the case of the really smart and argumentative folks). I came at it from the mountain standpoint, and just tried, I suppose, to articulate that the darn thing wasn't ready for climbing in 1924 by the North Ridge. I'm a big believer in the toughness of the Second Step up there at 28,500'. I remember how it tried to kill me one night, and I seem able to believe that it was a hell of a lot steeper and meaner 75 years ago. But the main 'Mallory-made-it' proponents in our mess tent, Jochen and Graham, have studied the men involved to an impressive extent. They succeed in impressing upon us 'mountain-too-high' believers that George Mallory had it bad; that he may have worked himself into that scary little zone where 'up' becomes the only important direction.

And then the question over our late-night tea became a more disturbing one...could he alone have made it if he cast off his young partner and his fear of dying? Personally, I didn't at all like conceding that particular point. Yes. Yes, because all of a sudden, George Mallory leapt out of ancient history and became far too real. Real enough to resemble the people of "Memorial Hill," a short stroll from our Base Camp. Those are contemporary climber names on those rocks. Some of us had our worlds rocked by viewing the up-only obsessions of people we thought we knew better. If Mallory, this historical figure, could be as flawed as modern men and women in pursuit of his goal, if he could throw off entirely the self-preserving rules of the game...sure, yes, it is possible he stood on top before dying. But this is not a happy thought that revisits me as I stride along the East Rongbuk.

I suppose I'd feel better to believe the two climbers of 1924 came to a bit of mountain that was too tough and unreasonable and so they turned around, headed back toward life, and only then met with some of the ample misfortune found in the grey and yellow bands of hard rock on Everest's high North Face. Until we get up in the 28,000' land of clues and hints, we'll only have our own oxygen-starved brains and those of our partners to bounce theories off of.

Such thinking carried me a good bit of the way up and down the rough and rolling rock of the East Fork as I closed in on IC (Intermediate Camp or 'Yak Camp') at 19,000'. But as I churned into Intermediate Camp, thoughts of dead folks left me, and I got a warm welcome from Tap and Thom who'd rested the day there. Conrad and Jake, along with Pa Nuru and five other Sherpas, had gone on the big yak drive to ABC. We had a few minutes of chatting and enjoying the scenery before having to shift into survival mode and the tedium of getting bad water to look good, bad food to go down, and rocky sleeping terrain to appear flat.

While engaged in such efforts, our own yaks and drivers came back from their day trip to ABC, and the Uke yaks came in with their own drivers from down-valley. The nine Ukrainian climbers got to setting up camp as well. It was quite a busy sunset to say the least. A hundred yaks, each with two big sharp horns, were being tethered for the night to a rock within easy spitting distance of our tents. Within minutes, the air filled with the yak dung smoke that means Tibetan herdsmen are getting serious about their next meal. The stuff doesn't burn all that easily, and so the sound of several powerful, portable bellows being applied to the cook fires mingled with the unfamiliar languages and yak bells as darkness fell.

Those yak bells. Moving up 2,000 feet and laying down on hard dirt and rock can sometimes disrupt one's sleep pattern, which is no big deal for the first six or eight hours of the disruption. I focused in on the beautiful music of a hundred yak bells and reflected that my own souvenir yak bell, back in a box in my storage unit at home, sounded not nearly so beautiful. I determined to set it free of its box at the next opportunity and set it where the wind could make it sing like these 100 were now doing. But six hours of tossing and turning later (rotisserie sleeping, as Conrad calls it) and with an altitude headache beginning to creep way into my cerebral cortex, I felt I'd detected a pattern to the beautiful bells. Seemed like the opening chords to "The Godfather," and after a few hours more, I was sure of it... over and over.

It was only about three or four sleepless hours more when the whole bell thing was plain and clear to me. The drivers must only attach the bells when they are going to sleep near us westerners. Then they probably put in ear plugs themselves. We cannot, as we'd then miss somebody stealing our boots, or else we'd fail to react to the yaks stepping through our tent-rigging as they stir in the night. At five in the morning, I pictured each of those 100 yaks just swiveling their heads over and over and over and over... ringing those beautiful bells. And finally I pictured myself getting home, ripping open the storage unit, digging wildly through boxes of keepsakes and cherished books and electronic gadgets and crampons until I found that damn yak bell and there and then squashing it flat under my ample boot sole.

The sun also rose on Intermediate Camp. 'Morning, Tap. How'd you sleep?...a little rough? Oh, too bad....Me? Oh, no problem, slept like a log, feel like a hundred bells...bucks, I mean. Let's get started for ABC now.' And we did. Post-haste, since we were all pretty well sick to tears of life at IC. But I must admit that I'd gone from the euphoria of the first day's walk to the sleep-deprived, head banging drudgery and stumbling onward and upward that eventually got me in the neighborhood of Advanced Base Camp. I wasn't big on the stupendous views of Everest's Northeast Ridge. I wasn't able to fully appreciate the wonder of the medial moraine taking me through the jagged East Rongbuk Glacier. I did have an eye on the lowering clouds and a feel for the gathering cold as I trudged and trudged, finally reaching 21,000' and an outstretched Pasang arm with some hot tea in the hand.

I'd arrived, as had Tap, Thom, Conrad, Jake and the Sherpas. They'd done some impressive work for 24 hours in that the cook tent was up, a dining tent was in place, and sleeping tents were popping up like wildflowers. The radio base station and solar charging set-up were rapidly getting sorted, and the first yak train's worth of gear was even divvied up into sensible piles. After a fine dinner ala Pasang, we crawled deep into our down bags. Conrad and I shared a well-pitched Mountain Hardwear tent for the 12 hour night. I hoped he wouldn't come to view me as a yak bell, since I was continually sitting up, breathing hard, rubbing my aching brain, and rustling around for my water bottle.

First nights at 21,000' are hard. The oxygen is spread thin, and the body, asleep, is breathing at some old inadequate rate. That makes for some pretty screwy thoughts and dreams. It also makes for a skull just two sizes too small. In addition, the high, cold air is extremely dry, and so one often wakes up in the night to find one's throat, tongue, and lips parched as a dry lake bed cracking in the noonday sun. Add to all this the fact that the acclimatization process requires your body to get rid of fluid at a higher-than-normal rate...this is when you might lie in your bag dreaming of home, where you would just casually roll from under the covers, pad in bare feet across some nice carpet, flip on the bathroom light, relieve yourself neatly with the help of the most modern and clean appliances, wash your hands (why not), flip off the light, clamber back into bed, and rearrange your pillow before rejoining your sweet dreams already in progress.

It just isn't that easy up the East Rongbuk. For sure you'll wake your tentmate when you muster the courage and energy to go. You'll hassle with zippers. You'll fumble for your headlight. You'll discover that life is cold without goosedown. You'll shake frost on the stuff you wanted dry as you open the tent. You'll kick your partner as you swing your legs around to the door. You'll have to reach all the way out to the ends of your legs to get some footwear on (this is the part that your extra-small skull won't like much). You'll go to wiggle out the vestibule and try to stand up with nothing to grab onto. The uneven and sharp moraine rocks will rock and roll as you attempt to get a decent distance from the tent. You might manage to get one eye open for a wholly inadequate glance at the Tibetan night sky and the towering Northeast Ridge while you get your chores done. Then you'll climb back in, struggling all the way, snagging every zipper, and doing most things backwards until you are once again deep in the goose feathers. This ought to hold you for an hour or so.

The truly redeeming thing about hard nights at ABC, is that the sun rises good and early and strong. Six something. It makes it a little easier to come out from all the feathers and go looking for that first cup of coffee or dhud-cha (milk tea, or Sherpa tea). We did that on my first morning at ABC. Started pouring down hot liquids and talking to the boss on the radio. ABC is a work camp, no frills really, so we began to plan out a work day. Conrad and the Sherpas and I would go up to the base of the North Col slopes to just take a look at where a route might go if someone was to start fixing one. Sounded easy enough, appealed to my ill-fitting skull and my need to stretch my legs and cold muscles.

All for now. Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment...if I get around to it, which will tell all about: Conrad, the snow warrior; the battle for a North Col route; the meeting up with Andy and the Boss; Graham's brain trouble; and, the stressful walk to BC on oxygen.

—Dave Hahn, Climber

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