Tibet II: The Big Mountain
Alright, back to the China trip narrative. Sorry for the delay.
After Shigatze we hit the road again:
We stopped for lunch at this little town, and were promptly descended upon by a group of Tibetan boys selling...fossils. You got that, little fossils, basically rocks with imprints of small sea creatures that the kids find way up there on the Roof of the World, and sell for a bit of spending money. Here, Drew and Nate are haggling with them over price:
The Tibetan man is our driver, whom we Christened "Jennifer." I'll explain later. For now, just know that he deserved it, though he didn't understand the joke:
Here's a portion of the road to Everest. You're looking down an incredibly steep, high mountain, at endless switchbacks. It was an adventure:
Mountains, among which is Everest, though you can't see it through the clouds:
A small Tibetan dwelling, tucked away among super-high, super-remote mountains. There were quite a few of these along the way:
These folks had broken down on their way from the monastary near Everest. I think their suspension had come a cropper, from what I could gather. We gave one of the guys a ride back to the monastary, where I assume they called the Tibetan version of roadside assistance:
At around 5 pm we came into view of this:
It's big. Real big. And we're standing at about 15,000 ft. above sea level. Everest is 29,028 ft. high (8,848 meters). It blows your mind. That's near where airlplanes fly. You can actually watch the mountain create its own weather; see the clouds streaming off to the right of the mountain?
The next morning we watched the sun rise on The Mountain. It was the coldest I've ever been, but also an incredible experience:
Then we hiked to the closest point allowed, the beginning of Base Camp. You can see the tents of many a mountaineer, from all over the world. (If we had gone farther, the Red Army, which had a presence there, would have nabbed us and fined us $200. So we didn't try it.) On top of a little knoll, we smoked (as Drew would say) a delicious, delicious celebratory cigar:
Peter was too young to smoke, of course:
We also discovered the location of the true Hotel California:
I like this shot. It's very representative of the whole area -- massive, incredibly beautiful mountains, peopled by tough-as-nails, dirty-as-can-be, friendly-as-can-be yak herders:
After Shigatze we hit the road again:
We stopped for lunch at this little town, and were promptly descended upon by a group of Tibetan boys selling...fossils. You got that, little fossils, basically rocks with imprints of small sea creatures that the kids find way up there on the Roof of the World, and sell for a bit of spending money. Here, Drew and Nate are haggling with them over price:
The Tibetan man is our driver, whom we Christened "Jennifer." I'll explain later. For now, just know that he deserved it, though he didn't understand the joke:
Here's a portion of the road to Everest. You're looking down an incredibly steep, high mountain, at endless switchbacks. It was an adventure:
Mountains, among which is Everest, though you can't see it through the clouds:
A small Tibetan dwelling, tucked away among super-high, super-remote mountains. There were quite a few of these along the way:
These folks had broken down on their way from the monastary near Everest. I think their suspension had come a cropper, from what I could gather. We gave one of the guys a ride back to the monastary, where I assume they called the Tibetan version of roadside assistance:
At around 5 pm we came into view of this:
It's big. Real big. And we're standing at about 15,000 ft. above sea level. Everest is 29,028 ft. high (8,848 meters). It blows your mind. That's near where airlplanes fly. You can actually watch the mountain create its own weather; see the clouds streaming off to the right of the mountain?
The next morning we watched the sun rise on The Mountain. It was the coldest I've ever been, but also an incredible experience:
Then we hiked to the closest point allowed, the beginning of Base Camp. You can see the tents of many a mountaineer, from all over the world. (If we had gone farther, the Red Army, which had a presence there, would have nabbed us and fined us $200. So we didn't try it.) On top of a little knoll, we smoked (as Drew would say) a delicious, delicious celebratory cigar:
Peter was too young to smoke, of course:
We also discovered the location of the true Hotel California:
I like this shot. It's very representative of the whole area -- massive, incredibly beautiful mountains, peopled by tough-as-nails, dirty-as-can-be, friendly-as-can-be yak herders:
posted by Jordan | 11:52 AM
2 Comments:
Jordan..Thank you for this incredible journey. I really enjoyed the entire thing.
What a great thing to experince with your brothers.
Barbara Weidemann
My pleasure, Barbara. It was the trip of a lifetime for sure.
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