Published on: May 28, 2023

We have reached Langtang Village.

3500 meters.

This is the highest I’ve been in this life.

The porters and cook are busy smoking cigarettes and drinking hot tea heavily dosed with yak butter for strength and sustinence. Breakfast on the trail had been mostly oat porridge, eggs, chapati, pancakes with jam, or peanut butter for breakfast, while dinners have consisted of Hindu Dal Bhat, curry, pasta, spaghetti, soups, fried rice, and momos with the Sherpa favorite fried dried yak meat and yak cheese.

Todd broke open a bottle of Johnny Walker Red.

“This is high, but last month I climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro. 19,000 feet. I stayed an hour and came back down. Worst thing about being at that height was shitting below zero.”

The nights along this trek have been cool, but the temperature has never been below freezing and during the day we are blasted by the sun. I never sweat, as the sun evaporates off any moisture from my body. I am constantly thirsty. My lips cracked by the sun. A team of film makers descend from the glacier. They have been filming Yuichiro Miura, the first person to ski down Mount Everest. Back in 1970. Their Sherpas are happy are happy to be off the ice fields. Too much sun to be safe. Dorge says they said nothing to the film crew and prayed not to die a movie. We give some of them a little taste of whiskey. All is better, especially when we give none to the film crew, but Yuichiro Miura got a full cup and I gave him my lip balm. His lips were bleeding. And this is only 3500 meters. I look up to the peaks. All over 6000. Dice and I look at each other and give up going any further. It’s smart to know when to quit.