Kili Karuna #18

Posted on May 5, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Good Monday Morning,

I’m late. It doesn’t happen often as my dad taught me that punctuality was right up there with godliness. I’m so on time that a friend once said, “TA, if you are a minute late, I think you must be dead.” It’s been a whirlwind week and after getting in from a WOKies night hike at 10:30 last night, after being gone for five days, I didn’t have it in me to craft one, let alone many thoughtful sentences. After a good night’s sleep, I hopefully grace your in-boxes with greater aplomb.

What a hike we had! My dear friend Kristen, who is visiting from Orcas Island, Washington, and I had just returned from an amazing weekend of sea kayaking and camaraderie at Woody Island in Placentia Bay. We were glazed with the patina of fatigue and inertia that hours on the highway provide. After dropping my boat at school, we threw all the gear in my living room and I checked my email. The hike is on. “Oh no,” was my first thought and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to rally the energy to chose to participate. We had less than an hour to eat and be ready to head out into the night.

Leo called to catch up and said there were eight icebergs visible from Signal Hill. My pulse quickened and I said to Kristen, “Let’s jump in the car and drive to the top of the hill and see them now, just in case the fog drops! We joined the procession of the usual conveyance up the hill (i.e. car) and delighted in spotting “ice” in every direction including two that would be so close to the trail we would take 30 minutes later. We also sampled the weather and determined we were underdressed for the brisk iceberg-kissed breeze coming off the North Atlantic.

A bag of popcorn later, I donned my big black backpack and we walked over to Temperance Street to meet the rest of the WOKies. We were the first to turn up (surprise, surprise) and I introduced Kristen to the sights around that end of the harbour. The group arrived one by one and we joked we should cancel the hike because the weather was too nice! We hiked up to and through the Battery neighbourhood and introduced Kristen to the North Head Trail (which I swear is one of the most scenic trails in North America). It clings to a narrow ledge about the south flank of the harbour cliffs before rounding North Head and a commanding view of vast Atlantic. From the North Head, the famous staircases begin and lead up the steep face to Cabot Tower and the Ladies’ Lookout.

At the saddle above Cuckhold Head, a crowd had gathered to photograph two stunning bergs that bobbed near the cliffs. That’s where I first had the thought, “I live in the most incredible place.” Iceberg time is always magic and this year appears to be one where we’ll get to see the gleaming ice castles often (as opposed to some years were they are all far off shore or don’t make it this far south). We topped out the last few staircases practicing the rest step. The team wasn’t sure they wanted to climb that slowly given all the people around but most remarked how much easier the rest step made the climb. I know the rest step will be critical on Kilimanjaro and want folks to practice it some more before we go.

We dropped off the backside of Signal Hill and another few bergs awaited us in Cuckhold Cove and Quidi Vidi gut. I often find that outdoor discoveries that I’ve walked to are doubly sweet and I was charged with the joy of discovery around every bend. We took a more technical route down to Quidi Vidi and called it “Advanced Baranco Wall” training. The Baranco Wall is a steep and exposed section on our Kili route. As we climbed back out of Quidi Vidi, the sun began to set and the team eagerly put on their headlamps. Our summit day on Kili will begin around midnight in the pitch black of night. We will climb for six or seven hours under the narrow illumination of headlamps. As my motto is to practice as much as possible before a climb, we’ll do several night hikes to practice movement over steep and varied terrain using only headlights to see the way forward.

It’s funny I often find things less steep in the dark. I think it’s because the amount of stimulation and data is so reduced that all I think about is the trail in front of me. The backside gave way to the summit and the group was left with the choice of descent route. The road that we had walked down so many times over the winter or the North Head trail that has some interesting moments clinging to the edge of the harbour. We knew one team member was nervous so we left it up to her knowing we were all willing to go down either way. She said she was almost willing to go down the front side and face her fear of walking down in the dark.

She said she was willing as long as it was a “pole, pole” descent. “Pole, pole” is what they say on Kilimanjaro to remind everyone to climb slowly. We said, “No problem,” and headed down into the night. Talk reduced as folks concentrated on finding good footing. Hearing the swell crash on the shore was the reward for the quiet and the lights of the city were stunning as we rounded North Head once again. We marveled at the still air and beautiful evening. We stopped above a gaping tickle and listened to the waves pound it’s walls. The stars fought their way into visibility amid the light wash from the city and I felt truly blessed.

As we parted ways at the bottom of the hill, one team member said, “If I have one tenth of the fun on the mountain as I’ve had during training, the climb will be a grand success.” I can’t imagine where we won’t have fun on the mountain as the group is filled with folks who can laugh together at adversity, who support each other well, and who bring such a wonderful variety of skills and outlooks to any experience. I feel so grateful to have gotten to share “six months” on the mountain with them and I look forward to seeing their faces as we all see the mountain for the first time together.

I’m thankful Kristen and I were willing to shed the road trip patina and muster the energy to join the group. So often, the rewards for getting “off the couch” or out of bed so outweigh the comforts of staying put. These rewards are likely what keep me going on the training path. The mystical dancing light of dawn or the sweeping wings of a bald eagle glimpsed above the shores of Quidi Vidi bring joy and illumination to deep spiritual places/batteries within. I’m always appreciative and reverent of the recharge.

I’m looking forward to spending much of the week sharing my incredible home with Kristen and reestablishing a training routine after another week of big travel. Have a good week and I’ll catch you another week closer to Kilimanjaro.

TA

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Kili Karuna #17

Posted on April 27, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Good Evening,

I know I’m dedicated to weekly updates when I sit down to write one at 10:47 pm when every cell in my body is screaming out, “I want to go to bed.” But since there was already one email in my inbox looking for the update, I’ll do my best even though I have no idea of what I am about to type.

I am filled with the warm glow of connection and smiling about a week where the ripples in the pond, started by dropping a pebble called Everest into the water of my life, came refracting back to me from the far shore. What the heck does that mean? It means that, throughout the week, I got to meet and talk with many people about climbing Everest and Kilimanjaro and also got to see what kinds of impact that sharing those/these journeys can have.

I started my week presenting to students at the University of Maine, Presque Isle and finished it by driving a ninety-five year woman home after a delightful dinner at her son’s house. The enthusiasm of the students, combined with Marjorie’s enchantment and gentle questioning about how cold it was on the mountain, have left me feeling quite blessed. Add to that an entire room of hockey women shouting in amusement at some “photoshopped” images of the Eastern Edge hockey league’s trophy joining me on a ladder in the Khumbu icefall and on the cover of my book, and I’m positively smiling from the inside out.

Around midnight last night, I left the hockey banquet, perhaps before I was ready to. I was having fun and enjoying the celebration of another successful hockey season but I knew I had a training hike scheduled with the Kili team for relatively early morning and made the responsible decision to head for home to get some sleep. When training for big dreams like Everest or Kilimanjaro, I often have to put other things aside to facilitate rest or training. Most of the time I feel fine doing so, but sometimes, like last night, I just want to have a “normal” life and stay up late sometimes. It’s one of the many sacrifices I gladly make to pursue big dreams and when the ripples reflect back to me, every sacrifice gets erased as the small wave passes over.

We had lots of fun at today’s hockey game teasing those who’d stayed up late and I thoroughly enjoyed our hike today along the Southside hills. We climbed the first big hill with impressive pace and some folks were sporting new clothing or packs. I carried my big old Dana Designs beast as my long-loved and adventure-sharing daypack was not returned. I did, however, get most of my gear back (the thieves kept the backpack, headlamp, and Swiss army knife). It’s good that five months ago, I accepted a speaking engagement at a conference, knowing it would be handy to have a visit to a Mountain Equipment Co-Op store before heading to Kilimanjaro. I’ll be choosing the pack that will travel with me for the next decade.

I continue to be amazed at the speed at which time is flying-this week marks May and I’ll soon be flying to Africa. My IT band acted up a bit today and referred pain down my shin-I’m hoping to get it cleared up soon so I don’t lose too much training time. I also spent much of the week with a cold and now seem to have a deep bronchiole cough that’s reminiscent of the Khumbu cough. So, a rich full week of connections and book signings and presentations…and a tad bit of training. I figure I’m just trying to maintain over the next while and then eek out a bit more fitness before going.

Hope all is well with you,

TA

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Kili Karuna #16

Posted on April 20, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy 111th Day of the Year,

Life seems to vacillate between mountaintops and valleys. Though frequently I think, we wish it would stick only to the peaks. My week had both summits and canyons, often in close proximity to each other. The highlight of the week, of course, was my book launch. About a hundred people came out to help celebrate and I loved being surrounded by both “near and dears” and folks I’d never met before and everyone in between. I was really touched that the entire Kilimanjaro team made it out with some even doing a few Signal Hills ascents before the festivities, some running afterwards, and one arriving on her bike.

My friend (and sponsor) Deb Bourden gave a moving introduction about how she and I both supported each other through high places and low moments. I told a few stories about dropping out of an English class in university because of a little disagreement with the professor and trying to deliver an oration at convocation with my hand flopping to and fro like a dying fish. To celebrate the presence of Vanilla Dip Tim Bits at the launch (a wonderful surprise from the folks at Creative Publishing), I read the story of Velma the Vanilla Dip. I shared the story of Alice the Duck (you may remember hearing part of that story when I got to be the honourary duck master in Arkansas last fall). I closed by reading a passage about the approach to Namche Bizarre, and how I passed the TV and the TV passed me.

I then signed books until my hand was ready to fall off and I so enjoyed chatting with many of the folks who came. I continue to be amazed at how many people followed the climb and are now coming out to events to meet me. After the launch I headed over to hockey and then began feeling like I’d had a big day. I recognized that I was already sliding down from the summit and careening towards the valley below. Fortunately, I’ve come to know that after every peak, there is a time in the valley. I was tired and didn’t fully unload my car.

The next morning when I went out to the car to head to the gym, I saw scattered glass. My heart sank and as I rounded the side of the car, I could see that my window had been smashed. First glance reassured me that my prized hockey stick was still there (it has an aluminum shaft and they don’t make them anymore). Second glances confirmed the presence of a few other items except the change purse I keep my meter money in. Third glance caught the web of shattered glass throughout the car and street. “Guess I’m not going to the gym, ” I moaned. I got out the vacuum and starting to clean up, then drove to the police station to report the loss, and tried to get the glass replaced. I missed training, yoga, and half of hypoxia, but didn’t know at that point, the loss was much greater than that.

I hadn’t realized it then, but my daypack, with over a $1500 of gear and clothing, had been in the car. In my tired state, I elected to leave it in the car after the launch to use the next day in training. When I went to meet the Wokies on Saturday morning in the icy pouring rain, I went looking for my shell and in that moment, I was hit with a huge sinking feeling. I searched the house over and over again. Then in a flash, I saw my pack lying on its side, just below the car window. It was gone. I wanted to sit and cry but I didn’t have time.

I would have to replace all of that in the short weeks before Kilimanjaro. I was pretty sure it wasn’t covered by insurance. The valley got deeper. I found some old options, put them on, and headed up to the top of Signal Hill to meet the team. They commiserated and I tried to find some humour in the situation. Seven Signal hills later, we were drenched to the bone, doing fine imitations of drowned rodents, and thrilled with ourselves for being so hearty to be out in such a scoff of weather.

My hands were so cold I had to test the shower water with my shoulder blade. When I put my frozen paws in the water it was as if icy hot daggers were driven under my fingernails. I hoped I could shower and still keep them out of the warm water until they thawed a bit. I didn’t have much time because I was due at Zeller’s for a book signing within 30 minutes. A hasty bowl of soup added internal heat and I was back into the rain.

I arrived at the giant box of a store and the aisles seemed fairly empty for a Saturday afternoon. “Oh no, this will be a slow afternoon,” I lamented. I couldn’t spot Janine anywhere and the book-signing corner appeared to be full of another author and his books. “Double oh no,” I exclaimed. “Do I have the right store?” I panicked. I went over to the service desk and asked and they said, “You’re here, not just right now.” “Phew, at least I’m not late,” and my adrenaline that had arisen at the prospect of needing to cross town at light speed began to dissolve away. The woman pulled out a poster and then said, “No, actually you’re here and it’s right now.”

The other author and his model birch canoe moved on and I took up my seat at the table. A woman and her son waited patiently. He’d been in hospital during my climb and had followed it closely with one of the recreation therapists at the Janeway. He had a few questions for me and I signed his book. After him, a man approached the table and presented me with an original offering of Canadian postage stamps. The special issue had a stamp for each of the seven summits and Mount Logan, Canada’s highest peak. He’d ventured out in the nasty weather to get them to me. He had contacted me soon after the climb to see if I wanted them but we never connected. Again, I was so touched by his efforts to get them to me. I plan to have them framed.

I brought my laptop to place on the table to show pictures to get people to stop in for a chat. Some did. Some didn’t. A few more folks who’d come along on the adventure stopped in for a signed book and I posed with the Downhome’s mascot, Salty Dog. In the end, I signed only five books that afternoon but I have fine and fond memories of each one of the connections each one represented. Quality is so often better than quantity.

This morning I forwent my run to be a guest on CBC’s Weekend Arts Magazine. Angela Antle, the host asked some new questions, and I appreciated that the interview was more like a conversation than interview. The show has an archive but I’m not sure if my interview will be on it. Just in case, here’s the URL: http://www.cbc.ca/wam/interview_archives/2008_apr.html

Getting home from sitting, there was a call from the police. It seems as those they may have found my backpack. I’ll know for sure on Wednesday when I’m back from Maine when I can go identify it. I sure hope so-it would make life much easier. I’m off for that run now-it’s a beautiful day to be out and I look forward to the rhythmic swaying of my mind. Have a good week,

TA

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Kili Karuna #15

Posted on April 13, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Hello April Showers,

The snow is beating a hasty retreat with all the rain and warm temperatures. As people are thinking of warmth and gardens and summer, I dream of cold, high places. Hmm–I may have to do something about that someday but then again, since I see lying on a beach as akin to torture, maybe I’ll stick to mountains.

I missed my first group hike with the Kili group yesterday because I landed at 4:00 am with no sleep. I’d had a whirlwind visit to Mankato, Minnesota. I was there to receive a distinguished alumni award. I pursued my master’s degree there in 1990-01 and I found it hard to believe that 17 years had gone by. The festivities were fun and I enjoyed getting to meet many students on the campus.

The highlight the three days was spending time with my mom, my friend, Kellian Clink, and my graduate degree advisors, Jasper Hunt and Leo McAvoy. For the gala banquet, I had had the pants of my suit professionally shortened this time so there was no last minute panic to find a stapler. (In July 2006, I was invited to dinner with the Governor General of Canada and discovered at the last minute that my pants were too long so after we considered twenty options, we turned to the “stapler and marker plan.”)

At a luncheon for student leaders, the honourees were asked to share some advice with the students. I spoke about the importance of aiming high and risking disappointment. Another spoke of remembering to recognize the people on whose shoulders we stand. Since then, I’ve spent some time thinking about that. Many people asked my mom what she and my dad did to have me turn out the way I did.

Mom said, “I don’t really know. We did the best we could to support her dreams all the way through.” I would agree that’s what they did. In the acknowledgments section of my book, I wrote, “First, I want to thank my parents, Heinz and Denise, for their love, patience, and ability to set worry aside so I could follow my dreams. They nurtured my strength and determination by supporting my many passions from climbing to judo to photography to waterskiing.” I stand on the shoulders of my parents and their parents. I also stand on the shoulders of my teachers and mentors. Friends. Supporters. Those women who first went adventuring and climbing: Junko Tabai, Alexander David-Neel, Sharon Wood….

I stand on yours and, hopefully you stand on mine. I aim to be both supporter and supported. Speaking of books and support, I did my first book signing yesterday at Costco. I enjoyed seeing some friends and meeting and talking to some other folks. I’m looking forward to the official launch this Thursday (again, please consider yourself invited 5:30-7:30 GEO centre). As people I have been reading the book, they’ve been writing to let me know they are enjoying it-that’s been wonderful to hear and helped ease my “parental” anxiety at sending my “baby” out into the world.

It’s Everest season again and I’m watching as the teams have just begun their first forays into the Khumbu icefall. As expected, my feelings run the gamut as I remember what it was like to be there a year ago and as I imagine the path that will take me there again. Though now, I’m more aware of the path that will take me near the equator and back to Africa. We’re on a six-week countdown to Kilimanjaro and it’s time to narrow my focus to gear, clothing, and training for the roof of Africa. I can see challenges to this focus in the next few weeks as I have frequent travel, book signings, and presentations scheduled.

I realize I also stand on the shoulders of routine. It’s much easier for me to train when the week unfolds with a predictable rhythm and I can see where it all fits. So, there will be some “high-stakes” practice over the next while to stay the course and keep mindful in the face of competing needs.

Hope all is well with you,

TA

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Kili Karuna #14

Posted on April 6, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Greetings from a Gorgeous Sunday Afternoon,

We’ve been treated to a most delightful weekend of weather this weekend. The warm sunshine is breathing energy and light into my winter weary cells. The Newfoundland WOKies (Women of Kilimanjaro) had a fabulous snowshoe hike to the Spout yesterday. The overland route to the Spout, which is only passable in winter, usually takes three to four hours to reach. With ideal conditions, we made it in only two hours of travel.

The Spout is a unique coastal feature in which wave action causes sea mist to “spout” up through a blowhole in the rock face. In winter, this mist precipitates into an ice funnel that closely resembles cave formations called draperies. The inner cavern of the ice tunnel is filled with thousands of icicles. As we enjoyed lunch and the coastal view before heading back, a shout went up through the crowd. “Whales!” It was almost unbelievable, two Minke whales spouted as they swam south. It’s a few months early for seeing whales so I felt doubled blessed by their visit.

The hike was a magical ending to a big week of training. I started the week with 180 walking lunges on Monday. I paid dearly on Tuesday and Wednesday as my body processed the fatigue and lactic acid that such exertion produced. I chased Diane, a member of the Kili team, up Signal Hill a few times this week. She is the fastest walker I know and I was huffing dramatically trying to keep up with her with my thirty-pound pack on my back. As next week is a big travel week, I did a long run of 18 km this morning and will make things a bit easier by declaring the upcoming week a rest week.

Several times during the week, I thought of the advice a former yoga teacher used to give. “Work with the body you have today,” she would remind us often. “Not the body you had yesterday, not the body you had last month.” I frequently look back and think, “I used to be able to lift that” or “Before such and such climb, I could…”. Using Joyce’s advice I relaxed and reminded myself to “Train the body I have today.” That meant that on Wednesday when my legs seemed to have nothing left to give, I delayed a training session to Thursday. That move was an extension of my goal to train for Kilimanjaro with gentleness and compassion.

Of course, the major excitement of the week was the arrival of my book. Monday, after receiving a funny call from Donna at Creative Publishing, I drove over to see the book “in the flesh.” It was so awesome to see the shiny cover with my name on it…I have had chapters in books published but never a whole book as sole author. The center section of pictures printed so well and the book is beautiful. I felt as though I’d given birth. Like a new mother, I was instantly filled with love and anxiety and fear. What would it be like when “my baby” would go out into the world?

I didn’t have long to contemplate as the books landed in the Coles bookstore that very afternoon and throughout the city as the week went on. Many folks have been buying books directly from me so folks have started reading the thing and some have been kind to write and reassure me that they are enjoying the read thus far. One student wrote and said, “I’m having trouble reading your book.”

“Oh no!” I thought. She explained that she as so eager to see what happened next that she was reading the next pages from the bottom up and that made for a challenging read. “Phew,” I sighed and hoped I would relax as the week went on. And indeed I have…like parenting a toddler, I’ve got all the outlets plugged, the safety gate up, and I’m hoping the baby will crawl far and wide.

Anyone who is in St. John’s is most welcome to the official launch on April 17 from 5:30-7:30 pm at the Johnson GEO centre. The book is available for purchase from me, the publisher (Creative Publishing), on-line bookstores, and regular bookstores.

Thanks to all who voted in the Mountain Hardware Ad competition. Today is the last day for voting so here’s the URL in case you missed it:http://addeadline.mountainhardwear.com/results.aspx
My ad is called “Mountains are my Teachers.”

I hope you had a good week. Catch you in seven!

TA

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Kili Karuna #13

Posted on March 30, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy Festival of Hygieia (Greek Goddess of Health),

Just in from an inspired run on a delightful Sunday morning. Soft flakes of gently falling snow rubbed shoulders with the flowing angular light of post equinox inviting me to fall under the earworm spell of the La La, La La La chorus of “Me and Bobby McGee.” As is often the case, between the upbeats of my mental music, my mind turned to reflecting on the past week.

In “Illusions” by Richard Bach, the main character says, “We teach best what we most need to learn.” This was indeed true this week for me. I had several conversations with folks about “putting down the stick.” The stick being a metaphor for beating ourselves up for not being good enough, fast enough, slim enough, disciplined enough…not being enough of something…you fill in the blank. As somewhat of an expert of stick wielding, I was pointing out that using the stick never helps–it just adds injury on top of injury.

So as I ran this morning, I was thinking about writing about the putting down the stick and then thought, “I don’t have any good pictures of a stick,” and “That’s not necessarily a good image to leave in our minds.” So then I thought of my ice axe. And the good picture I have of my ice axe (some of the websites I post to allow pictures along with words). Then the penny dropped, and I had the connection of image, metaphor, and clarity I was looking for.

The ice axe is the premier tool in the mountaineer’s tool kit. She uses it to arrest a fall if she or someone on her rope team slips. Steps are cut with its adze to allow upward passage. The pick creates holds in blank ice faces that open up new routes. The ice axe also serves as cane, rest, and support. I would never climb without one.

The ice axe, however, is also sharp and dangerous. It can impale, slash, and injure. Kill even. There must be a healthy respect for its ability to cut deeply and as a result, careful training and practice are a must. This morning, I saw my mind as an ice axe. It has the ability to secure passage through unfamiliar ground, over obstacles, and to places of intense beauty. But is also has the ability to cut me to pieces or stop me in place by being stuck, wounded, or confused.

In mountaineering, it is imperative to hold the ice axe, “not too tight, not too loose.” Hanging onto it with a death grip will quickly tire the smaller muscles of the forearm and soon the ability to grasp will be lost or the rigid grip will cause the axe to be torn from the hand in the event of a fall. A lax grip, however, is equally problematic because the ice axe will bounce about and hit the climber’s leg or be easily lost before it is needed.

Ideally as well, I hold my mind “not too loose, not too tight.” Like using an ice axe, I learn and practice to keep on my on track but without rigidity. I work to drop the stick and pick up a tool. Learning to steer between the ditches to find the middle road of each continuum with gentleness and compassion. As I type it now, it seems to have lost some of its profundity, but I will carry the metaphor around with me for the next while.

It was a good week in the training department. I reintroduced hypoxic training into the repertoire and watched to see how my body would react. I suffered a bit of a headache after my long session but that’s to be expected when I visit 4500 metres for the first time in three months. I had two great sessions with Phil and got all my runs in for the week. The Kili team had a great hike in yesterday from Quidi Vidi to Logy Bay. I may have a new favourite part of the East Coast Trail for training hikes. It’s good to see the team getting stronger and stronger each week–both in our physical capacities, and our ability to watch out for each other.

My book was supposed to arrive in town on Friday but instead I got to practice the paramita of patience. Hopefully, it will appear “in person” on Monday. Donna promises to have bungee cords ready to keep me planted on the ground. The book launch is planned for April 17 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm at the Johnson GEO Centre on Signal Hill. We picked the GEO Centre because of it’s location on Signal Hill where I spend so much time training and because it’s got easy parking. Please drop by if you can and come celebrate the book’s entry into the world. There will be munchies and I will likely read some passages from the book.

Mountain Hardware is having an ad contest where folks can submit an advertisement for their gear. There are some great prizes and I’ve entered an ad called, “Mountain are my Teachers.” If you’ve got a moment, please visit their site and vote for my ad. You may have to scroll down through many entries as the number grows each day and the ads are served up in random order each time the page is accessed.

Click here to see the ads and vote:

Finally, I had a wonderful coffee with Linda Cox this week. She attended a presentation I did last summer when I was freshly back from Everest. She was struck by a picture of my hiking boots I showed. I had taken them off in the teahouse in Lukla. I was in such a sad and disappointed place but their arrangement caught my eye and I took the picture. She asked if she could paint the photograph. On Thursday, she revealed the painting to me and it was beautiful. The feelings and details of that moment/photograph were so aptly captured in her painting. I loved the grain of the wood on the floor and the delicacy of the how the laces hit the wood.

Linda is making it possible to make prints and cards from the painting so I’ll look forward to sharing it with you at some point in the near future. I so enjoyed hearing of Linda’s journey as a painter as she worked to bring the boots to life on the canvas. We’ve titled the painting “Journey’s End” but as I viewed it I was moved by a sense of invitation. It’s time to put those boots on again and in a few short weeks from now, I will.

Thanks for coming along on this and many journeys. As Myles Horton and Paulo Freire suggest, “We make the road by walking.”

Have a good week of walking,

TA

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Kili Karuna #12

Posted on March 23, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy Easter and Spring to All,

It was a whirlwind week that alternated between flurries of activity and hours of sitting “doing nothing.” I spent as much of the week as I could, in a meditation retreat learning to work with my mind through meditation. I tried to fit training and hockey around the demanding schedule and was successful to some extent. I wished I had had the foresight to delay my rest week to reduce the demands of this week. Oh well–hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Some of the teaching of during the retreat focused on the six paramitas: generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and wisdom. The Sanskrit word paramita is often translated as “to cross over to the other shore.” Through the practice of these six attributes, we begin to see the essence of our true nature. Practising the paramitas encourages compassionate and enlightened living.

I have often thought that each mountain I’ve climbed has taught me one particular paramita. Denali taught me discipline. Aconcagua demanded patience. Elbrus invited exertion. Everest was a time of mind and meditation. My sense, now, is that Kilimanjaro is teaching me generosity. Perhaps, then, the entire mountain path will yield and invoke wisdom. Moh Hardin, our teacher for the retreat, gave us insight on how each paramita builds on the former and can be an antidote for obstacles and times of confusion.

It was wonderful to be back in retreat with my sangha as I’d missed the last two retreats because of a conference and Everest. It is critical to have a community that supports us through both challenging and joyful times and I was glad to spend some concentrated time with the wonderfully creative members of my sangha.

I spoke at a conference in September that related to safety. The conference brought together high school students, industry, and government agencies. A few of the high school students from Deer Lake so appreciated my message that they made a commitment to try to bring me out to Deer Lake for their wellness day. I was so impressed a few months ago when they had pulled off the fundraising and logistics to invite me to cross the island to speak to their fellow students.

On Wednesday, the weather gods relented and allowed me to fly to Deer Lake. There I spoke to Elmwood High School, Xavier Junior High, and Elmwood Primary. Not only had the students got me to their school, they arranged for me to reach out to two other schools as well. In the course of that whirlwind visit, I spoke to over 800 students and was thrilled to get much further east than Grand Falls-Windsor.

Snowstorms prevented my long runs the past two weeks so I was excited to get out for a sixteen kilometre romp this morning. There is a quiet that comes to my mind when I’m moving for more than an hour–it’s like my thoughts get pounded into the pavement and the rhythmic movement keeps new ones from crashing in. The brilliant blue sky illuminated by the fresh morning light beamed down a sense of possibility and contentment. The streets were quiet of traffic on this Easter morn but I had the good fortune to run into two friends along the way and stopped to chat.

Now, my hamstrings know they’ve put in a good effort and I look forward to stretching them out in a hockey game this afternoon. Tomorrow it’s back to discipline and exertion with lots of time in both the gym and on the hills that surround the harbour. Only nine weeks to go until the team takes on the challenges of Africa’s highest peak. Thanks to all who wrote in support as I learn to sway with the challenges of living life in the public eye.

Have a good week,

TA

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Kili Karuna #11

Posted on March 16, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy Break in the Storm to Everyone,

One year ago, I was very nervous. I was leaving the next day to fly to Nepal to fulfill a lifelong dream of climbing Mount Everest. My heart went out to all the climbers and Sherpas who learned this week that Everest was being closed on the north side by the Chinese to prevent any disruption and protest of the Olympic Torch Run. The torch is being carried to the summit of Everest on its way to the Olympic Stadium. The Chinese also pressured the Nepal government to restrict access to the southern side of the mountain and it’s not quite clear yet whether climbers will be restricted from higher camps before May 10 or only during the period of May 1-10.

I can only imagine the mountain of emotions that this year’s climbers must be facing right now knowing that the climb they have been training all year for might be taken away for political reasons. I know how many in the Khumbu Valley rely on the employment from expeditions for a large part of their livelihood. I’ve also been deeply disturbed by the violent repression of protest in Tibet that’s happening and news of monks self-immolating and being shot outside monasteries brings deep questions to mind about how we humans treat each other sometimes.

I had a good rest week, and for once, the universe didn’t “pile it on” to keep the pressure on. Often, it seems in the past, the time freed from training has had to be devoted to cleaning up plumbing disasters and other such adventures. Instead, this week, I invited friends over for dinner on two separate occasions, lowered my bed off its stilts, and cleaned the house. As the week went on, I felt my cells fill with energy once again and I loved getting to play hockey freed from the curtain of cumulative fatigue. I actually perceived a restlessness near the end of the week which nurtured a sense of excitement to “get back at it” tomorrow.

On my Buddhist path, I often work with Lojong Slogans. These 59 pithy pieces of wisdom give instruction on how to work with my mind and emotions. Today, I am working hard with slogan thirteen: “Be Grateful to Everyone.” I am working especially hard to be grateful to Joe. I don’t even know Joe.

The Telegram published a nice article about the upcoming Kilimanjaro climb in today’s paper. I had a grand chat with Nadia Bell, the reporter on Wednesday and I thought she wrote a good piece about the climb and the team’s preparations. I captured the article on-line to send to the team and then noticed Joe’s comment on the bottom of it.

Instantly, I was set off and swimming upstream against the current of my emotions feeling slighted and then feeling misunderstood and then feeling angry and then feeling sad and then wanting to respond…you get the picture. I went outside and shoveled the day’s worth of storm snow away from the car as a way to kinesthetically work with the feelings then sought the opinions of a few friends.

Through the conversations, I could finally dehook Joe’s words and see how my default thinking/feeling patterns had arisen. Eventually, I could rouse gratitude to Joe for giving me the opportunity to work with my stuff and to practice getting out from under the cascade of emotion/thought that was pushing down on me. I know the more practice I have at this, the easier time I will have in climbing because I know for me, the high altitude environment tends to be an emotional magnifier. Another of my favourite lines is “wherever you go, there you are.” So, despite temptations towards geographic cures, I can’t run from myself and need to continue to learn to work with my mind and emotions. My sangha is having a meditation retreat this week and I look forward to experiencing discipline both in my physical training and in my meditation practice.

In case you’d like to see the Kilimanjaro article from the Telegram, you can follow this link: http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=117664&sc=85

It seems I left some of you in a state of suspense last week by not divulging what my next climb is going to be. It’s tempting to leave you hanging for another week because I don’t totally feel like I have all the words yet but I’ll step outside my comfort zone and let it come forth without it all being fully conceptualized.

In October, I will be climbing Mount Pumori. Pumori is often translated as “Daughter of Everest,” sometimes as “Sister of Everest.” It is a peak that has crossed my wish list in the past and now, I think the time and circumstance is calling me there. I climbed to Pumori Camp One last year while on Everest. The view of Everest from its flanks is amazing–when you get high enough, you can see both sides of Everest.

I’ll be participating in an Everest training program sponsored by Peak Freaks, a Canadian outfitter. I want, in the time before I return to Everest, to continue to develop and polish my mountaineering skills. Learning from my past experience on Everest, I want there to be no possibility of doubt in my skills when I return there. Given the high-pressure reality of life on Everest, I am committed to working really hard to maximize my technical and climbing movement skills over the next while as I chart the course through the rest of the Seven Summits and back to Everest.

With Pumori connection as a daughter or sister of Everest, I imagine spending time nurturing the feminine. I hope to honour the feminine parts of myself that can sometimes be set-aside in the macho world of climbing. I see it as a journey to climb in a new and different way, to climb with my complete self, and to spend a month gazing both at the snow beneath my boots and the snow across the way on Everest. I often talk about the need to balance “view” with “footsteps.” Pumori will be an opportunity to take action steps while setting a new vision for the journey back to Everest.

We’ll be climbing the Southwestern Ridge and will be responsible for fixing the route and carrying loads, a style of climbing that really gives the opportunity for ownership and learning. I look forward to being back in Nepal and to sucking the marrow from the bones of another big climb. I’ll take a break in training after Kilimanjaro and then start an intensive program again to be ready for the rigors of load carrying at high altitude. Pumori is 7161 metres high. I hope to find a sponsor so I can cybercast off the mountain again.

OK-time to go meet the Kili team for five ascents of Signal Hill as celebration of completion of another training cycle. Have a good week,

TA

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Kili Karuna #10

Posted on March 10, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy Ides of March to All,

Hopefully we all fare better than Caesar as we approach this year’s ides. I’m tired tonight so this will likely be short update unless I catch a sixth or seventh wind. Another training phase is over and I will enjoy a rest week upcoming. This phase brought a renewed sense of strength and muscular development. I’m starting to see some of my muscles come back after all the wasting that happened on Everest. The concentrated effort is paying off with both gains in strength and cardiovascular fitness.

I set my alarm for six-thirty this morning hoping to get my long run in before meeting the Kili team for an adventure race. I awoke to ice pellets playing knock-knock jokes on the window and promptly decided that outside was not where I wanted to run and there wasn’t enough time to get to the gym and back and do the long run. Given the change to daylight savings time, I was feeling sleepy so I did something rare for me; I went back to bed and slept until the second alarm woke me.

The weather had improved some so I packed my pack and headed out to Butterpot to meet some of the WOKies (Women of Kilimanjaro) as we are now calling ourselves. We got our maps and headed out to the barrens and bogs of the park in search of orienteering controls. It is said if you do something once, that’s nice. Twice, it’s a habit and three times, a tradition. So another team member took a big dive into a bog stream today so I’m thinking, we’re well on our way to a tradition of team bog diving. Not to be deterred from the grand adventure she was on, she changed her soaks, put her feet in Sobey’s bags, and was ready to keep going in short order. She said, “This is a great way to test gear for Kili!”

Actually, the entire hike was…we were treated to light snow then freezing rain then flying ice pellets, then soaking rain, and finally a wee bit of sun. We returned to the lodge with a great appreciation for Gore-Tex and other fabulous modern fabrics and that wonderful pride that comes from being out in weather most would cower from! I went directly the woods to the arena and from the arena to do a presentation (via a shower).

I had high hopes of doing my long run at the end of my presentation but was feeling too spend. I love doing the presentations but I find I give out so much energy during them that I need some recovery time afterward. I recognize in myself, a greater flexibility to vary from my training schedule. I have more ability to listen to my body and to trust that “good enough is enough.” I know that the sum of the week has to include calculations related to all of life, not just training. So I came home after the presentation and relaxed a bit. I’ll run tomorrow or the next day. It all works.

I made a decision about the next mountain that I am climbing after Kilimanjaro this week but I’m going to leave you in suspense for the week because I just ran out of gas for typing and I want to give you the full picture the project deserves!

Have a good week,

TA

PS. Update 10 on the 10th…pretty cool, eh?

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Kili Karuna #9

Posted on March 3, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy March!

Phil Alcock, puts me through my paces at the Core Health Spa, and I shot some footage of this week’s training. Yesterday, I cut it into a montage to highlight how I’m using functional fitness techniques to strengthen my body in new, novel, and integrated ways. I’ve been on this path of training hard for nearly four years and I must admit that novelty is an important factor in keeping the hours I put in both fun and taxing.

Check out the video on my website under the Kilimanjaro updates: http://www.taclimbsdenali.com/kilimanjaro/journalentries.asp#3/1/2008 or on this Facebook page: http://mun.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10685091786

As I was editing the video, I couldn’t help notice the “dirty red string” that hangs around my neck. I know many people wonder about it and a few people get brave enough to ask about it. It’s a protection cord, a hearty piece of thick red thread. Well, actually “thread on steroids” would be a more apt description. The lama who led our puja ceremony last March at Everest base camp blessed it. The cord is thought to provide protection from all the things that can harm you on the mountain. As you know, it did very good work protecting me from the big things (seracs, avalanches, falls, storms, etc.) and not so good at the little things (bacteria and protozoa).

When I received the protection cord, I was instructed to wear it until it falls off on its own accord. I’ve had this sense that mine may make the transition off my neck in the near future (cue the spiritual woo woo music) perhaps even on the anniversary of putting it on. It’s funny because I’ll be sad when it falls off because it feels like it has become part of me and I fear somehow, that I may get hit by a runaway bus on the day it breaks off. I console myself by remembering that I have another in waiting that I can put on.

That string and I have been through a lot together and I can’t tell you the gallons of sweat it has absorbed. I put my finger through it and draw it up to hang on my nose. Seeing it and feeling it reminds me of my goal to return to Everest base camp to receive another (and hopefully climb higher on the mountain than last time).

Early this week, I found myself struggling tremendously with the decision of when to return to Everest. All of the factors were swirling around in my head like the white glitter in a snow globe. I know this is how my decisions unfold for me but I grew very impatient with the process and wanted clarity on my schedule. Funny, how that goes.

I knew I was marinating in my brine of my own mind so I was glad when a friend offered to listen as I brought all of the factors into the light of day. Freed from the limited space in my cranium, the pressure of that kinetic energy of all that bouncing thought released and I’ve got some spaciousness to wait for a clear direction and more information.

It’s nearing time to decide about what I will climb next after Kilimanjaro and that decision should probably be influenced by the date of my return to the Big E. So likely, the two decisions will be made in consort…over the next while, with (hopefully) a big dose of spaciousness and the recognition that there probably isn’t one right answer (just a whole lot of answers/options/paths/journeys). I’m struck by both how quickly time passes and at the same time, how slowly it goes. Where did the last year go? Everest season 2008 is almost on us. Then again, where did the last week go?

So, I’ll keep you posted regarding post Kili life. In the meantime, training for climbing Africa’s highest peak is right on schedule. The team is working hard and noticing strength and fitness gains from all the work we are putting in. Gear is being ordered, tested, and broken-in. Some days the emails fly fast and furious, others days folks put their heads down and try to get some work or training done. Speaking of which, I still owe myself several hours of training today so I’d best get at it!

Have a good week,

TA

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Kili Karuna #8

Posted on February 24, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy Leap Year to All,

I had a great training week with lots of energy and focus–that was a treat. I traded off my cement legs for the week and enjoyed a sense of greater strength throughout my entire body. I even jumped the weight in my pack for step class to thirty pounds.

Sundays are my long training days. I start with a long run, then hike with my Kilimanjaro group and finish off with a raucous game of hockey. Today my energy held through the whole day and I feel like I could go out and do some more (love the influence of endorphins.) On out hike today, we started up from the community of Shea Heights to hike out to the coastal cliffs standing guard over Freshwater Bay. I was picking out the route I use in summer by memory, wing, and prayer. At one point, we had to pick our way gingerly across a bog.

For those of you not from Newfoundland, you may not be familiar with the sensation/terror of falling in a bog hole. It’s like the ground drops away below you and your foot and leg are swallowed by quicksand-like water. It’s hard to extricate yourself without falling deeper into the hole. Sometimes in winter, we’re lucky and the bog freezes. Sometimes we’re not, and the insulation of the snow keeps in lying in wait to trap the unsuspecting hiker.

You can see where I am going with this. One team member today was swallowed up by a deep and soaking bog hole. Her snowshoe-clad foot was trapped in three feet of water before she could sort out how to free herself. She emerged shaken and soaked. We started going through the inventory of clothing we were carrying to see what we might offer. I asked her to roll in the snow to absorb some of the water but given my tracks had just led her into the gaping maw of a bog hole, she declined. She changed her upper layer and gloves. She looked at me and said, “You’re not going to let me go back, are you?”

I smiled mischievously and said, “No, we’ll be hiking in rain for the first three days on Kili this will be good practice.” Then I asked how warm her feet and body were. She replied that she was currently warm so I suggested that indeed she continue with us and keep us posted about her body temperature and that she could turn around at any point. I was so proud of her for continuing because it would have been so easily to stop her hike right then. All of us would have understood.

As we hiked further towards the coast and away from the cars, I thought about obstacles and perseverance. No matter what our path, there will be obstacles. I often think of them as punctuation. An obstacle can be a period, comma, or exclamation point. Sometimes we have a say in which form of punctuation is and sometimes we don’t. This afternoon, our team member could have had her fall into the bog hole be a period–a full stop. Instead, she took a deep breath and made it a comma. She hiked out to the viewpoint and then said she was chilling and wanted to return to the cars.

We all hiked her back to her car, thanked her for her perseverance, and for the opportunity to climb the big hill for a second time that afternoon. As we hiked back up the hill, I thought of a quote I’ve been using recently in my presentations by Hannah Moore: “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.” I think when we keep our goals in sight; we’re more likely to find a way round, over, under, or through an obstacle. If we don’t have a view, the obstacles loom larger somehow. I use many techniques to help keep my dreams and goals in view. I put a picture of my goal on all of my computer desktops, I tape one to my mirror, and I carry one to the gym. I want to be reminded several times a day why I’m training hard or pushing myself into uncomfortable places. Those reminders help me take the action steps to get closer to my view.

I was honoured and humbled this week to receive several appreciations from people who’ve heard me speak lately. I got this one from a young man who attended a Junior Achievement program here last weekend:

I would just like to say you are an amazing speaker. I was one of the delegates at the JAAC 2008 conference at the Holiday Inn on February 16th. It was such an amazing speech. It was so inspirational. I loved it. I bought a set of the prayer flags. Every time I see them it reminds me off your speech and that in turn inspires me to seek my own goals, climb my own Everest. I can’t wait for your book to come out.

I share it, not to blow my own horn, but to share how he was using the prayer flags as a visual reminder of his goals and dreams and how so often when I seek to inspire others, they in turn, inspire me.

It was an exciting week as well on the book front. I found my book, ready for pre-order, on the Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Chapters websites. I bounced like Tigger as somehow, seeing the book on those websites made it all the more real. Donna, my contact at the publisher, said, “If you’re this excited now, I can’t wait until I have an actual box of the books in my office. I’ll have to scrape you off the ceiling.”

This week, I started a Facebook group to communicate with folks about the launch of the book and I uploaded the video that my friend, Greg Rainoff made about my preparations for Everest there. I’ve also posted some pictures form both Denali and Everest there and you can read the blurb from the back of the book!

You can check it out at this URL: http://mun.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10685091786
Feel free to pass the link around!

Thanks to all for sharing my excitement about the book and for coming along on this journey towards Kilimanjaro.

Take good care,

TA

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Kili Karuna #7

Posted on February 17, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy Belated Valentine’s Day to All,

There is magic in a moon shadow. That there can be enough light in the dark to cast a shadow sometimes defies logic and inspires a sense of “the special.” Five of us braved the bitter cold wind to tromp through Pippy Park tonight on our weekly Kilimanjaro training hike. I’d asked everyone to bring headlamps but we didn’t need them because the giant headlamp in the sky was beaming down enough light to illuminate the path.

It seemed an apt ending to the week to have a visceral connection to a light in the darkness. It was a bit of a tough week for no particular reason–perhaps the doldrums of winter or noticing the loneliness of the path. I noted the difficulty and tried to pay it no mind–or at least not ramp it up by probing too deeply. I trusted it would pass and it did somewhere between Ju Jitsu self-defense class and speaking to the Girl Guide brunch.

I have this plan to ride a bike from Tuktoyaktuk to Tierra de Feugo and some weeks ago decided I needed to learn to fight before going on that trip. Well, not fight exactly, defend myself is more accurate. I’m not sure I’ll be able to convince anyone to come with me on a 10,000 kilometre jaunt so I may be going it solo. I realized it would make sense to have more self-defense skills in my tool box. I contacted a local gym just after the New Year and each week, I had it in my mind to make the women’s self-defense class. Each week something came up; a schedule conflict or someone needed something or I was feeling shy. Yesterday, I told myself that this was the day. I took a deep breath, walked in, and had a whole whack of fun learning how to “remove” someone who was pinning me to the ground or to a wall. My early childhood Judo training came right back and I was thrilled to finally be taking a step closer to Tuktoyaktuk.

I did four speaking engagements this week and all went well. Today I spoke at the Baden Powell Brunch for Girl Guides and Boy Scouts leaders. I dug out an old picture of me from my brief stint as a brownie in 1972. There, dressed in my brown dress and orange scarf, I epitomized awkward. I told the story of how in my first brownie pack (where we danced around toad stools and saluted our leader Brown Owl), I was assigned to the Fairy Six. A six was a small grouping within the pack. At the time, I actually coveted Cub Scout badges because they were multi-coloured and I was cultivating at even such an early age, my inner fashion diva.

Since, at that point, girls weren’t allowed to join cubs, I had to settle for the sheik look of two-tone brown and gold. I noted that the Fairy identifying badge was gold and brown, just like the rest of the badges on my uniform. All was right and good in brownie land.

At the end of that school year, I moved schools and thus had to join a new brownie pack. During the first meeting of the next school year, I went to my new group and they wanted to make me a Sprite. “Oh no! The Sprite badge is green and brown, my two-tone colour scheme will be ruined.”

What’s an eight year old to do when faced with a fashion crisis of such epic proportion? Cry! Yup. I cried my eyes out, sobbing that, “I want to be a Fairy, not a Sprite.” They took pity on the new kid and let her stay a Fairy after all. All was good once again.

As you can imagine, the folks at the brunch were howling today as I told that story. I was trying to communicate the importance of children having adults in their lives. As I look back on how I came to climb Mount Everest and the rest of the Seven Summits, I can chart a path from childhood that notes and appreciates the many adults in my life that took an interest, offered mentorship, gave opportunities, listened, and provided examples of what is/was possible. My grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, teachers, community program leaders, camp counselors, caregivers, and friends all played a significant role in helping me develop, see, claim, and use my personal strengths.

I remember one summer helping my dad put the pier in at our summer cottage. I was carrying a heavy section with my dad when some men came over and offered to help and tried to take my end. Dad said, “No leave her–she can do it.” I think we all need (no matter what age we are) folks who come along at the right moments and remind us that we can do it. Sometimes, though we also need folks to tell us that it’s OK not to do something as well.

Coming out of the doldrums has reenergized my training and I look forward to stepping it up a bit this week. I paid my trip deposit this week and that always ups the ante when I know I’m committed to a climb. I also saw the proof of the complete cover of my book this week as well. I have an ISBN number! When I told Donna, my contact at the publisher, that having an ISBN number made me want to happy dance, she replied, “I wish I’d known, I would have told you sooner–you’ve had an ISBN number since September.” Things with the book are progressing well and it’s almost ready to go to print. We’re hoping to have it ready for bookstores in early April with the launch happening around the third week or so. I’ll keep you posted.

Drop me a line and let me know how you are doing and what you’re up to!

Have a good week,

TA

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Kili Karuna #6

Posted on February 10, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Heartfelt Greetings to All,

My thoughts are buzzing around in my head and quickly plugging the outlet as they compete to come out through my fingers. I’m listening to Con Te Partirò (Time to Say Good-Bye). It was one of the pieces of music played at my colleague’s funeral this week. It was a piece of music I first encountered at the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas. The rhythm of this piece of music on every occasions I’ve heard it reaches so deeply into me that I suspect my heart responds and beats in time with it. Since Frank’s funeral, I have listened to the song over thirty times as I’m want to do when an occasion touches me through and through. I spent much of this week leading students in the woods and each time I was there, I felt Frank’s spirit there watching over in his gentle, fatherly way.

I had a funny time before the funeral that I’m sure Frank would have enjoyed. I was wanting to have some comfort food so I put on a box of KD (Kraft dinner) to cook and then realized that I had just enough time to bake a cake for a potluck the next evening. I got out the cake mix and followed the directions while the macaroni bubbled away in the pot. As it was a marble cake, I mixed the white batter and then poured most of it into the pan. I was to leave some to mix with the chocolate that came in a small rectangular packet. I reached over and grabbed the nearest small rectangular packet, tore it open, peered inside and mentally noted, “That’s not the color I was expecting.”

I failed to pause and ask why it didn’t match and dumped it in. The light yellow powder had a small hint of orange to it. “Hmmm,” I thought. “Maybe a chemical reaction will turn it brown and more chocolate like.” I started to mix the powder in and the batter instantly turned a phenomenal shade of orange that would have made my sponsors at AppleCore Interactive proud (their corporate colors are orange and green). The penny still didn’t drop as I mixed the batter until I looked over at my boiling pot of lunch. I finally put all the pieces together and realized that the small rectangular packets were almost identical and I’d just dumped my cheese sauce for the KD into the cake batter.

“So much for all that Buddhist mindfulness practice I’ve been doing,” I chuckled. What to do? I opened the second small rectangular packet and don’t you know, it looked like just chocolate. I sprinkled it over the remaining batter and mixed it in. “So much for the marbled effect,” I whined. I then drained the macaroni and added some of the “cheesecake” batter and it started to bake instantly onto the hot macaroni. I tasted it. “Not exactly the savory comfort food I was craving, but not bad either–kinda like a bread pudding.” I told myself to pay better attention through the rest of the day. I had noticed that the previous tough month had taken its toll and I needed to be even more mindful than usual. I got away with a sweet lunch but high on a mountain, a lapse in mindfulness can have much more severe consequences.

I took my winter outdoor activities class out for their “sleep in snowballs” weekend. It’s both a culmination of their semester’s learning and a rite of passage for the program. Classes that have completed the winter campground pass on their hints and stories from when they did it. Nerves and anxieties run high through out the snow piling and digging process but smiles of achievement abound the next morning when each student crawls victoriously from their snow homes.

Near the end of the week, it was announced publicly that I had been awarded a 2008 3M Teaching Fellowship. I’d been informed about three weeks ago but wasn’t allowed to tell anyone so Maclean’s could make the public announcement. The 3M Teaching Fellowship recognizes teaching excellence and educational leadership in Canada. This year there were 52 nominees and ten were chosen. I join an illustrious group of 228 educators that have received this recognition in the past quarter century. Here is a link to a story about the award: http://today.mun.ca/news.php?news_id=3552

Given the award, how I spent my weekend, and having been out hiking with some of the members of my Kilimanjaro climbing team, I want to share a piece of writing related to my teaching philosophy. I wrote it as part of the dossier that was submitted to the selection committee and it speaks, both to how the mountains teach me, and I, in turn, teach others.

Mountains are my teachers. They exact deep lessons. When I climbed Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere, I wrote these words:

Hardship. That’s life at extreme altitude. Vision. Views from high places. Stark understanding. Rising above. Seeing nothing higher. Seeing in new ways. This is what makes the hardship both bearable and worth it. Seeing and then coming down having seen. Pushing through. Giving up comfort. Working with my mind. Finding small pockets of fun and absurdity and laughter and connection. Seeing the morning light dance circles. Watching the evening sun drain from the hills. Sinking into a rich rhythm of physical exertion and mental stamina. Learning the lessons that come from days and days of outdoor living, the whispers of the stars, and the drone of the wind.

I teach my students like the mountains teach me. With vision. With struggle. Asking them to reach up and out and to reach for an unknown sky. To learn while filled with uncertainty and sometimes with joy and mirth. I ask for mindful engagement always – to climb or teach or learn without focus leads to unwelcome consequences.

Mountains are both solid and moving. They are stead, wise, and seemingly unyielding while at the same time they are changing through erosion and time. As a teacher, I seek to provide a solid presence for my students. I am reliable, accessible, and my students come to know they can depend on me both inside and outside the classroom. I also move and change. I reflect on my life experiences and bring change to who and how I am which in turn, shifts how I teach. I teach differently over time and season, continuously trying to improve my ability to facilitate student learning.

Mountains are both demanding and compassionate. The obstacles to their lofty peaks are many and danger lurks for even the most prepared mountaineer. Amid the perils, however, shelter, beauty, and meaning can be found. I am a demanding teacher. I have and communicate high expectations for my students. I want them to work hard, engage deeply, and explore new ground. This level of expectation can feel dangerous to students as I ask them to learn in ways less familiar to them. I frame courses as journeys of learning and provide opportunities and activities that encourage the development of community within the class. I strive to create an atmosphere of kindness, compassion, and understanding that provides a belay. This foundation of care and respect offers a safety line allowing students to take greater emotional and intellectual risks.

Mountains are both journey and destination. They summon us to climb their slopes, explore their canyons, and attempt their summits. The summit, despite months of preparation and toil, is never guaranteed though tastes of sweet nectar when reached. If my only goal as a teacher and mountaineer is the summit, I risk cruel failure if I do not reach the highest apex. Instead, if I accept the mountain’s invitation to journey and create meaning in each step, success is manifest in every moment. As a teacher, I seek to balance “the view” and “the footsteps.” Without the view, my students and I are lost.

Without the footsteps, we don’t move from where we began. I create a flow in my teaching that seeks the summit, the learning objectives for each course, and which honours the journey, the experiences and learning along the climb to it.

Mountains are both mirror and void. The brilliant white flanks reflect the blazing sun magnifying its power to illuminate. The dark recesses of crevasses absorb sound and light leaving a quiet potential space. As a teacher, I offer students the paradoxes of
light and dark, of reflection and absorption, of heights and depths. I offer my entire self by sharing my life process on my website. I allow students to see me as fully human, fully fallible, fully engaged. I actively facilitate reflective processing of experience in my classes. I hold up a metaphorical mirror that allows students to glimpse themselves in new or different ways. I also become a sounding board who can listen and absorb their pain, confusion, or loss.

Richard Bach in Illusions said, “I teach best what I most need to learn.” It was a sentence that stopped me cold when I first read it as a 20-year-old undergraduate and has been my constant companion throughout my teaching career. In recent years, mountains have taught me so much and so, in turn, I seek to teach like the mountain, sharing both the high summits and deep valleys with students in my classroom.

I had a rich and full rest week and I look forward to being back to full training again this week. I had a bit of a back injury from an awkward hockey fall on Tuesday but it seems to be on the road to recovery. We’ve got ten folks on the climbing team and it was a big week of purchasing airline tickets and paying trip deposits!

Take good care,

TA

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Kili Karuna #5

Posted on February 3, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Howdy from St. John’s,

I sit to write once again with a heavy and saddened heart. My friend and colleague, Frank Butler, passed away suddenly this week. He was well loved by so many of his students and colleagues. He leaves a legacy of sport and recreation leadership that few can ever hope to duplicate. I will miss him asking about my outdoor classes, catching up on his latest cabin exploits, and having him challenge me to always become a better teacher. It was Frank who showed me my first iceberg which I think, clinched the deal to bring me to Newfoundland and what a thirteen years it’s been!

As I did my long run this morning in a freezing drizzle, I spent some time reflecting on the past two months during which six people in my circle of family and friends have died suddenly. I started out before sunrise when the black and icy streets reflected only the dimmest light and ran until those same streets were filled (albeit temporarily) with a golden bath of a fresh day’s arrival. Like the street, I felt my heart transform over the course of my run. I’ve noticed of late that it would be easy to shut down to the pain and the grief and to harden my heart like tempered steel. Very tempting. Fortunately though, my Buddhist path has trained me to notice that hardening and move back towards compassion and softening. Using gentleness to cultivate a tender heart.

I did the final copy edit on my book this week and read it cover to cover for the first time in a few months. I was struck by this quote I chose to lead one of the chapters with:

The bruise on the heart which at first feels incredibly tender to the slightest touch eventually turns all the shades of the rainbow and stops aching. –Erica Jong

So with all of the loss and grief that has touched me of late, I feel like my heart is bruised but I know the pain will dull and move out of my chest at some point. I take solace in what my friend Georgina said to me, “When you love, a lot you hurt a lot.”

It was also week four of my first Kilimanjaro training cycle. Week four is always filled with fatigue, leaden legs, and the temptation to throw in the towel. It’s like the final carry on a mountain. The romanticism is gone, you’ve seen the trail before, and it is just time to put your head down and put in the work. Phil noticed that I wasn’t my usual energetic self on Friday during our training session so he cut me a little slack until I dug a bit deeper to find the heart to jump on the bosu a few more times.

After tonight’s multiple ascent of Signal Hill with the Kili group, it’s a rest week and that’s a good thing. During the rest week, I will complete only 3 cardio sessions and play hockey. I use the freed up hours to catch my breath, sleep in, and eat lots! I’ve noticed a significant increase in appetite again now that I’m training hard.

Speaking of the Kili group, it was an exciting time for us this week. We noticed that airfares had suddenly started to skyrocket because of the end of the low season and sent out an alert to the team that it was time to grab the wildebeest by the horns and buy a ticket to Africa! It was fantastic–folks rose to the challenge and committed themselves to the adventure of a lifetime. There are currently eight of us on the team with a few more women sitting on the fence making their decisions. For me, a climb always becomes much more real once I have paid the deposit and purchased a plane ticket. I’m heading over on May 29 and we’ll likely begin the climb on June 2nd.

So a week of highs and lows, excitement and grief, the full gamut of the human experience. I am taking all of the loss of late as a continual reminder of the preciousness of this human life I’ve got and plan to continue using it to good ends.

Have a good week,

TA

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Kili Karuna #4

Posted on January 27, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Greetings from a Frosty Sunday Evening,

I’m sunk into my chair. I guess you are getting the idea that I always write from my chair. Something about the act of plunking myself down into my IKEA haven signals my mind and body that it’s time to commit words to screen (sounds much less romantic than “to paper.” I’m just home from my second night at the World Tour of the Banff Festival of Mountain Films. Having watched four hours of mountain adventure and culture, I am overflowing with inspiration, awe, and astonishment. I am also filled with a lovely lagging fatigue from a day of cold weather activity.

I awoke this morning dreading my long run (which isn’t all that long yet). The cocoon of my bed was so pleasant that I was loath to leave it. I knew this was far too early in my training to start taking sessions off so I dug deep and willed myself upright. I stared out the window and tried to get a sense of what might await outside. The early morning light reached out from the sky like a grandmother spreading jam on a biscuit fresh from the oven. I still didn’t want to go out and run so I used the oldest trick in the book, bribery!

I have been mostly vegetarian for my entire adult life but there is one meat product that is sure to motivate me to greater things. The savory, salt and nitrate laden, harbinger of early death, porcine product known as bacon got me out the door. I promised myself that if I went for a run that I could immediately undo all good health effects of such by rewarding myself with a breakfast special at Zach’s. The thought of a yummy meal and the long morning shadows beckoned me out into my golden surroundings and I was hit with a blast of cold as I opened the front door.

Minus twenty-five windchill found its way through any seam in my clothing. I gave thanks for my foresight in wearing wind protection on both top and bottom and for my multi-colored neck gaiter that pre-warmed the frigid air. By the time I reached the shores of Quidi Vidi Lake, I was grateful to be out and moving. I know, when I meet training resistance, often the best thing to do is to go through the motions, act as if, begin some preparations, and get out the door. It’s a rare, rare day when, once I’m out, that I turn around and go back in.

An hour later, frost caked my eyelashes and blinking became a challenge because my lashes would freeze shut whenever they came into contact with each other. Endorphins romped through my veins and I happily took myself across the street to Zach’s, once I changed into dry clothes. I sat reading the Shambhala Sun while I waited for my scrambled eggs, bacon, and home fries. This quote, by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, caught my attention. “It’s easier to put on a pair of shoes than wrap the world in leather.” I began to look at how I could change my way of thinking rather than expect the world to change.

We had our fourth group hike as a Kili group and folks are already starting to notice improvements in their fitness. It will be such a pleasure and joy for me to share the mountain with a team I already know before I get there. We climbed up a steep gully leading to the top of the South Side Hills and were rewarded with a grand view of Cabot Tower, Cape Spear, and the city of St. John’s. At times, as I broke trail in the foot deep powder, I imagined I could be high on any mountain in the world. Sun, rock, white snow, and blue sky are the harbingers of the mountain environment to me and I found them today just moments from home. The hike was so amazing that I returned home not caring that the super cold temperatures had frozen my sewer once again. It’s funny what a little exercise can do!

Have a good week,

TA

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Kili Karuna #3

Posted on January 20, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Greetings from a Snowy Evening in St. John’s,

I am once again in my chair–no ice this time–trying to find words to describe my week. It was the second full week of a more intense training schedule, so by Friday, I was enveloped in a thick quilt of fatigue. Patchworks of exercise through the week had taken their toll and I struggled to make it through my last few workouts. The fatigue was a good sign. It means I’m working hard enough. As always, my challenge is to ensure that I rest enough and I try to apply the lessons I learned from training for Everest to future climbs. I remind myself to take the entire constellation of my existence into account when deciding to keep or set aside a planned training. And different from the past, I’m willing to rest more often than in the past. I’ve come to trust that my body will be ready for Kilimanjaro when the time comes–that training puts reserves in the bank from which to withdraw from on the mountain but doesn’t always have to be a study in Nietzsche.

Phil has added push-ups to my regime and I do them to failure…until my face drops to the floor no longer held up by my arms. I lay there panting, forehead glued to the hardwood with sweat, waiting for my little mitochondria to manufacture a tad bit more energy so I can pull off a few more reps. I’ve been thinking that life lately has been a bit like those push-ups.

Friday, I learned that a friend from my Buddhist community died suddenly and unexpectedly at the way too young age of thirty-four. The news threw me to the floor with no energy left to face a third death in my circle of friends and family in less than a month. There was the temptation to remain stuck to the floor, questioning how and why life and death go the way they do. The unfocused view of the floor only inches beneath my eyes, reminded me that there is no answer. No one answer anyway. And that each person has to find her or his own answer. To her or his own questions. After many tears, I settled into a continued appreciation of the preciousness of this life and a renewed commitment to never take it for granted.

Tuesday, Marty and I got to play on a line together in hockey. We used to share the offensive zone with Nicole when Don coached us all. Both Marty and I needed a good skate and during the first shift, she set up me beautifully several times and I managed a pure hat trick within the confines of the opening minutes of the game. We returned to the bench, and with a sentiment that I think you almost have to be a jock to understand, I said to Marty, “This game’s for Don.” With a quick nod of her head, she joined my pact and we skated our hearts and grief out for the rest of the game connecting efforts for several more goals. There are many things to do with grief. As a kinesthetic processor, it often helps me to walk, or skate, or hike, or sweat to get big emotions to move on out and through.

I was grateful for a big double snowshoe ascent of the hill above Quidi Vidi village this morning with the Kili crowd for the opportunity to climb through my grief and be ready to attend Michelle’s wake this afternoon. Through these hard times of the past few weeks, I’ve appreciated your words of support and kindness and like training, they add to the reserve–a deep well of community and connection that sustains me both at altitude and sea level. Thanks for coming along on this multi-faceted journey.

TA

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Kili Karuna #2

Posted on January 13, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Hello to All,

I’m just back from my long run and am sitting on my favorite chair icing my leg trying to keep ahead of my irritable IT band. I spent much of my run ruminating over the past week and I am filled with a devastating poignancy that only comes through grief and the true recognition of our impermanence. There is an unwritten rule that parents should never have to bury their children and I watched that decree broken this week. My heart cracked open as a family had to face the inexplicable loss of their son and brother at the tender age of nineteen.

The father of this family, Don, was my hockey coach for almost a decade but I hadn’t seen him much over the past few years. His daughter and I were line mates; with me at the center and she on the wing. Sharing the ice and locker rooms for those many long cold winter hours, we came to know each other intimately without words, but through action. I always knew where she would be on the ice and could send a pass to an opening, knowing she would be there to catch it.

I stopped by the funeral home to pay my respects and looked into the tear-stained eyes of my coach. We embraced long and hard and I wanted so badly to absorb some of his pain. He said, “I want something good to come of this, I want to get back to coaching hockey.” I replied, “The kids of today need you, they need your time, your energy, your wisdom. I want to see you back on that ice.” With his voice cracking he answered, “I am so proud of you. I want you to go back to Everest and keep inspiring kids.” My heart leapt at those words that children and players most want to hear, “I am so proud of you,” and I silently gave gratitude to all who had said those words to me when I most needed to hear them. With eyes glistening, we stepped back and teased our hearts apart. We began to reminiscence about hockey and I reflected back to him, the lessons he had taught me about the game.

This morning as I ran, I thought about how those hockey adages were indeed, instructions for life. Don used to get so frustrated when we would “dipsy doodle” on the blue line. The blue line demarcates the neutral zone from the offensive zone and must be gained with all players behind the puck. Don wanted us to gain the zone and then begin our fancy plays and moves but often a player would try “a move” near the blue line and put other teammates offside. Don would jump up and down in frustration as we appeared addicted to our dipsy doodles (perhaps a close relative of the Vanilla Dip).

This morning, I took this lesson to mean, “Stay focused on moving towards the goal.” Recognize that there is a time and place for fancy showy moves but also a time for clear-headed straightforward effort. By gaining the zone with efficiency, there is more time and opportunity to set up a strategy that will lead to scoring.

Don also used to remind us, “It never hurts to throw the puck at the net.” If I had the puck and no one in position to receive a pass and I was under pressure, just shoot! From wherever I was on the ice. Even directly to the side of the goal. And you know, it works. I have probably scored fifty goals using this advice and I credit Don each time. In life beyond the rink, what does this tell me? When I’m lost as for what to do, don’t worry about it. Throw some effort towards my goal and something good will often come of it. I don’t always need to see the path through, sometimes what counts is faith and action–even if that action seems absurd or pointless.

The other piece of advice that Don dished out was “Support the puck carrier.” When a player carries the puck up the ice, she should have at least two outlets to whom to pass. It was our job to “skate off the puck and go to open ice.” He taught us to form triangles from which to mount our attack on the opposing goal. Our line mates came to understand, again without words, where we would be on the ice and could count on us to get there. Yesterday, at the funeral, teammates, players, friends, and family came together to offer support and love.

So, over the next months as I prepare for the heights of Kilimanjaro, I will keep Don and his family in my thoughts and prayers. I will heed the lessons he taught me about the game of hockey and pass them onto others as I train and climb because as I understand it this morning, ice is ice, whether horizontal or vertical, and a coach is always a coach.

Have a good week,

TA

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Happy New Year and Kili Karuna #1

Posted on January 6, 2008 by TA Loeffler

Happy New Year and Happy Old Christmas Eve,

Here in Newfoundland, and I’m sure many other places, this is the twelfth day of Christmas. A time for one last Christmas party, taking the tree and decorations down, and begin to focus on the New Year. After two months of intensive travel, I was glad to settle back into home on Boxing Day and have a quiet week doing little except catch my breath.

I had the great privilege to be the first guest of 2008 on Radio Noon Crosstalk on January 2nd. As the province’s poster child for living one’s dreams, the host and producer invited me on the show to talk about my “Bucket List.” Named after the new movie about two men who are dying and seek to live out their bucket lists, the show invited listeners to call in and discuss what was on their lists. I think I surprised Ramona, the host, when I said the number one thing on my list was learning how to drive a plow truck so I could free my inner “plow girl” and do good deeds on snowy days.

New Year’s is often a time we think about resolutions and change. I this year decided on New Year’s intentions rather than resolutions-somehow that seemed kinder and more compassion. I was reading an article about life change tonight and it suggested that to be successful at many life change, three things had to be present: a relationship with someone who inspires us and shows us that something is possible, practice and skills at whatever the change is or requires, and thinking in new ways after the first two things happen. The three steps were summed up as relating, repeating, and reframing. Three new R’s for the New Year. I’m going to keep them in mind as I set about training for my next climb since I set a New Year’s intention of practicing compassion in every part of my life.

Karuna is the Tibetan word for compassion. My Buddhist friend and mentor, Susan, once had a router. She named it Karuna so it would beam out its name sixty-times a second. She liked the image of compassion being sent out into the neighbourhood so frequently. On my own Buddhist path, compassion has been a key part of the journey and something I want to nurture in others and myself.

I am also a fan of alliteration. While searching for a focus for this climb, I liked the how “Kili Karuna” sounded as it rolled off my tongue. Suddenly, I knew I had found my intention for this climb: to train and climb with compassion in every step. For the first time, on a seven summits climb, friends will join me. I look forward to guiding them on their high altitude journeys and sharing some of the tricks I’ve learned for surviving the inevitable suffering of low oxygen environments.

Kilimanjaro is Kilimanjaro, located in Tanzania, is the highest peak in Africa at 5895 metres and if often referred to as “The Roof of Africa.” The climb is scheduled for June 2008 just at the end of the rainy season. As usual, I will blog weekly during the months leading up to the climb and share lessons and insights from the path. I hope you’ll come along on the journey and share yours with me.

It was an exciting week for me in regards to my upcoming book. We settled on the cover and it looks great. This week I meet with the publisher to choose the photographs for center color glossy photo section and the manuscript is out being copy-edited as I type this. I will keep you posted about when it will be available–I think I may pass out the first time I see it for purchase on Amazon. I also learned this week that I will be honoured in April as the Minnesota State University Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in the Humanitarian category. Mankato is the university where I studied experiential education and adventure-based counseling. I had no idea I had even been nominated and so the notification of the honour came as a complete surprise.

Wishing you all the best in 2008,

TA

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Chilean Clif Notes and Pictures

Posted on December 16, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Some folks said they were scared off by the length of my last posting so as I make my transition back from the icy heights to the ice of the hockey rink, I thought I would provide a summary version of the various postings.

Chilean Recipe for Adventure

Imagine a moonscape of red, oranges, ochres, sages, and beiges.
Add classic and not so classic volcano shapes.
Mix in laughter and shared experience.
Stir in views of copper, gold, and silver mines.
Take it step by step as elevation is gained.
Bake in the world’s driest desert.
Descend until sea level.
Drive for three days to tallest volcano in the world.
Withstand windy, cold, cold conditions.
Bake in high altitude UV.
Climb as high as you can before AMS and cold weather shut you down shy of the goal.
Descend.
Feel better.
Solve truck crisis and make it to the airport in the nick of time.
Fly for 36 hours.
Return to regular life.
Tell bits of the story.
Reflect.
Grow.
Jump into Christmas.
Post pictures to website.
Start dreaming of Africa.
Gather ingredients.
Start training tomorrow.

You can find pictures from the climb at two URL’s:

http://mun.facebook.com/album.php?aid=74845&l=32496&id=509940550

Pictures of Flat Stanley’s adventures can be found at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=74842&l=445dc&id=509940550

Thanks to all for coming along on this most amazing journey over the past six months. I wish you and your families the very best of the holiday season and I hope 2008 brings you lots of love, joy, and adventure of the sort you desire.

Take good care,

TA

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Deliriously Happy in Santiago

Posted on December 12, 2007 by TA Loeffler

I’m flying from Copiapo to Santiago, Chilean tunes blaring in my ears, investigating if my laptop will still work after three weeks of environmental punishment, and I am deliriously happy. Perhaps it is the doubling of my oxygen supply since we dropped from 5260 metres to sea level yesterday. Or maybe, it is the intensity of deep adventure handed out by traversing lonely lands sculpted by frigid scouring winds. It could be the eruption of internal magma freed by climbing on the steep slopes on three of Chile’s 2,300 or so volcanoes. It’s probably all of the above and more.

Looking back, the trip has almost been more driving adventure than climbing expedition. I think if we truly recognized how dangerous driving is, we might not do it so often. Some of the roads we’ve navigated in remote confines of Northern Chile have invoked a tremendous fear in me. One stretch even had the guide breathing hard and clenching the wheel as he brought the loaded beast that was our truck around one of the sharpest hairpin turns I’ve ever seen. Of course, to up the ante, there was a 300-metre drop to the outside edge. Given there was nothing to do but trust Damien and the truck, I said a small blessing and tried to enjoy the view.

As we made our way back from the ocean to the antiplano once more, the road “progressed” from interstate pavement to potholed filled asphalt to precipitous dirt. We left mining town after mining town behind and it seemed as though we are the only humans for miles. The higher in altitude we climbed, the less the road resembled one. Our four-wheel drive, quad cab Nissans were put to test after test. In fact, I almost wasn’t sitting in this airplane seat…

After our beach adventure of getting the trucks stuck on the beach near Taltal, we drove for two days to reach 4,300 metres and our first view of Ojos de Salado. We stopped at the road sign that marked the cut-off to the base camp for the mountain to take some pictures. We were instantly greeted with the introductory notes of a freezing overture that would play almost constantly for the next week in our ears and across our exposed skin. I scampered for a few more layers to ward off the cutting wind and finally set my eyes on the peak that had occupied my imagination for the past half-year. As per usual, it looked overwhelming in it’s totality and I looked for clues to the route to break up the climb into more manageable chunks. Javier, the head guide, pointed out the route and then we jumped back into the truck for the short drive to Laguna Verde.

The teal waters of the lake leapt from the shore to greet us with more vigor than the wind. Reminiscent of the color of the underbelly of an iceberg, the white-capped waves spread salt onto anyone who ventured near. Crusts of brine broke underfoot when we dipped our hands into the magical pools of hot water that ringed the shore. I felt as if I had landed in a magical place of extreme beauty and temperature. Fighting to keep our tents from doing inspired imitations of kites, we weighed them down with luggage and rocks. Like the windy plateau Tibet, our new home would ask lots of us just to exist.

After lunch, we hedged bets on who would actually brave the cold to soak in the rock-rimmed pools of volcanically heated water. Vance, Michael, and I were the only brave (read slightly stunned) ones to expose our bodies to the full force of the weather. It was worth every moment of suffering–and is so often the case, getting out of the water was actually easier than expected.

The jump in elevation caused periodic breathing in some folks and sleep was getting harder to come by. We rose before the sun to do an acclimatization climb of a neighbouring volcano “Mulas de las Muertas (dead mules).” We tried not to take the dried skeleton of a horse at the entrance of our camping spot too seriously. Without the sun, the temperature was well below freezing and the wind had already begun to tune its orchestra by humming a few notes. Given the fifteen percent oxygen level, we climbed very slowly since any rapid movement invoked the frantic panting of a 100-metre sprinter at the end of a race.

Climbing above the bluffs that surround the lake, the sun caught up to us and brought warmth to bear. The first few hours passed quickly as we practiced the mountaineers’ mantra of putting one step slowly in front of the other. The higher we climbed, the more the lake disclosed the varieties of its coloration. As we ascended, we lost 6.5 degrees Celsius of warmth per 1000 metres which was quickly multiplied as the woodwinds joined the string section in trying to blow us off the volcano’s flanks. We dropped just below the ridgeline in hopes of not having to beat up directly into the wind. Each step was a hard won fight. We could only stop briefly for nourishment and to let the trailing members of our expedition catch up.

I climbed strongly for the first few hours then slowed a bit. As the wind continued to build, some folks packed it in and turned for home. I continued up until about 100 metres from the top when I noticed that the wind was blowing Javier from his feet. I decided to save my remaining strength for the summit attempt in a few days and I had met the acclimatization goal of 5600 metres. Javier, Michael and Paul climbed for another 45 minutes and were rewarded with a few windless moments on the summit.

After another soak in the geo-thermal rock pool, a delicious dinner, and a raucous game of “Go Fish,” my sleeping mat seemed more comfortable than ever. The symphony finally stopped near midnight and I slept until the sun warmed my tent. After Damien’s long promised crepes (well worth the wait), we packed up camp with ease. By now, we loaded and tied the truckloads with the grace of a well-honed team. My role was often to mount the truck cab to secure the ropes to the roll bars and pass the various wraps over the load from side to side. Like the Andean hawks that flew overhead, I enjoyed the view from my lofty perch.

Leaving Laguna Verde’s beauty behind, we began to leave most comforts, including the comfort of having a road. As some of you may remember, the northern Andes are famous for their pentitentes, unique snow sculptures leftover from the past winter’s snow pack. Unlike Aconcagua, this time we had to sort out how to get a truck past such obstacles. The pentitentes flowed out over the road to basecamp on several occasions driving us from its hard surface onto the sandy canyon bottom. Of course, you can guess what happened next. Both trucks bogged down. Javier managed to free his from the shifty alternate route but Damien’s wanted us to have more practice in sand-extrication. This time with the deliberate pace of 4,800 metres, we dug and hauled rocks and freed the truck in no time congratulating ourselves on our new mountaineering skill of vehicle extrication.

Fifteen kilometers of sand roulette later, we left the “normal” route behind for the “rocky” route since the regular way was still blocked by the snowy parishioners. Road would be too kind of a word for this stone-infested track that doubled as a massage bed in a cheap hotel room. Gripping the door handles kept us firmly in place as Javier wrestled the red beast to Atacama base camp at 5,260 metres. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when we dismounted even though that sigh was hard to get since we’d gained another 1,000 metres. Like a well qualified hunting dog on scent, the wind tracked us to our new home. We had to work in teams to erect the tents without aviation incident and then took an amazing lunch buffet in the don domo dome. The base camp had two large domes that groups can use as cook shelters. The Italian team next door actually put their sleeping tent up inside their dome to escape the wind.

Are you getting the idea that it was windy?

Life pace ratcheted down another notch with the new gain in sleeping altitude and most napped for the afternoon. I explored my new neighbourhood finding some peace and quiet amid a nearby pentitentes field. The sun warmed gravel between the five-foot snow shards proved inviting and I curled up for a nap until a nearby penitent fell from grace with an unnerving proximity. Since gentle walking assists in acclimatization, I walked up the route towards the advance camp for about an hour moving at a pace that would make a snail look like a Ferrari. I made a goal of taking twenty steps between breaks to catch my breath. I turned back about one kilometer from camp feeling pretty good.

That night our nightly card ritual graduated to “Cheat” with us all laughing so hard we hyperventilated easily. At 5,260 metres, we were getting by on almost half as much oxygen as usual. It makes everything either much funnier or much sadder depending on how one is doing. By bedtime, the jump in elevation was weighing heavily on almost everyone-drawn faces, little appetite, headaches all round…the temperature plummeted with the sunset and we tucked ourselves into our feather-lined cocoons to endure the cold sleepless night of early times at basecamp.

We didn’t dare leave our tents the next morning until the sun hit them raising the temperature to bearable. By eight, our faces were longer and puffier and the night’s toil of little sleep and even less oxygen was showing. Choking down breakfast, we committed to gentle walks and packing for the next day’s move to high camp. Bodies are amazing things and by midday most of the team was feeling much better. I packed my big pack trying to balance comfort items with weight. We doled out the group gear and a nervous energy took its place beside the ever-present wind. Several rounds of cards finished the day and we hoped for more sleep on our second night at base camp.

We were in no hurry to gain another 500 metres so we didn’t set out for Tejos camp until noon. The route was straightforward so we could each set our own pace. The wind played every instrument available so I appreciated that for some of the time it came from behind and pushed me uphill. I climbed steadily and surprisingly easily for the first two hours. I stopped for a break and lost access to all rhythm that makes climbing at altitude bearable. I knew I would lose it if I stopped but I had to take in some food and water. The next ninety minutes seemed longer than nine hours. I made deals with myself, first for fifty steps. Then forty. Twenty-five. Finally ten was all I could manage until I hunched over my trekking poles and rested enough to take another ten steps.

I wasn’t out of breath exactly but I didn’t have much either–it was as if after ten steps all energy from my body had been emptied by the wind and altitude. With each brief pause, I reigned back in some vitality and willed another ten steps. Finally, the orange walled shelter of Tejos Refuge came into view like manna from heaven. I pulled open the heavy door and joined Javier, Damien and Paul inside the cramped (yet windproof) space. Slowly over the next two hours, the rest of the group limped in worn down by the wind filled journey.

We had a few hours to hydrate, convince our oxygen starved bodies they wanted to eat, pack, and get psyched for the next day’s summit attempt. Before the sunset, I crawled into my sleeping bag with a hot water bottle and budding headache. Acute mountain sickness, not a sickness really, but the natural outcome of existing in a hypoxic (low oxygen) environment presents a predictable set of symptoms: headache, nausea, low appetite to name a few. I’m used to them and have become quite skilled at “blowing them off.” I use deep breathing and intensive hydration to support my body in the challenge of acclimitizating. Some of you again, will remember the nasty altitude headache I had last year on Aconcagua that threatened my summit attempt. After climbing to high camp at 6,000 metres, a jackhammer took up residence just behind my forehead. I spent two hours on my back breathing and drinking and managed to get it to pass in time.

High camp for Ojos is at 5860 metres and once again, predictably, some industrial tools decided to excavate my cranium. I slept little as I tried every trick I knew to get the pain in my head to subside. The night was long even though it ended at 3:00 a.m. with Javier giving the wake-up call. There is an adage in mountaineering that states, “Never ascend with symptoms of acute mountain sickness.” As we only had one go at the summit, I decided to see if my headache would pass with activity (they sometimes do when you get up and move around). Between pulsing waves of intense pain and nausea, I forced down some soup and bread and endured the time until the whole team was ready to begin. I wasn’t the only one having a headache–many looked ragged around the headlamp lit table.

We stepped out into the deep cold black of early morn. The stars, with no light to compete with, shone with magical intensity. I love climbing at night even though the temperature hovers at its coldest just before sunrise. For some reason, mountains seem less steep to me in the dark and I can drop into the kind rhythm of stepping and breathing. This time I paced myself to breath with each pounding cascade inside my head and for a while won the battle driving the pain (and the attendant worry) from my mind. I climbed strongly again for about two hours and then the pain returned with a renewed intensity that I couldn’t ignore.

“Never ascend with symptoms of acute mountain sickness, never ascend with symptoms of acute mountain sickness, never ascend with symptoms of acute mountain sickness,” became the mantra that formed the foundation of every step up. Damien stopped the group for some water and I knew it was time to stop. I’d tried and I couldn’t get my headache to stop. It was time to descend. High altitude cerebral edema is not something to flirt with (I like my brain). So I told Damien and then climbed down to Javier. He looked at me questioningly and with tears in my eyes, I said, “Javier, I can’t get my headache to stop-I must descend. He shook his head in agreement and said, “You have to go down but I had high hopes for you for the summit.” I answered, “I know Javier, I wanted to stand there with you.” I asked him to take Flat Stanley with him and sent them on their way. I met up with Vance who had just met his personal goal of 6,000 metres and we descended together. Each step magnified the pain in my head and I let out some of the pressure in my head by spilling tears from my eyes. Not for long though, it was so cold my tears froze to my face. The wind had been thankfully quiet but as the sun rose so did its fury.

We got back to the hut and tucked into our sleeping bags to warm-up. After some rest, I packed my bags and headed back to Atacama hoping my headache would subside as I got back to lower ground. By mid morning, with food, water, and ibuprofen on board, the construction crew packed it up and I was pain free. I crawled into my sun-warmed tent and instantly fell asleep. I awoke to news that every one had been forced off the mountain by the cold. The wind picked up dramatically multiplying the cold temperatures to minus twenty or thirty and by 6,300 metres all had to turn back or risk frostbite.

Unfortunately, the expedition’s itinerary only allowed for one summit attempt. Often a few weather contingency days are built in that allow for a range of climbing options. I usually acclimatize well and was on track for this climb but needed another day to be ready for 6,000 metres. I am disappointed, of course, but the trip was such what I needed that it’s actually okay that “I didn’t get to climb as high as I wanted.” I had been drawn to the volcano’s name, “Eyes of the Spirit.” Spending two weeks amidst the stark reality of Chile’s antiplano did indeed give me a view to my spirit. I feel renewed and rejuvenated by the clarity of cold air. I’ve begun to see myself through new eyes and I feel a freedom that has been lacking for some time. I am struggling to put words to this fresh state but I’ll keep you posted as my understanding of it evolves.

The rest of the team was back to base camp by noon and Javier suggested that we pack up and start the long drive towards Copiapo. The trouble was, the trucks hadn’t started in three days, despite Javier and Damien’s finest attempts. They tried jumping the trucks with the ranger’s truck. They tried starter fluid. Air freshener. Anything to coax the diesel engines back to life. Even placing the propane stove under the truck to try to warm the fuel lines. Nothing had worked thus far. We went off to pack but knew to leave our tents up until we heard the engine’s roar.

Two o’clock. Three o’clock. Javier, normally upbeat and positive, admits defeat. He calls his boss on the ranger’s sat phone to request assistance. He’ll get word at four. We play cards. We’re not going anywhere today. We wonder about the next day. Four p.m. arrives and no plan yet. We play more cards. Most nap. More cards. Six p.m.-the plan-the rental company will send a mechanic in the morning-we’ll meet him in Javier will meet him in Laguna Verde in the ranger’s truck to bring him up. We play more cards, drink some Chilean vintage, and laugh until the day’s toil takes us to bed.

Up early the next day to pack, I’m in the early run to Laguna Verde. Six of us pack into the ranger’s truck. He negotiated the sand expertly and in an hour, I’m drinking in the “thick” air of 4,300 metres and soaking my feet in the hot water beside the lake. Javier met the mechanic and drove with him in the silver truck back up to base camp. The ranger followed not far behind. Ten o’clock. Eleven o’clock. Nothing but sun. Margaret, Greg and I sat reminiscing. Noon. One o’clock. Nothing. No trucks. Lots of wind again. Will we make our flights? I am the first to fly. “I have a corporate presentation on Friday. Please let me make my flight,” I say silently over and over again. Two o’clock. Four trucks come rumbling into the campground. Both red trucks are dead being towed by the others. The occupants tell great stories of traversing the non-existing roads in tow. The mechanic pronounced a difficulty in oxygen sensors, dirty fuel and the cold. With some creative piecing, he has two ready to drive and we’ll tow the third.

Four o’clock. The trucks are repacked. Five o’clock. We’re making progress towards town. The towrope breaks twice. The dead red truck is abandoned and nine of us rocket towards Copiapo and break neck speed over breakneck roads. Three hundred kilometers of downhill delivers us once again to sea level. One last delicious shared dinner of delicious seafood closes the expedition. Up early to catch my flight to Santiago and feel deliriously happy.

Thanks for all of your kind support. It is such a privilege and joy to share this path with you.

Pictures will be up on my website and facebook soon,

TA

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News from Chile

Posted on December 5, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Unexpectedly we are in a hotel, a refuge beside the road. The snow drove us to luxury in a simple hacienda instead of camping down the road. We were up at 5:30 am to scale Lascar (5545 metres)-a volcano that no one knows what its name means. A steady uphill gait for hours topped us out above Lascar’s sulfur spewing crater. As usual when I started out, I struggled to find pace and wondered what the heck I was doing in Chile climbing the side of some volcano but then I found a rhythm and felt like I could climb for hours.

The wind vacillated between brisk and non-existent alternating my temperature between just right and baking. We took only short breaks because of the cold temperatures. Each person found a pace that worked. A short celebration was had, summit photos captured, and a run down the scree and ash covered slopes brought us to 4800 metres where the four-wheel drive trucks were parked. Damien and Xavier had coaxed them as high as they could to save us some climbing.

The previous afternoon we’d watched in amazement as the two guides stuffed the two truck beds to over full with payloads rising far above the double cabs. We’d spent the previous four days traveling with a bus that easily ate our gear but now every change of campsite would require teamwork and advanced rope skills. We’d woken beside the Tatio Geysers-the highest in the world. Columns of steam rose from the fumaroles of heated water. Some actually threw water metres into the air while most offered towering clouds originating at ground level. We were there at sunrise to see the moment of greatest contrast of air and water temperature.

A three-day 56-kilometre walk and 1.5-hour drive landed us beside the geysers. We hiked for three days along various rivers and canyons camping in rural villages along the way. It was hard to keep my mind in the present as visions of Arizona’s Grand Canyon and Utah’s San Rafeal swell. The desert heat, cooled by the riparian river causeway through which we traveled, teleported me to many past adventures. The thirty-five degree heat drove us to seek shade whenever we could but the second day none was to be found as we hiked up to 3800 metres in the heat of the day. As each day passed, some in the group celebrated new elevation records and all consumed the beauty of our surroundings.

This sector of Chile is decorated in shades of brown, beige, red, and sage. Actually as we drive over days, I discover that this is the palette of Northern Chile. Vast stretches of mineral laden and sand covered mountains mark our passage south. Images of the Middle East and Southwest United States are evoked with each heat-seared moment of travel. After nearly a week “up high”, we head for the Pacific Coast and drink in the thick air of sea level. After a lot of hard physical work that it is…

They say an accident is a series of seemingly unrelated events. I sit typing in the front passenger seat of our four-wheel drive Nissan. We’re heading east away from the sea and I have a heating pack on my back. Why? Because we missed our camping beach on the first try, drove 25 extra minutes to Taltal-thought better of camping so close to town so backtracked. Found one option that was garbage covered and realized it made sense to traverse back 20 kilometers from where we had just come. The group was weary after a long day in the car and I think the guides felt pressure to find camp soon as the day was growing long.

We arrived at the designated beach and drove close to the water. Unfortunately, the trucks bogged down in deep soft sand and the promised asado (barbeque) watching the sunset is preempted by lots of digging, jacking, and rock hauling. Three hours later, with much teamwork in the bank, numerous sand escape techniques perfected, and true hunger developed, and the sunset long past, we gather round the fire to consume way too much meat. An ill-fated twist while placing rocks between the rocks has left me in pain and hoping I can heal my lower back spasm quick enough to climb in a few days.

I have back meds on board, a heating pad on my back and I’m stretching often. I’m hopeful that it will ease through the day. By driving long yesterday, we gained a day on our itinerary to allow us one more acclimatization climb of another volcano before Ojos. We are heading for a salt lake at 3800 metres today and then will spend two days at Laguna Verde at 4600 metres before the final week climbing Ojos.

Thanks for all of your good thoughts and wishes. The trip is full of surprises and memory links to past adventures. I often reflect on my most recent past adventure on the next one so some of my mental travel relates to Everest and my time there. Seeds of future exploration both internal and external are taking root in the fertile soil of my soul. It’s so good to be removed from familiar routines to allow clarity to descend one kilometre at a time.

Thanks for coming along,

TA

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Hello from Chile 2

Posted on December 1, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Hi All,

I have just a brief stop in town before heading out for Lascar base camp this afternoon. Everything is going very well. The trek was fodder for so many memories of canyons and deserts. Acclimatization is coming along. Last night we slept at 4300 meters besides the worlds highest geysers. I feel strong in my hiking and have had little no Acute Mountain Sickness symptoms yet. The group is having fun, alternating from comfortable silence to raucous laughter. Tomorrow we attempt Lascar and then start heading south towards Oyos. Thanks for all of your good wishes. Keep them coming-it sounds like we{re going to need some luck again with the weather.

Cheers,

TA

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Hello from Chile

Posted on November 28, 2007 by TA Loeffler

The warm air of Santiago embraced me like a long seen cousin. Having negotiated the throng of humanity just outside the arrival area, I was scooped up by Alexandro. He introduced me to Vance, one of my teammates and we zoomed along modern highways into downtown Santiago. Alex, as he liked to be called, briefed us on places to see and eat and change money. The adventure was underway.

At the hotel, Vance and I met up with Greg from the United States, Margaret from Scotland, Paul and Micheal from Australia. Vance is a Kiwi from New Zealand. We ventured down one of the main pedestrian streets to one of the main squares. A thirty foot Christmas tree towered over small stands selling crafts, artists offering portraits, and numerous chess games. Several sets of lovers expressed their sentiments openly and children used the many fountains as wading pools.

A few hours of walking yielded to a nap to catch up on sleep robbed by an overnight flight and then more urban exploring for a dinner spot. We landed at the Capital Restaurant’s roof top garden and enjoyed Chile’s finest seafood and dessert. The sun slowly drained from the sky as conversation flowed easily around the table. We’re an adventurous lot with many stories to share.

Forty-thirty came early the next morning as we drove back to the airport for our flights north. We are all relieved to learn because we had all landed within twenty-four hours, we wouldn’t get dinged for excess baggage on the flight (we’re all planning to wear our plastic mountaineering boots for the flight south in a few weeks). Two hours passed quickly and then we landed in the driest desert on earth. Sandwiched between two mountain ranges, the Calama desert receives less than 3 mm of rain per year. Copper mining rules this region and the drive to San Pedro de Atacama was a blur of sand and ochre colored bluffs.

We dined on traditional Chilean dishes of beef soup and baked chicken for lunch and then couldn’t believe we were heading out to trek with such full bellies. We started in the Salty Range Mountains hiking through a narrow canyon. The walls of the canyon “spoke” in clicks and shutters as the minerals lining the sides expanded in the 35 degree Celsius heat. Salt crystals sparkled in the sun and we gave thanks for shade around canyon bends. A few hours later, we dropped down into the Valley of the Moon, a massive crater reminiscent of its namesake. One last long climb positioned us, with hundreds of others, to watch the light of sunset paint the canyons and sand dunes in deep shadows of rouge and brown.

Appetites honed through exertion were not disappointed with a feed of Lomo con de Pobre, a local specialty. Steak with eggs and fried onions adorned a large plate of fries–I will not go hungry in Chile. Musicians serenaded us as we watched the bonfire cast a light over their instruments. A hearty night’s sleep delivered a beautiful morning eating breakfast beside the small babbling pool in the courtyard of our hotel. Yup-this mountaineering life is tough! We head out today on three days of acclimatization leaving this luxury behind. We’ll trek from San Pedro at 2600 metres through several villages to 4200 metres and a visit to the region’s famous geysers.

So, as you can see, all is well in Chile-a fine start to a grand adventure. I’ll keep you posted as I can but it’s likely to be another five or six days until I can write again.
Take care,

TA

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Off to Chile

Posted on November 24, 2007 by TA Loeffler

There is a rich tapestry that forms the foundation of our lives. It is woven from threads of experience coming together to form patterns, textures, and surprises. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I forget to look for and appreciation this weave that flows from the loom like an underground river. Occasionally it rises to the surface, but mostly it bubbles below consciousness carrying my life towards the sea.

A few nights ago, I sat in the chapel on campus. Looking around, I saw faces of colleagues and former students, drawn and sad. We were there to grieve and to celebrate the life of Toby Columbe, a former student in HKR, who had been killed in an accident earlier in the week. Tears rimmed my eyes and spilled over as I mourned the tragic passing of another student I had taught. Between the tears rolled memories of Toby’s vivacious spirit and generous smile. I remembered March 13, 1999.

On that evening, Toby with a joyful but mischievous glint in his eye cut off almost all of my hair. A group of student was raising money for a backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon. I offered them my hair. They sold raffle tickets and the winner got to choose what happened to my locks. Toby’s ticket was drawn. With little hesitation, he grabbed the barber’s clippers and began to buzz the brown waves that crowned my head.

Students and faculty who were watching gasped as more and more hair hit the floor. I felt a chill as my built-in “toque” rode the draft to the ground. Then, it was over. Toby, looking quite proud of himself, left my bangs in place and said, “Go forth with pride.” So, I did–for about two weeks until I realized I was having to “do” my hair for the sake of my bangs and promptly cut them off as well. When I wore a hat to fend off the dark chill of a wet March, Toby would come ‘round and inform me that I was cheating.

After the memorial, I had a few moments before my hockey game so I stopped into Tim’s. I hadn’t had a Vanilla Dip in nearly a month. For some reason, they hadn’t seemed appealing of late. When making my selection, I flashed on Toby’s smile and childlike joy and enthusiasm for life, and knew I wanted to raise a Vanilla Dip in his honour. So, on a dark raining night not unlike that March night almost a decade ago when Toby gave me my most thorough haircut ever, I did.

During one Buddhist retreat, we were working with the Four Reminders. As part of that practice, we were asked to contemplate our precious human birth and the inevitability of our deaths. As I sat on my cushion, I repeated a sentence the teacher had given us, “Death comes suddenly without warning, this body shall be a corpse.” All I could think was, “This is a fairly morbid affair,” but after awhile, staring at my death directly gave me a deeper appreciation of my life.

Later that day at lunch, I was on lunch prep crew. As we had vegetarians and omnivores present, we usually made signs identifying the items at a meal. Sitting in silence for a week tends to make everything a bit more humorous and my playful side is often liberated. I made signs saying, “Lasagna–animal corpse,” “Veggie Lasagna–vegetable corpse,” Applesauce–apple corpse,” etc. I stood at the end of the buffet line with a sign pinned to my chest that said, “Soon to be a corpse” and I’ll never forget the look of those silent mediators looking up at the end of the line, seeing my sign, bursting into laughter, and almost dropping their precious human lunches.

I leave for Chile and the Ojos climb later today. Often, when I’m packing to leave on a big adventure, it’s not uncommon for me to perceive my life with a sweet sad poignancy that is reminiscent of the most artfully crafted sauce that is both syrupy and savory in the same moment. Buddhism asks me to truly see my life this way in each moment but denial and fear are powerful barriers to this awareness. Toby’s death came entirely without warning in a motorcycle accident. My student has become the teacher by issuing an invitation to wake up to this precious existence yet again.

I had had a bit of time before heading to the chapel for Toby’s service. I had finally gotten a close look at my trip itinerary and a map of Chile at the same time. As I traced our intended route, my eyes strayed east over the Andes to Argentina. I saw the city of Jujay on the map and was instantly transported back to June of 1999 when I traveled to northern Argentina as part of a Rotary Group Study Exchange (GSE) program for young professionals. Led by an experienced Rotarian, our small group of five had the time of our lives during that month of exploration, travel, and international friendship.

I remembered the day where we drove to a spot where we could see the northern Andes. I longed so deeply to be out in those mountains. I wanted to break from the van and walk and see and be in that landscape. It wasn’t to be then, but will be now. Almost a decade later, I will walk along the backbone of those same mountains that called me forth and if am lucky, will climb to where there is no higher to climb.

Unrolling the cloth from the loom, I can see today that the GSE program woke something up in me that had been sleeping. After returning from that trip, I slowly, very slowly tended to the gentle ember that was once again starting to glow. It had been fanned again into life through adventurous exploration of both inner and outer landscapes, through delivering speeches in Spanish while struggling to express myself with the vocabulary of a five year old, and through connections forged of shared experience and close living.

Standing on the doorway of an adventure that will take me full circle to the other side of those mountains, I think of Toby. I hope to heed his invitation to drink in the precious fountain of life, to dance in joy of friendship, to run further than I think I can, and to sing long into the night. Travel well my friend.

My last week of training went well. I got out in my new hiking boots on Signal Hill and above Quidi Vidi. I worked out with Phil Alcock and could see some progress and I slept hypoxically every night–finishing off last night at 4000 metres. Many thanks to Phil (www.corehealthspa.ca) for his time and expertise and to Altitude Tech (www.altitudetech.ca) for the loan of their equipment. I’m eager to go put all this hard work to good use. I did several media interviews this week. One I did for CBC radio is on their archive at
http://www.cbc.ca/radionoonnl/interview_archives/2007_nov_w4.html if you’d like to check it out. I was on the show on Wednesday Nov. 21. Many thanks as always to Deb and Wilma at AppleCore Interactive for their mentorship and support (www.applecore.ca).

I begin flying towards Santiago tomorrow night. We fly to Calama on Tuesday morning and begin trekking later that day. I’m not sure yet how often I’ll be able to post to my website during the trip but I’ll do my best to get word out so please check my two sites (www.taloeffler.com) and the myeverest site (www.myeverest.com) in case I do audio updates. I thank you in advance for your thoughts and prayers for good weather and safe return. I firmly believe that all those good thoughts last year, helped change the weather and get me to the top of Aconcagua.

More soon,

Hugs,

TA

PS. Thanks again for all who weighed in on my book title…in the end, it was a combo of a few people’s thoughts and the advice of the national sales reps that people be able to easily tell that the book was written by a woman. So, drum roll please…

More than a Mountain: One Woman’s Everest

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Seven Days and Counting

Posted on November 18, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Another week has flown by and I can’t believe I’m on a seven-day count down to Chile. I enjoyed the rest of my stay in Arkansas and then spent a day in Omaha presenting to a Girl Scout conference. After a long series of flights and one very close connection in Toronto, I managed to get home with seven hours to spare before my next presentation. During my talk Friday morning, I quizzed the pharmacy students on the various drugs that the base camp docs used to try to rid me of bronchitis and giarditis.

Saturday I tried to quickly settle back in, visited Leo and Takunda-he’s growing so big and caught up with other friends. Today I coaxed myself out of bed to do some hills in my new hiking boots before going to meditation. I was moved when a young man from Friday’s conference stopped me in the street to tell me of how my talk had affected him and others. The chance meeting made getting up and facing hills a very fine way to spend a gorgeous Sunday morning especially in light of how hard it was to make the transition from my warm cocoon.

Thanks to all who wrote with appreciation of the duck story. I remembered that I always greet the ducks as I run around Quidi Vidi Lake and that I’d had a funny interaction surrounding “ducks” in Thailand. Given it was a quiet week on the training front-I’ll share that story with you this week.

I was volunteering at Thai rescue centre for elephants and as part of that program, we went to a Karen hill tribe village to vaccinate and care for some of their livestock. My job was to deworm all of the pigs in the village. The program’s vet quickly taught me how to size a pig: lidden, middle, or big and the corresponding amount of dewormer to stir into their slop. Being a researcher, I thought of it as pigs on a “Likert” scale: just born, piglet, large piglet, small pig, medium pig, large pig, very big pig, mother of all pigs.

A villager escorted me to each pig sty in the village-a really unique way to see different homes and gardens. As always in such situations, communication can be humourous. The word for pig in Thai is “moo.” The word for pig in Karen is “duck.” Already, you can see the challenge. So, I’m standing the road heading to the next house when a man roars up on his motorcycle.

He says, “I have three ducks.”

I reply, “We are vaccinating the chickens after dinner. I don’t know if we are vaccinating ducks.”

He says while holding up three fingers on one hand and indicating a middle-sized pig between his hands, “I have three ducks.”

I respond with raised eyebrows, “Ducks? This medicine is for pigs.”

I resort to the universal language of Old McDonald’s Farm once again and begin to make “Oink oink” here and “snort snort” there noises while pointing to the white powder trying to ensure that the correct animal was going to receive the medication.
The man got an excited look on his face and said, “Yes–three ducks worth.”

Later that night, while retelling my story, I finally learned that the Karen word for pig was duck.

So…I guess I have a thing for ducks! I’ve begun piling things up on the couch-going through my gear list, checking it twice-seeing which equipment’s been naughty or nice. It’s hard to fathom that Christmas is just around the corner.

Flat Stanley has been helping me pack. He’s coming along to Chile because he’s been bitten by the climbing bug as well. He’s still mad at me that I forgot to take him along to Arkansas. I hope he’ll forgive me soon.

Have a good week,

TA

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Ducks, Ducks, Ducks

Posted on November 12, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Seventy-five years ago, two duck hunters returned empty-handed from a hunting trip. They had drowned their sorrows with a little too much whiskey, and decided to play a prank by putting their live duck decoys (legal at that time) in the fountain in the Peabody Hotel’s lobby. The next morning, many of the hotels guests gathered around the foundation to admire the new guests. The Peabody Hotel recognized a good marketing angle and invited the ducks to take up permanent residence.

Almost five years ago, I traveled by land cruiser towards the sacred Mount Kailash in Tibet. On the return trip, we stopped in Saga for the night. Given it was the auspicious year of the Horse, many pilgrims were headed for Mount Kailash and the roadhouse was full. The innkeeper made room for our group in the kitchen. There I met a duck. I called her Alice.

Four nights ago, a large crowd and I watched the Peabody ducks parade along their red carpet to the beat of John Philip Sousa’s King Cotton March. I went to sleep that night anxious since I had not yet settled on what I might say in my award acceptance speech the next evening. The following morning, while showering I glimpsed over at the soap dish and saw a duck. Yes, as you can imagine, most everything at the Peabody Hotel is adorned with ducks: stir sticks, coasters, and stationery, to name a few. Even the butter in the restaurant is shaped like a duck. Ducks. Ducks. Ducks. It is like when friends and family discover you like something and they proceed to get you it for every birthday and Christmas.

I had been feeling a self-imposed pressure to be creative in accepting the Karl Rhonke Creativity Award and I had already thought of and then rejected many ideas. Staring at the soap, I had a revelation, and I finally knew what I would say that night. I would read an excerpt from my Everest book: the story of Alice the Duck.

“Driving into Saga, there was no room at the inn so our guide arranged for us to sleep in the kitchen of a Tibetan guesthouse. We didn’t mind as we had been bouncing around in the land cruisers for twelve hours and were just glad to stop playing gyroscope. There were only five narrow benches for six people, so, as the youngest, I volunteered for the floor. Fortunately, a mattress covered with yak-skin topped the dirt floor, since it was used for spitting, blowing noses, and general disposal. I added my self-inflating Thermarest mattress and sleeping bag, and I thought I had the best bed in the house. So did the duck.

Yes, the kitchen came with its own duck. Since I had fed her the leftover bread from our dinner, she imprinted on me and claimed me as her own. The term ugly duckling was too kind for her, though her warm and welcoming spirit shone though her beauty challenges. She was a truck stop duck decorated by broken white feathers with uneven black splotches on her back. She carried an overall cast of grayish-brown from her dusty environs, and it was hard to call her feet orange. She had no pond and little opportunity to preen. I called her Alice.

At some point during the night, I awoke to a warm heaviness on my hip. Puzzled at first in my sleepy state, I shifted and my load suddenly quacked. Despite duck clumsiness, Alice had the soul of a lap cat and, thus, spent the night on the TA treadmill. As I turned, she rotated from hip to back to belly to the other hip. The next morning Alice found herself, despite clipped wings, flying across the room when I found the four fecal packages she graciously left on my sleeping bag overnight.”

Of course, as I read the story, I embellished with it with connections to the local ducks in the Peabody Hotel by placing three of the duck-shaped soaps on the podium. The audience was soon laughing aloud and I gave thanks for the morning’s inspiration. The next morning, I was thrilled when the conference organizers announced that I was Honourary Duck Master for the day. I spent much of the day in joyful anticipation and couldn’t wait for five o’clock to arrive signaling my stint with the ducks.

I arrived early to introduce myself to the five mallards in the foundation. Once the Duck Master got the ducks to walk down the fancy steps out of the foundation, it was my job to keep them moving along the carpet towards the elevator. Duck-headed cane in hand, I kept all my ducks in a row and moving in perfect beat to the march. Camera flashes fired rapidly like a prairie lightning storm in the heat of summer.

The ducks and I strutted into the glass elevator to wave and quack at the assembled crowd. One floor up, the duck caravan waited to transport my feathered charges to their $90,000 “Duck Palace.” I wheeled them home, fed them lettuce, tucked them in, and returned to the gift store to receive my certificate of Duck Masterhood and to choose a rubber duck from the hotel gift store. Friends waited for me and I told of the exciting moments of being the honourary Duck Master.

When I look back, I see the past events of seventy-five years, five years, and four nights culminating in those exciting moments on the red carpet. Funny isn’t it, if we look closely at how we come to be experiencing something, we can notice that we are the sum of everything that comes before, while living out life only one precious second at a time. In some ways, I could say that I climbed Everest because some duck hunters didn’t get lucky one weekend in 1932.

The conference was great and I enjoyed visiting Arkansas. We had a powerful keynote from one woman who was part of the “Little Rock Nine,” the teenagers who were at the center of the desegregation crisis of 1957. I visited Central High today–the center of that historic time, and I’m still reeling at the depth of hatred that can be fuel.

I didn’t manage one iota of training discipline while at the conference so haven’t managed much in the way of physical activity. “I was due a rest week and did spend four days canoeing,” are words I use to console my guilt. It’s less than two weeks now until I leave for Chile. I’m camped out in a truck stop motel on the outskirts of Little Rock for the next two days until I fly to Omaha to present at a Girl Scout Leadership conference. I’m hoping the rest and the few extra pounds I’ve packed on will serve me well during the challenges of high altitude life.

Thanks so much for all of you who weighed in on the title of my book. Opinion seems split half and half and a few other suggestions have come in. I’m thinking I’ll sit with the conundrum for a little while longer and then make the call. I hope you are well.

TA

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Happy All Saint’s Boxing Day

Posted on November 2, 2007 by TA Loeffler

It’s the day after, the day after Halloween and I sit marveling (and writing) that the pre-Arkansas to-do list is empty. I board a plane in 6.5 hours. Between now and then, I’ll try to convince my body to make more hemoglobin by sleeping with a mask over my face that only delivers a menu of 15% oxygen rather than the usual 21%. I received the training system from Altitude Tech this week and have begun to do things like wash dishes and sort laundry and surf the net while under the influence of hypoxia.

Hopefully, all this time behind a mask will allow my body to pre-acclimatize somewhat and make Chile a slightly easier go of it. If not, at least I have good stories to tell of life on a space station.

Today was a big day. I handed my book manuscript over to Donna at Creative Press. Like a solid pass in hockey, she caught it firmly on her stick and will skate with it up the boards. At some point, she’ll pass it back to me for a final read and picture captioning, but for now the puck is in her end. Sorry, I just played my last game of hockey for two weeks and I’m already in withdrawal.

It was a great feeling to have that big project come to a close on the timeline I imagined so I can focus on the conference in Arkansas and my many upcoming keynote addresses.

I continued to sweat all over Phil’s floor this week. Something about how we work out causes my body to shed fluid like it wants to start a campaign for the building of arks. I just have to look at the ladder he has taped on the floor and my pores begin to open in anticipation. I saw some gains this week from the work he and I are doing together. It was a tough week of training because it was Week Five. Week Five is usually a rest week but since I’m traveling in weeks six and seven, I stretched out training and had to push through some fatigue.

I panicked some about how close the climb in Chile is and how unready I felt, but I made some progress in starting a gear pile in the living room, making a Chile to-do list and realizing that, even though November has just dawned, it’s really the middle of December and I should already have completed my Christmas shopping.

OK…I want to get your opinion-when I dropped off the book today, Donna and I had some discussion on the title of the book. Currently, it’s called, “My Everest: More than a Mountain.” We talked about reversing the title to: “More than a Mountain: The Story of My Everest.” So-this is your chance to weigh in-which do you like better? Or do you have another suggestion all together? Email and let me know.

Have a good week and I’ll catch you from the land of Bill Clinton,

TA

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Happy Halloween

Posted on October 28, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Time seems to have a life of its own these days and moves along faster than the speed of light. I can’t believe Halloween is just around the corner-wasn’t it just yesterday that I was holding Rayne’s hand as a Russian soldier, trick or treating last year. I know the days pass by much more rapidly when I’m training or engaged in a project, and this week, I was both.

I set out from base camp. I editing the book every step up the Khumbu Icefall, through the Western Cwn and up the Lhotse Face; putting in five to six hours of “butt time” every day. By Friday, I’d completed the copyediting and was rearranging chapters to unfold the beginning of the book in a slightly more chronological factor. It was engaging work and hours passed by without notice. Indeed, leisure researcher, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, calls such experience “flow.” And flow, I did.

I journeyed right back through the past twenty-four months from the decision to undertake Everest through training and then being on the mountain. The phone would ring and I’d jump startled out of the past into the present. It was actually quite jarring. So, I’m feeling like I’m at Camp Four with the book. I’m heading for the summit with one last big read through. I read it aloud to listen for rhythm and anything that might take the reader “out of the book.” I hope to hit the summit by handing it to the publisher on Friday since I get on a plane early Saturday morning to head to Arkansas for a canoe trip and then a conference.

Some training hours got sacrificed to editing this week so I concentrated on doing cardio and hypoxic training. I did another session with Phil Alcock and enjoyed sweating up a storm. He puts me through a series of movements and exercises that work every muscle in my body in functional ways. We also work agility and balance. Some of the moves require intense concentration to make my feet move in new and interesting ways. For example, I’m learning to move forward without first pivoting back-it’s hard to undo 42 years of movement patterns but sure fun to try. Phil’s website is www.corehealthspa.ca. This week he also tested my antioxidant levels and I was pleased to learn all my veggie and fruit eating has been paying off. I had a relatively high level but there is still lots more room for improvement. Pass the V-8!

I read an article in Runner’s World about what folks do with their minds during runs. The author broke it down into four categories: Internal-internal, Internal-external, External-external, External-internal. Basically, it broke down to what my mind paid attention to…first, what it internal or external? So as I did my run this morning-I observed my mind–realizing that I’m mostly an internal focuser until the going gets tough and then I switch over to external focus. For example, I often get a song stuck in my head, an earworm, some people like to call them. This is “internal-external.” I’m paying attention to something inside me but was originally externally received.

An “internal-internal” would be paying attention to how my body is doing-my pulse, my pain, anything coming into my mind from me. Some folks are often external-internal-they are hooked up to their I-pods; they are paying attention to something external (the music) but it’s internal because it’s only playing in their heads. Finally, the external-external is when I pay attention to the colors of the autumn leaves, the sound of my sneakers swooshing through the fallen leaves, or the rush of the stream I’m running beside.

Running for two hours gave me lots of time to think and watch what my mind was paying attention to…today–not much profound–just a broken record of Christmas carols and childhood ditties punctuated by the occasion glimpse of the beauty of my surroundings. The article said that external-external folks tended to have the greatest success in endurance events so I was glad to know that where my mind turned to when the going got tougher and my hamstrings were doing great imitations of overstretched rubber bands wanting to break.

I leave for Chile in four weeks exactly. It’s frightening the amount of work and travel and training I have to do between now and then so I’d best stop writing and get on with the to-do list. I hope you all get more treats than tricks on Halloween.

Hugs,

TA

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Ready for the Summit Push

Posted on October 21, 2007 by TA Loeffler

After several acclimatization forays up and down the Khumbu icefall and Western Cwm, Everest climbers return to base camp to rest and fortify before their final push to the summit. The climbers are nervous, tense, and wondering if all the work they have put in over the past months and years will come to fruition. They wait. They watch the weather. When the time is right and the weather window opens, they plod up Everest’s flanks once more.

I met with the editor of my book on Friday. Like the Everest climber, I feel like I’m in base camp about to face some tough days ahead. Long hours, intense focus, and perseverance are called for…I know I am ready for the climb and I have been waiting for the weather window for weeks now. Technically, my deadline is in two weeks and I’ll have more of an idea if I can reach the summit in that time frame once I begin the climb to Camp One tomorrow.

No page of the manuscript is free from the editor’s mark. Lots of copyediting is needed-some nipping, tucking and generous suggestions to tighten the words. When I took up filmmaking, once we had the rough cut, our mentors would say, “Love nothing. Take your film and cut half of it out.” Fortunately, I don’t have to cut out half the book.

Nowadays, I generally take editing well. When I was a young writer in university, the process was painful so I’m grateful of the growth that has made it easier.

Before leaving base camp, climbers check and recheck their gear, their food, and their bodies. So many things can stop a summit bid and they want to prevent minor things from interfering. My desk is ready. The manuscript is propped up beside the keyboard, my highlighter to mark changes is handy, and I’ve purchased a new box of Tetley Tea to see me through the climb.

I’m not sure how I will fit everything in over the next while. I added up my training hours near the end of last week and realized they totaled nearly twenty per week. I suspect with the need to work with the manuscript intensively again, I’ll need to swap out some training hours for writing hours. It’s a good thing I met with Phil Alcock on Friday for a training session. Phil is a former student of mine and a gifted athlete and trainer. He owns the Core Health Spa (www.corehealthspa.ca) and offers state of the art training that aims for functional strength and fitness. I’m hoping Phil can reshape my training so I train harder, not longer.

My first work-out with him definitely fell into the “harder” category. A mix of ladder-step work, fitness ball, and bounding had me sweating harder than I had in a long time. I’m also nursing the last of the lactic acid out of my system so I know the workout pushed me. I know with six months away from training, my core lost considerable strength and I’m excited to be building that back up now.

This morning, I awoke to a pounding rain. I knew it was one of those mornings where it didn’t make sense to hesitate too long before heading out on my long run. The temperature rose considerably overnight and the low-slung clouds whipped about my face. No one else seemed to be out running this morning. Perhaps, it was because many runners were out doing the first “Cape to Cabot” run from Cape Spear to Cabot Tower-a twenty kilometre half-marathon with some big hills. I knew as I headed up the Virginia River many of my friends would be making their way towards town. I had wanted to run the race but I didn’t think I would be ready for that distance yet. As it turns out, I ran 16 kilometres this morning and felt like I had many more in me to give. I might try running the race route before heading to Chile in thirty-five days! (eek-so much to do in the next month). After my run, I briefly watched runners go by-I tried my best to cheer for them but I was so choked with emotion, I could barely manage a whistle. Feats of physical endurance have always moved me to tears. Congrats to Gillian, Trevor, Phil, Sharon, Art, and the many others I know who were running this morning.

My own run was fabulous. One of those runs that’s a gift of all the training that came before it. I was surprised at how easily and quick the kilometres passed. I was almost disappointed when it was over. Soon into the run, my mind emptied and my attention was riveted on the colorful leaves framing the trail. I love autumn and I appreciate that today’s run invited me to overtake inertia and get out into it.

Thanks to all who wrote last week and let me know that my words made a difference to you last week. I always enjoy hearing that they do. My appreciation goes out to all of you who join me on this journey. Have a good week.

TA

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Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight.

Posted on October 14, 2007 by TA Loeffler

“Fall down seven times, get up eight.” This is a Japanese proverb that came my way once on a tear-away calendar. Of the 365 sayings that year, this one stuck. As I ran intervals on Signal Hill Tuesday morning and rode intervals on the bike on Tuesday and Friday, I was thinking about courage. It takes courage to begin. Whatever you are beginning. A new job. A big task. Changing a habit. Making a speech. Climbing a mountain. It takes courage to take the first step, to overcome inertia, to make it happen.

As I progressed up the back of the hill, doing interval after interval, I thought, “It takes even more courage to begin again.” To go at something a second time or fifth time or twentieth times, takes much more courage. To overcome disappointment or disapproval or discouragement or shame or failure, requires a bigger dose of bravery. I just looked at the word discouragement, dis-courage-ment. To be without courage.

A wise friend of mine always said, “You have to do something twice, because if you do something only once, you can regard it as an accident.” So when I jumped out of an airplane, she said I should do it again. When I had a BIG Mac after then years of vegetarianism, she bought me a second. Each of those second attempts, required more courage than the first because I knew what it was like. I knew the horrible discombobulation of letting go of the airplane and dropping into freefall and the aftershock of the chute opening all within 5 seconds. That knowledge and experience demanded greater courage of me to experience it again. I also knew the great joy of flying under canopy and that provided the motivation for walking through the fear a second time.

As I headed back into the gym after being away from it for six months, I couldn’t help but notice how I had lost strength in all areas. The number of pounds on each lift diminished a little or lot depending on the body part. I realized that it would be very easy to pick up a stick and pummel myself for that loss in strength-for not getting back into the gym earlier. Quickly, though, I decided that that way of thinking wouldn’t increase my strength and wouldn’t help me feel motivated. Instead, I chose to celebrate the courage to begin again. I have the courage to rebuild my strength one lift and one repetition at a time. I’ve build up it and lost it many more times before this, so I can do it again.

Fitness is a wonderful teacher of impermanence. Sometimes if we stop training, we gain strength (i.e. when we are resting). If we stop training for too long, we lose what we had. We can’t keep it forever. It, like everything, will pass. If I try to hold onto it too tightly, I will train too hard, and lose it. If I am too lax, I won’t train hard enough, and I will lose it. It would be easy to jump to the mental place of “If I’m going to lose it anyway, why bother?” For me, I bother for many reasons: The joy of early morning light during pre-dawn runs, the absurdity of running in the rain on a Saturday night, the endorphins, the life lessons, the confidence, for health, and to accept the invitation to exert courage over and over again.

My favorite definition of discipline is bravery plus gentleness. For me, to take on big projects like climbing mountains or writing books, I need the structure of discipline to make it happen. The routine and the regular invocation of courage keeps things moving forward and in perspective. Too much structure or too hard a structure belies the gentleness, too little does not require bravery to pull off. In discipline as in life, the middle way is what I am for.

I’m headed back to my second day of meditation. We’re studying the four foundations of mindfulness this weekend. Things seem on track for Ojos-training is happening and the rest of life fits in the interstitial spaces left by training. Life is busy and good. Toques broke even today…let me know if the cold weather makes you lust after one! ☺

Take care and take courage to begin again,

TA

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Happy Thanksgiving to All,

Posted on October 6, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Funny how it works than when you let go of something, the resulting space allows for it to occur. Just when I said, “I want to do as little training as possible for Chile,” I found it within me to start training again with passion. I think it also helped to do the big public Everest presentation for some closure and to leave opportunity for an Ojos opening.

I also noticed how scheduling can work for or against training. I‘ve classically trained with the least amount of resistance first thing in the morning just after rolling out of bed (years of early childhood early morning awakenings primed me to be a morning person). These “golden hours” provide the best focus and least resistance to whatever I most want to achieve. For most of the summer, those hours were devoted to writing my Everest book. With the manuscript in the editor’s hands, I can use these prime morning moments for training. With the decision made the night before, I just jump out of bed and hit the gym, trail, or track.

Tuesday morning I was back to the backside of Signal Hill running intervals. The sun was rising as a giant golden orb from the ocean’s horizon and I was breathing hard going up and down the hill. Life’s funny… I’d just heard from someone who heard me speak soon after returning from Denali. She remembered the Doggie Doo story and wrote to say she was still following my adventures. So as I ran up the hill, I thought I would re-share the infamous Dog Crap story as many folks who are now in my cyber support crew may have missed it the first time. So here it is-from my first, as of yet unpublished book, A Year on Denali,

Learning from Dog Crap

Tuesdays mean intervals. Intervals are another word for suffering. They involve running up the backside of Signal Hill at close to max heart rate for 5 one-minute intervals and then running uphill for 3 three-minute intervals at 85% of max heart rate. Basically-it’s one big sucking wind experience that humbles the body, mind and soul.

I did my usual warm up route-up to the back to Signal Hill where I start the intervals. The past few Tuesdays I chose to run the interval up the hill, then keep walking up the hill during the rest interval. Today I had a leading to walk down the trail during the rest interval…I followed that leading and this is what transpired.

The first interval…I ran very hard and got a ways up the hill. Near the end of the minute, I passed some dog crap. I noted it in my mind. Beeper rang, I walked down hill past the dog crap-not quite back to the spot where I started.

The second interval…Ran hard, passed the dog crap earlier in the run, got higher up the hill. Beeper rang, walked down past the dog crap again but not as far down as interval one.

The third interval…sucking big wind, passing dog crap, getting higher on the hill…I realized that I was enjoying running the same strip of trail over and over again-a new experience-have always liked circle routes more than out and back noticed that I kept passing the same dog crap over and over again…had some universal sense that we are all passing by dog crap-it was metaphoric connection to our issues/burdens/stuck spots…also some sense of dog crap as karma and needing to pass it by several times until we are done with it.

The fourth interval…really sucking big wind, passed the doggie doo, got higher on hill…realized that passing the same way, passing the dog crap filled me with a sense of comfort, surrender and acceptance instead of shame and disappointment…with each interval, I passed the dog crap sooner and easier than the time before…

The fifth interval…feeling like my lungs were going to escape through my nose, heart beating like wildfire, leaping over the doggie crap-celebrate the end of the 1 minute intervals…take the rest period to walk all the way to the bottom of the hill…

Begin again…running uphill…slightly slower for much longer…have a new definition for suffering…keep feet moving…pass the dog crap…rejoice…keep feet moving…

Repeat two more times…get to highest spot on the hill today…think I’ve finally passed the dog crap for good…look down…there is a new pile of dog crap to pass…

In the writing, it doesn’t seem nearly as profound as it felt at the time…there was just such a sense of relief and compassion in the moment of realization of universal dog crap…that and surrendering into going over the same ground over and over again but moving a bit further forward each time…both were quite moving and filled me with joy and excitement….Life lessons come in many forms…though never did I think that dog crap could teach me so much.

The Rest of the Week

As training weeks do, the week passed quickly with the sweet arms of fatigue wrapping themselves around me by Thursday evening. I finished the week’s training Friday at 5 pm…remembering that last Thanksgiving weekend, I had also been training on campus long after everyone else had headed home to begin festivities. It was good to be back at it. With each peddle, step, and repetition building a foundation of excitement and determination that I’ll carry with me to Chile.

I had a long chat with Altitude Tech yesterday. I will become one of their sponsored athletes. They are providing me with altitude simulation equipment to use while I train for Ojos de Salado. Their system will allow me to sleep at altitude before leaving home making acclimatization on the mountain much easier. They can’t provide financial sponsorship as they are an emerging company but I’m excited to have a home-based altitude training system at my disposal to complement the hypoxic training I can do at the university. The Altitude Tech website is http://www.altitudetech.ca.

For Ojos, I’m doing hypoxic interval training on the bike instead of the treadmill. This week, I was back training at 4000 meters and I was pleased to have no side effects. I guess my body remembers how to exist with only 12% oxygen. Thursday, I spent an hour riding with low O2 sats while watching the Empire Strikes Back. Earl is my hypoxia babysitter-making sure nothing bad happens while I’m depriving myself of oxygen. Earl chose Empire Strikes Back because it was the movie where Luke meets Yoda. Earl thought Yoda was a good companion for my hypoxic brain-he was right.

I returned to MacDonald Drive Junior High this week. They invited me back for their Thanksgiving Assembly. You may remember they hosted my wonderful Everest send-off. They also gave me a school pin to carry with me on the mountain. I returned the pin yesterday as part of my presentation. MacDonald Drive was the first school that had me for a second visit and I premiered my new presentation for Grades 7-12. It went over well and I look forward to polishing it over the upcoming months. The principal purchased 10 Eyes of the Spirit Toques to give out during the school year as prizes. Do let me know if you’d like one to grace your noggin for the upcoming winter.

I spent much of today building a small shed in my backyard. I made good progress and always think it’s fun to visit “The Yard.” Like the world of high altitude climbing, I don’t find many other women in the lumberyard. I enjoy surprising the men in the yard with my knowledge and skills in carpentry and love the fresh smell of lumber in the car. Speaking of my car, it received $5500 in damage. I’ll be without Tigger for two to three weeks. I’m driving a rental for now–a boring square Mitsubishi that I’m calling the “Silver Bullet.”

I’m thankful to have all of you along for the journey. May your festivities of gratitude be filled with joy and connection.

TA

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A New Expedition: Ojos De Salado!

Posted on September 30, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Happy Dawn of October to All,

What a week! It ranged from the summit of celebration to the depths of subterranean suffering. I had hoped to ramp up training as I was only nine weeks away from Ojos but the week conspired against achieving much more than my usual running schedule.

Sunday’s presentation went very well. A combination of old and new support team members came out to hear my Everest story and laugh at all the right times, and more than a few got emotional as I played “Rayne’s slide” where I share the story of talking to her when I got home. Here’s how I describe the moment in my book.

When I called my niece, Rayne, soon after returning to St. John’s, she asked me some questions about the climb and then I queried her about what she had been doing. A little later in the conversation, she said, “You only made it to Camp Two.” I answered, “Sometimes we don’t get to climb as high as we want.” After pondering for a minute, she replied, “Did you see the picture I painted for you on your website?” I said, “Yes.” After a few more moments where she was obviously mulling something over in her mind, she declared, “Maybe next time I will paint it shorter so you can get to the top.” I melted on the spot and tears streaked down my face.

After the event, some folks came over to celebrate both the event and my new house renovations. It was great to have folks in enjoying my new space. I paid dearly for celebrating hard on Sunday night-a little like being back at altitude but it was worth it.

I assisted someone near and dear to me when they learned that they had been scammed out of a large sum of money during the middle of the week. It was tough going making sense of how some people can do that to another person. Friday, when I thought the week could go no lower, I went out for my run. When I returned, the whole driver’s side of my new car had been smashed in by a hit and run driver. My first instinct was to curl up in a fetal ball and sob but alas, I had a busy presentation schedule that day. I jumped on my bike to ride up to the police station to report the accident. As I rode up, I had two thoughts, which brought laughs and spaciousness to the situation.

The first thought, as I pedaled uphill was, “I’d been wanting to figure out how to get out more on my bike.” My second thought was, “Now, I’ve got an opening story to tell the folks at the positive thinker’s club tomorrow morning.” With that, I decided to spend the day laughing at the misfortune-it would have been too much to cry about it, and besides I kept telling myself, “It’s just a car!” After I picked up the rental car, I realized that I had bonded with Tigger and I miss driving it–the boxy Mitsubishi just isn’t doing it for me!

I presented to the Canadian Association of Business Incubators on Tuesday and the Positive Thinker’s Club on Saturday-both audiences honoured me with standing ovations. I was so touched. I’ve felt a real surge in my comedic timing this week and often enjoyed watching people laugh so hard they were in tears. I’ve also gotten braver in inviting audience members to purchase prayer flags or Ojos toques after presentations. In the past, that has made me so uncomfortable but now, I see it as part of the package and offer it without pressure or expectation. I only have to sell 40 more toques to break even. People like the new design and many make the connection to the eyes on the Boddhanath Stupa. I like seeing the toques because they help me look forward to the next challenge on my plate, Ojos de Salado. You can see a picture of the toque on my Eyes of the Spirit Facebook page at http://mun.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4903592452
Email me if you’d like to purchase one by chance-I know several people, including me, who wore out their Everest-007 toques last season.

I’m working often these days with the concept of “Eyes of the Spirit.” I still don’t feel one hundred percent yet. Some days, I am overpowered by nausea or fatigue-other days, I feel terrific. I’m trying to ease back into training while listening to my body and spirit at the same time. The past few months have allowed me to see how hard I pushed myself in the months leading up to Everest, and as my father says, “If you want to dance, you have to pay the band.” I think I dipped deep into the well of my reserves, drawing energy credits in advance, and now seem to be needing to pay them back with interest. Taking life and my to-do list with ease, grace, and little speed. I’m experimenting with how little training I can do and still be fit enough for 6800 meters at the end of November.

I look forward to returning to South America because I think I must have some Latin blood in me somewhere because each trip I’ve been there, it’s felt a bit like home. I’m excited about seeing another high altitude desert and imagine it will bring memories from Tibet to the fore.

Thanks so much for continuing to journey with me. I heard briefly from my book editor this week-he says it needs to be tightened and some the continuance links need working but overall, the manuscript is in good shape. I can imagine writing a book entirely from scratch so I appreciate you providing an audience for my weekly musings that eventually get transformed into prose.

Take good care of yourselves and others this week,

TA

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Everest-007 September 2007

Posted on September 23, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Happy Sunday Morning to You 9/23/2007
“I was battered and bruised by something that does not move. A mountain of epic proportions. In my mind. And out in the world,” this sentence comes into my head as my footfalls tap the asphalt in a drumming cadence. I run this morning, cradled by the gentle light of dawn, and see that my bruises are healing and I am ready to celebrate. This is good timing, given I have invited many folks out to the INCO theatre to celebrate with me. I am eager to share some of the stories and the pictures of one of the most incredible places I have had the privilege to visit.

It’s been a week of finishing. I handed the last chapter of my Everest book to the editor and I wait on the edge of an ice pinnacle for his response and feedback. I saw the mock-up of the book cover and suddenly, the book seemed real as opposed to a date I had every morning. I’ve placed a semi-colon at the end of the sentence of renovations. I want to pause and catch my breath but there are still related projects to follow.

A bright red door taught me the beauty of letting go into radical acceptance of imperfection. I fell in love with the Buddhist path all over again. By doing nothing. For hours on end. I’m enveloped in “sad joy,” the tender hearted sadness of noticing and accepting that everything and everyone, including me is impermanent. I go slow. For me. For I am still in recovery from the mountain. And constantly remind myself that there is no need for urgency. That there is time and that there is strength. Plenty leftover for the next climb. A volcano this time. A volcano with a beautiful name.

Ojos de Salado. Eyes of the spirit. An invitation to look. To see. To observe. My spirit. The spirit. All spirits. Climbing at altitude often stripes life to its bare essentials. Walk. Sleep. Eat. Walk more. Sleep more. Eat more. There is little escape from oneself, just demand to stay with each footstep as it takes me higher. So, I’m off again in eight or so short weeks to northern Chile for a date with my spirit and the world’s tallest volcano. I hope you’ll come along for the ride!

See many of you tonight and I know the rest of you will be there with me in spirit.

Take good care,

TA

INCO Innovation Center Theatre
MUN Campus
7:00 pm
September 23 (tonight)

Endings and Beginnings 9/13/2007
Hello to All,

I’ve reached Camp Four with the book and am now writing the final chapter. It’s a tougher one to write since I haven’t been writing much since my return to the mountain. With each day I spend off the mountain, I gain small glimpses of meaning and understanding about the experience of preparing for, being on, and coming home from the mountain.

Here’s a small passage I wrote this morning to start the last chapter.

The bruise on the heart which at first feels incredibly tender to the slightest touch eventually turns all the shades of the rainbow and stops aching.
Erica Jong

Adventure narratives always seem to end suddenly to me. It seems as if the author runs out of steam in telling the story chronologically and by the end they just want it done, the book and the adventure. Four months after leaving the mountain, I feel as if I am still plodding along its slopes. My mind is never far from Everest and I climb it every night in my dreams. Perhaps, if I could just find the magic door in my nocturnal wonderings, time would reverse and the climb would have a different outcome or I wouldn’t feel so lost. The ending is so lame. Felled by Giardia, where’s the satisfaction in that? No parades, no ticker tape, no fanfare, just congratulations for solid conservative decision-making. I don’t see it as failure but I still rail against the how the movie finished. No Hollywood ending. No storybook ending. No tragic ending. No ending really. Perhaps looking for or wanting an ending is part of my trouble. I suspect this is actually a beginning…

We’re approaching equinox and I’m sensing the change to autumn. Fall is my favorite part of the year. I’m a big fan of the reflective nature of the season and the colorful changes that occur. Here’s another invitation to my presentation:

INCO Theatre (IIC room 2001)
Memorial University Campus on September 23 (not long after equinox)
7:00 pm
Tickets are $10 from me or at the door.

I’ve been working on the show and I’m quite excited to show the pictures and tell stories from the climb. And it has a cool ending 🙂 Please join me if you can.

Hope all is well with you,

TA

9000 metres 9/5/2007
9000 Metres

This past weekend, my Oma turned 90. I was thinking 90 years must be a lot like reaching 9000 metres. One has to pass over much territory and through many dangers to reach both 90 and 9000 metres. I will forever cherish the memory of Oma playing Ring around the Roses with her great-grandchildren at her birthday party complete with falling down with them until the “younger adults” intervened and implored her to stop the falling down part.

From Oma, I inherited my sweet tooth, wiry hair, and dogged determination. She possesses a silent strength that is woven through her being and has seen her through many trials and difficulties. Like me, she is a prankster and uses humor to cut the edges from sorrow. While I was on Everest, I thought of my Oma often and tried to tap into her strength and perseverance. I recalled memories of her carrying 50-pound bags of cement as she neared her 60th birthday. Up until she moved into her latest apartment, she used to take the stairs to the fourth floor several times a day. I hope I am half as agile and active as Oma is when I reach 90!

I flew to Edmonton to surprise Oma for her birthday. She was touched and very appreciative. As her family and friends gathered around her, I was filled with gratitude for the many significant adults I had in my life as a child. Like Oma, they helped shape and support me as I grew to adulthood. I hope I can return the favor to the generations that follow me.

The book is progressing well. I gave the first 11 chapters to the editor before heading to Ontario to recertify my wilderness first responder. I’m eager to receive his feedback.

I am doing a public presentation on September 23 at 7:00 pm. It is entitled, “My Everest: More than a Mountain.” I hope those of you in St. John’s can join me as I share stories and pictures from the world’s highest mountain. The presentation will take place in the INCO Theatre at Memorial University. Tickets are $10 and are available from me ahead of time or at the door. Proceeds will help me retire the debt from the expedition. I’ll also have expedition t-shirts and carabiners for sale there as well. During the presentation, I will also reveal my next climbing adventure, which I committed to last week so it should be an exciting evening.

I’m hoping to begin writing regularly again as many of you have written to me saying you’ve been missing my weekly missives.

Take good care,

TA

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Everest-007 August 2007

Posted on August 30, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Acclimitizing 8/9/2007
Hello to All,

I can’t believe almost another month has passed. I’ve just wrapped up my intensive summer teaching schedule and I feel like I am surfacing for a breath of air. One of my teammates sent me a CD with his pictures on it. The picture of Everest’s shadow is his. I looked at the pictures with such a paradox of emotion running through me. I continue to write my Everest book for a few hours each morning. This week I have been writing, and therefore reliving, the decision to stop the climb.

When I looked at Nat’s summit day photos I was filled with such joy that it all came together for him, with pride in knowing that I now know about 40 people personally who’ve summitted Everest, with sadness and disappointment in how my own climb turned out. Seeing the pictures reminds me of what I didn’t get to see-even though I have seen all those same images in books for years. I guess I wanted to drink them in through my own eyes.

It’s funny. The disappointment changes and morphs and ebbs and flows. Some days I’m sad I didn’t get to see the curvature of the earth. Other days the South Col. Some days I wish for completion and others I am filled with appreciation for all the gifts that stopping the climb early delivered. Some days I don’t even think about the mountain and on others, it’s all I think about. Like the acclimatization process, I go up, I breathe thin air, I come down and recover. I do it again. And again.

I notice that it can be hard to share the disappointment. It’s much easier to stay with the positive side of things. But alas, like life at altitude, it’s all there. It’s life to the fullest. Life at the edge. Life where lessons unfold almost with the certainty of tides.

I continue to make good progress on the book. The publisher has told me who my editor will be and I know have a working title, “My Everest: More than a Mountain.” My deadline, for the polished manuscript is November 2 so I have to stay on task with it. I’m glad to have gotten so much written over the past weeks despite my intensive teaching schedule.

I’ve been having fun watching Takunda grow…each day he looks different or discovers something new about his world. Recently he discovered his tongue. I’ve also been doing lots of photography. I shot a friend’s wedding and have been allowing my more creative photography urges to come to fruition. I’m also doing a major reno at home-reworking the look and feel of my space. Climbing Everest has lead to so many places I never imagined. I’m getting close to setting my next climbing goal so watch this space carefully for that announcement in the next while.

Take good care,

TA

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Everest-007 July 2007

Posted on July 30, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Rounding the Cape of Post Partum 7/14/2007
Climbing Everest is not just the two months one spends on the mountain; it is the 18 months prior and most likely the 18 months post. I went out on a bike ride this morning. The temperature was perfect and I couldn’t resist. It was the first time since returning from Everest that I had an urge to exercise. It was a signal that I was rounding the Cape of Post Partum and I was now ready to sail forward once again.

I haven’t written to you in nearly a month. It has felt strange since I spent much of the past three years spending some time each week sitting down to reflect on the week and share it with you. It wasn’t that I didn’t have things to say; it’s just that I didn’t know how to say them. Life post Everest has been a struggle. Consciously not filling the void that training and preparing for Everest had left in my life, I fought to find meaning and engagement. Having spent 18 months with not much more than Everest in the front of my mind left a gaping hole in my day-to-day existence.

As I biked this morning, I had the image of fire in my mind. I thought of how fire consumes and purifies, of the phoenix rising from the ashes, and how disappointment is like a pile of cordwood. It is hard to burn a log on a smoldering fire. I came back from Everest with my inner fire dimmed and sputtering. It was tempting to throw lots of fuel on the fire immediately to get it burning bright once again but I had the sense that it needed to burn low for a while, with embers gently glowing against the dark night.

Now I have a sense that the fire is gaining strength once again, that it may be time to stoke the flames to new height to incinerate the cordwood of disappointment and transform it to the ash of possibility. I have been writing my book for a month now from six to eight am every weekday morning. This gentle discipline has provided a container for reflection and processing of the Everest experience. With each word that hits the page, I come to see the experience with more clarity as I clear the fog of high altitude from the forefront of my perception. As I prepare each presentation and reorder the images and change the focus of the narrative, I see new lessons and understanding. I nurture new appreciation for the experience despite the pain in gaining it.

Everest humbled me. I expected it to. Everest split me open along the midline like the finest surgeon. I expected that too. Everest’s snow and ice acted like a polished mirror reflecting my frailties and strength with frightening clarity. I can see now that it would be impossible to return from such an intense experience with grace and ease. The mess of emotions that I have been untangling were inevitable and impossible to sidestep. Like most crevasses on the Khumbu, this passage required the patience and wisdom to know when to proceed and when to wait, when to step over carefully and when to leap, when to stay silent and when to share.

I want to return to Everest. There are things I know the mountain still has to teach me. My goal is to retire the debt from the first expedition and then begin sorting how to fund a second attempt. I’m waiting patiently for the way forward to unfold and the invitation to my next adventure to arrive. In the meantime, I’m teaching this summer, walking the Tely Ten, renovating the house, and generally keeping out of trouble. I hope you are doing well-do drop me a line to let me know how things are going.

Hugs,

TA

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Everest-007 June 2007

Posted on June 30, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Flat Stanley Returns Home 6/14/2007
Six months after Flat Stanley left Woodland Primary School, he gave up his wondering ways and returned home. The energy in the gymnasium was electric as the children filed in and took their seats. After setting up the projector, I visited “The Wall.” On the wall was a scaled painting of Mount Everest with many other references such as the CN Tower, the Eiffel Tower, and Gros Morne (famous Newfoundland Peak). Using physical activity, the children had worked Flat Stanley up Mount Everest. Judging from his current position, Flat Stanley had reached the South Summit and was making the final traverse of the Hilary Step and would likely reach the true summit tomorrow after another session of quality daily physical activity.

Woodland Primary is a Kindergarten through Grade Three Primary School. After Mrs. Stoodley asked me to take Flat Stanley along on my Everest climb, the entire school got behind my effort. They held a “Pajama Day” where all the kids got to wear PJ’s to school and brought a contribution to the climb. I was so appreciative today when they presented me with their fundraising efforts.

The eager children were treated to a special presentation that included all of Flat Stanley’s adventures in training for and climbing Mount Everest. They loved seeing his picture and during the question and answer period, many questions were asked about his experience. After the students asked me about my favorite moments of the climb, they asked about Flat Stanley’s favorite moments. They asked if he had fun, if he was scared, and whether or not he might try to climb Mount Everest again.

Several classes requested autograph sessions and I spent some very special time with Mrs. Stoodley’s third grade class after the assembly so they could see and touch some of my mountaineering gear. The crampons were a big hit. One of the Grade Two classes presented me with a spike from the Newfoundland Railway. To me, the rails have always represented adventure and I hope one day to ride the Newfoundland T’railway on my mountain bike.

We took Flat Stanley out to Tim Horton’s for one last Vanilla Dip after sharing lunch with Erika and Nancy. Flat’s not sure where his next Vanilla Dip is coming from given his separation from the Queen Mother of Vanilla Dips. So, Flat Stanley is home for now-the class asked me to take him on my next adventure so we will travel together again in the near future I’m sure.

Special thanks go out to all the teachers and students of Woodland Primary. Your support is deeply touching to me and I appreciate getting to see how closely you followed the climb and how you took on the mission of increasing your physical activity. Great job! Keep it Up. Extra special thanks to Nancy Coish and Sharon Stoodley for your extra effort and support of Everest-007.

TA

TA to Write Everest Book! 6/11/2007
I received an email today from someone named Monica. This is what she had to say, “I am still reading and enjoying your wonderful writing. You write so well. ‘Many Everests’ was very nice. Glad you made it home safely. Please, keep writing.”

Interesting timing. Just today I decided to sign the contract that will be my next Everest. My next mountainous challenge will be to put my Everest experience into words that will become a book. The goal is to have the first draft ready by mid autumn so that it can be published just in time for the next Everest season. So Monica, thanks for the pep talk as I need to “buckle down” as my mom would say and keep writing. Time to stop surfing around looking for new mountains and find the words to bring “My Everest” to print.

I was supposed to return home from Everest during this past weekend. There are some who believed I wouldn’t truly settle into being back home until the original arrival date had passed. The transition out of my 18 month Everest journey hasn’t been the smoothest as I’ve struggled to find my way through the large void that remains now that the experience has passed. It’s been tempting to fill the void but instead, I’ve chosen to sit with the emptiness, revel in moving slow, waste time left and right, and obsess about whether or not to replace the Omamobile.

I suspect I’ll soon find myself back into the thick of it as teaching is just around the corner. I’m taking Flat Stanley back to central Newfoundland tomorrow and will present to his school on Wednesday.

Takunda was born a week ago today. In many ways, the past week has been like mountaineering. Go to bed early. Awake in the fresh night just beyond midnight. Find the way in unfamiliar territory. Know that a team is stronger than its individuals. Don’t sleep much. Steep learning curves. Joy. Pain. New views. Sleep. Eat. Burp. Poop. All Takunda is missing is the walk uphill part. That will come!

TA

Many Everests 6/5/2007
Some of you may remember me saying that by descending early from Everest due to the Giardia that I would be able to attend some very important events in the lives of family and friends. Yesterday was one of those events. I watched Takunda Trevor Tembo join this world and I able to be at the side of a dear young woman in my life. Leonorah took on a big Everest challenge five years ago when she journeyed from Mutare, Zimbabwe to St. John’s Newfoundland to begin studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

The miracle of baby toes. The miracle of baby toes.
At the age of seventeen, she left her family and friends and country to begin a journey of learning and exploration that rivels any Everest climb. Now five years later, I welcomed her to the far side of the stage at her convocation and was at her side when she gave birth to her beautiful son.

Today, as I drove to the hospital to visit Leo and Takunda, I heard a radio interview of my teammate-Al Hancock, the first Newfoundlander to summit Mount Everest. I was surprised by the level of grief that washed over me as I listened to Al describe his experience of summitting but I was so glad and grateful that I was able to be here yesterday and today and last week to bear witness other kinds of Everest summits.

Take care,

TA

Back in the Saddle 6/1/2007
This is an iceberg I spotted today from Signal Hill. A friend and I drove out to Blackhead and walked along the East Coast Trail to get closer to the berg. We haven’t had a berg close to the city in quite awhile so it was a delight to get to see one. Another gain from being home early. I was to arrive home a week from tomorrow.

Today I was back presenting to children. I gave a slideshow talk to the Grade 4, 5 and 6 classes at St. Matthew’s Elementary. Many of the children and staff had followed along on the climb and they had some very excellent questions to ask about the expedition. I’ll continue to evolve the presentation but on first go, I was pleased. It’s different doing the talk “without a Hollywood ending” and where the audience knows the ending but I appreciated getting to share some of the amazing things I learned along the Everest path.

Have a good weekend,

TA

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Everest-007 May 2007

Posted on May 31, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Blood Doping in Puck Land 5/29/2007
I’m back in the rink playing hockey. I’ve got three games a week on the go this summer. I worried how hard my first game might feel but quickly realized that I must still have some extra hemoglobin on board. I expected to be quickly out of breath given the pace of the game but fortunately, due to my altitude induced blood doping, I’ve been able to keep up to the play this week. It’s good to be back worshipping the puck.

When I tripped over the blue line-I thought, “now I’m in a different kind of icefall.” I was also aware of a freedom-the freedom to be injured…kinda of a funny freedom but I know there was such a pressure all last year not to get hurt while playing or to try to recover from injuries quickly so as to not have much time off from training.

TA

Back to BOW 5/27/2007
Having landed from London at 2:00 am, there was an email in my in-box from Lucy at 9:00 am. She organizes “Becoming an Outdoors Woman” (BOW) workshops here in Newfoundland and Labrador. She was desperate for someone to teach the hiking and backpacking workshop the next weekend. Literally just getting my feet on the ground, I said I would let her know by the end of the day. “How can I say no to Lucy?” I thought.

BOW is a program that teaches introductory outdoor skills to women. This year is the 10th anniversary of BOW in Newfoundland and Labrador and I remember, at last year’s workshop, being sad I would miss the big occasion. As I have a bit of a media profile here now, when the women heard I was coming to lead the backpacking workshop, there were a little worried and intimidated about how hard I would make them hike.

They had no idea that, these days, I’ve been doing more napping than hiking. Along with leading the workshop, Lucy invited me to do an Everest presentation. I whittled down my pictures from 900 to 300 but didn’t really sort out what I would say. I let the group know that I was only home a week so they’d be getting a raw, unpolished version.

People who hadn’t seen me in a year were startled by the amount of weight loss since they last one. One friend remarked about how much muscle mass I had lost. When my body is ready, I’ll start building it up again. When asked how I am these days, my current answer is about 65-70% of normal. I see my doc this week for the big check-up.

I started off showing the film my friend Greg made last January to give the audience some sense of my training and intention in climbing Everest and then let the pictures run and just said whatever came to mind or heart. The audience asked thoughtful questions throughout. I was very moved by the standing ovation at the end of the presentation. It was amazing to see the Khumbu icefall on the big screen and see the women’s reaction to it.

Having explained that I had mortgaged the house to make the climb possible, the women jumped up after the presentation to reduce my inventory of expedition T-shirts and carabiners tremendously. I was also awarded the proceeds from the 50-50 draw and signed many autographs for the participants’ children. Their support was very touching.

We have a tradition at BOW of doing Tarot readings after the day’s activities are done. A year ago, when I asked the question of whether the money would come through for the expedition, the cards seemed to lead in the direction that it would. Now 12 months later, I can see that it came though enough to make it possible to go and I will work to retire the rest of the debt in coming months by doing more presentations about the experience. I’ll be curious to see where this year’s cards lead.

Take care,

TA

Settling In and Planting Seeds 5/24/2007
Okay, I would be lying if I told you I hadn’t been surfing around looking for other mountains to climb. Bolivia seems to be calling me at the moment. Maybe the North Pole. Maybe another try at the Big E. It’s part of my transition process-to look for what the next adventure seeds there are to plant.

Just browsing though. Just looking. Surfing. Like a kid with the Sears Wish Book in November. Flashing through the colorful pages of options. Making a list. No decisions. Just watching where I’m been led. What my google search terms are.

Resting. As I walk around Quidi Vidi Lake, where I usually run, I notice how deep the fatigue is. It’s time to honour the exhaustion with rest. Recovery. Rebuild the reserve. Enjoy moving slow. Enjoy life without a yellow pad of to do lists and training goals. See two movies in the theatre in three nights. Haven’t done that in years.

Prayer flags at basecamp which will be coming down in the next day or two as the camp is dismantled. Prayer flags at basecamp which will be coming down in the next day or two as the camp is dismantled.
Look at photos. Notice the hard edges of the Everest experience are already being softened by a tenderness. A tenderness that allows some thoughts of trying again. Some day. Some way. No hurry. It will be there. Start teasing out the lessons from the mountain. Share them with myself and others. New lessons each day.

Go slow. Breathe.

Convocate. Celebrate. Wear my academic regalia. The students at my university graduate this week. The end of an era for them and me. Lots of hard work all round. Mountains both figurative and literal. Climb high. Study low. Valleys. Mountain tops. We go forth. Again. After. Before. Up. Down. Reach beyond our grasp.

It appears Shrek III has me in quite the mood.

I continue to feel a bit better each day and a bit stronger each day. I think about 65% of feeling healthy.

TA

Hoping for Paul 5/22/2007
I’m sitting here in my favorite chair hitting the refresh button over and over again hoping to see news of Paul’s summit bid. Paul was instrumental in me being able to send updates from Everest. I followed his climb last year and have been following it again closely since I returned to Canada.

I hope the winds stay down and he’s having a good climb. All body parts are crossed and I’m glancing frequently at the prayer flags I have hung around the house. I’m sending out blessings and energy for a safe climb and return.

My last teammate summitted last night. In the end it seems like seven of us had to turn our backs to the mountain at some point in the process and 15 summitted (plus all the sherpas for a total of 37 summits this year for IMG). Folks are starting to trek down and they are beginning to dismantle basecamp.

The cook shelter at Camp One. You can see the big crevasses that we had to end run as we made our way towards Camp Two. The Lhotse Face is in the background. The cook shelter at Camp One. You can see the big crevasses that we had to end run as we made our way towards Camp Two. The Lhotse Face is in the background.
I did a newspaper interview today that will be published in the Telegram either tomorrow or Thursday and spent several hours seeing colleagues and sharing stories from the mountain. Having had more chance to speak aloud about the experience, I’m already feeling more articulate. Felt physically some better today but I’m starting to grasp how much muscle mass I lost on the mountain. I went out to get some new pants for a corporate presentation I’m doing on Thursday and the new ones were 3 or 6 sizes smaller depending on how one is supposed to count those things. 🙂

TA

“The 24” 5/21/2007
It’s the “May Two Four” here even though it’s May 21. It’s the May long weekend called Victoria Day in other parts of Canada, in honour of Queen Victoria’s birth but here it’s “The 24.” Usually you can bank on it being raining for sure and snowing at least. Today, however, is gently warm with a grey blue overcast. The city is quiet because most businesses are closed for the long weekend that launches summer in this province.

Many are off at cabins or visiting family members. To reconnect with the amazing place I live, I took a stroll down Duckworth Street, one of two parallel roads that form the core of downtown. Off Duckworth, rise hills that I frequently walked up carrying a heavy pack as part of training. Each residential street sprouts the colorful saltbox houses that cuddle so close together they appeared joined as one. I take in the familiar sights as I ramble along.

I realize that the pots haven’t banged in awhile so I head up to Moo Moo’s ice cream for a long weekend treat. The bovine decorated shop that makes it’s own creamy treats in flavours like “Newfie Fog,” “Turtle Cheesecake,” and “Green-Eyed Chocolate Monster” sits atop a confused conglomerated configuration of streets known as Rawlin’s Cross. I step into the store and realize I’m not the only one who’se had this idea as the line was long to make the big choice between all of the offerings.

A young man is just ahead of me in line. He says, “Have you gone on your trip yet?” I answered, “I’m just back.” He tells me I spoke at his school and that I told the story of how when I was first training for Denali, I hadn’t been a runner. I started of running one minute and walking one minute for 20 minutes. Eight months later, I ran my first half marathon. He said there was something in that story that touched him as he’d always gotten down on himself about not being a runner. After the presentation, he began running with a more compassionate view and he told me that he’s lost 30 pounds, is running 8 kilometers a day, and has committed to running the Tely Ten (the premiere running event of the summer-a 10 mile race).

I thanked him for telling me of his journey and congratulated him on taking on his own Everest. It was a good day to hear a story of some impact the climb had beyond my sphere.

Four more of my teammates summitted last night and the last few are trying tonight. They have been blessed with good weather and I hope it continues for all the remaining climbers who wish to attempt the summit.

A doc friend gave a listen to my cough and the good news is we think it is viral and will pass. I was worried that I hadn’t totally cleared the bronchitis infection while in Nepal so that was good news. My sleeping hours have returned to this time zone and I will continue to work with my “post partum” Everest time. I knew from past climbs that there would be a period of challenge when returning home.

Transition has always been one of my challenges and even though I gave myself so much practice with it the past two years, I knew this one was good to be a doozey-because the experience was so big. Not only am I leaving the mountain, I am leaving the 18 months of preparing for the mountain behind. The “Road to Everest” was as full and intense as my mountain experience.

It’s a bit like I’m perched over one of those big crevasses in the icefall. I’m on the ladder looking down into a large abyss. I’m actually quite safe on the ladder but it is dizzying to look down into all that space. One of my favorite sayings is “This too shall pass.” I know that one day soon I will wake up and I’ll be off the ladder and on the other side of the crevasse. Until then, I will clip into various literal and metaphorical safety lines, place my crampons carefully, and move from rung to rung with intention and care.

Thanks for your support and thoughtfulness as I share the coming home part of my Everest experience.

TA

Transition Blues 5/20/2007
Up early again-though now I have shifted from 3 AM to 5 AM. I have heard that it takes a day per hour of jet lag to truly catch up so I have a few more days to go. Yesterday and this morning I haven’t felt so great. I seem to have developed a phantom random productive cough and the nausea has paid a return visit so time to get it together for my doctor here to give me a good going over!

Six more of my teammates summitted last night. I think the last wave may be trying tonight. Glad to know they made it up and down safely.

I did an interview on NTV news yesterday that will air tonight and perhaps tomorrow night as well. I met the reporter on the top of Signal Hill. It was my first trip up there since I returned and I found looking out at the city and ocean really put me a reflective state. The memories of hours and hours of training came flooding in especially if I looked east towards Everest. I could almost “see” Everest in the distant clouds as I struggled to find the words to answer the reporter’s questions.

I still feel so inarticulate in speaking of the experience since I’m really just beginning to give it voice. Although I wrote of it daily, I think speech and writing must come from different parts of my brain and access different parts of the climb. Those of you who can watch NTV can let me know how the interview went, as I don’t have a TV.

I’m into the part of the transition that is much less fun. The sparkle of returning has been replaced by the tarnish of sorting out living back in the “regular” world. I locked myself out of the house. My car mirror got kicked in. I have a “noisy line” which makes it sound like water is running in the house all the time. The car battery was dead. And no one bangs pots to tell me it’s time to eat, so I forget to.

In many ways, life on Everest was so simple and easy. Sleep. Walk uphill. Eat when Pemba knocks the pots. Read. Sleep. Repeat. Life “on the outside” at the moment seems much more complex and difficult. Funny how perspective changes. Once again, I think I am charged with going slow-“bistante, bistante” as the sherpas would say, “slowly, slowly!” Remembering to breathe. Remembering that everything is impermanent including transition. Quite soon, I will be ensconced in life here again.

TA

I Will Paint it Shorter Next Time 5/19/2007
I was talking to my niece Rayne on the phone yesterday. She will turn five in June the day before I turn 42. As you know she had painted me an amazing picture of Mount Everest before I went.

At some point in the conversation, she said “You only climbed to Camp Two.” I answered, “Yes, sometimes we don’t get to go as high as we wanted.” After pondering for a minute, she replied, “Did you see the picture I painted for you on your website?” I said, “Yes.” After a few more moments where she was obviously mulling something over in her mind, she decided, “Maybe next time I will paint it shorter so you can get to the top.” Once again, she melted me.

Scott mentioned wanting to see a few more pictures from the climb. I am happy to oblige. I had tried to send this one off the mountain but had ended up reposting the other one of me on the ladder. This is my favorite image of me on the ladder. I was climbing so well that day, feeling good, and we cruised down through the icefall. So I’ll be sure to post some new images each day since I no longer have to pray that the union between cable, sat phone, and PDA is maintained.

Four of my teammates summited last night. One had to turn around. Another decided to return to basecamp since his health did not allow him to complete the climb. I imagine basecamp is awash in a multitide of feelings. Still waiting for confirmation that the summit climbers have returned safely to Camp Four.
Have a good day,

TA

Home Again, Home Again Jiggidy Jig 5/18/2007
Howdy from the Rock!

It’s good to be home and I’m working hard to get on this time zone-so far unsuccessfully. I’ve woken both mornings way early so have been operating on little sleep.

From the moment I stepped out of the customs hall at 2:00 am into the arms of waiting friends, I have been receiving a wonderful welcome back to the rock! Thanks so much to Judy, Marie, Matt, Eva, Janine, Bill, Don, and M the Limerick Queen for hanging in so long at the airport. Your presence there meant so much! I haven’t even begun to unpack those big bags because it’s been far more fun to visit friends and colleagues to catch up after being gone two months.

This morning, during a radio interview, the host asked me which I thought would be harder to recover from: the failed climb or the giardia. I was quick to point out that I don’t view the climb as a failure. From the very beginning, I was very intentional in not tying “success” to the summit. I designed the climb’s logo with the Newfoundland flag on the 007 rather than the top to remind me (and everyone else) that “it wasn’t only about the top.” Of course, there is still much disappointment about not getting a chance to try for the summit, but “failed” isn’t one of the words I use to describe my Everest experience.

Some of my teammates are climbing towards the summit as I type this. My thoughts and prayers are with them for a good climb and a safe return. You can track their progress at http://www.mountainguides.com I wish I was climbing with them but console myself knowing that when and if I am ready, I will go back to Everest with more confidence, experience, and knowledge that I gained from being there this spring.

I have started uploading my pictures to my computer-what amazing memories are contained in each image. I don’t think I ever wrote about the sense that I had, that going through the Khumbu Icefall changes you-or at least it changed me. It marks the convocation between Everest trekker and Everest climber.

Today, looking at the pictures Mingma and I took of the icefall, that feeling was confirmed. The baptism of those terrifying beautiful icy hours changed me from someone who dreamed of climbing Everest to someone who had climbed on Everest; from someone who 22 months ago could hardly speak the dream aloud to someone who shared the climb with thousands of kids and adults around the world.

Giardia and bronchitis cannot steal that change or those moments. They cannot take away the glory of traversing the Western Cwm. They cannot thieve away staring up the Lhotse Face to a summit that is so close and so far at the same time. They cannot alter a communion with people around the world who shared my dream and the hardships of living it out. They merely kept me from climbing as high as I wanted.

As I transition home and share stories, I am beginning to speak aloud (rather than write) of my Everest experience and already, that process has helped me begin to understand it in new ways. I know it will be a tapestry that I unwind from the loom of my spirit and soul for the rest of my life. How I view its weave and pattern looks different today than last week, will look different next year from right now, and I have no idea yet, of what I will weave next.

TA

It is Hard to Leave Kathmandu 5/16/2007
Hello from London. Only one more flight to go!

After a night of restlessness and fitful sleep, it was a relief when
the alarm went off at 4:15. I dragged my huge duffles down the stairs
quietly (quite a feat!) and loaded them in the car Raj had hired. The
trip to the airport was swift as only vegetable sellers and joggers
were out.

We ended up at the airport too early and so stood beside the dusty road
drinking tea in the dark until the guard let us past. The first of six
queues had already formed. It was a swirly mass of humanity: tourists
with big bags and carts, a family or two, and seemingly hundreds of
Nepali migrants heading to the middle east to work. We stood unmoving
for about 30 minutes then the crush began and people pushed towards the
entrance. Carts got relegated to the bag as the lightly packed
migrants charged forward.

Finally I get through to the front and throw my bags through x-ray and
submit to my first of three pat-down searches. Given women were
outnumbered at the airport 10 to 1, I often made good progress at these
stations since they used same sex security people for the task. Line
up for departure tax was next. Then line up to pay Qatar Airlines too
much to take my extra bag. Then queue for immigration. Metal
detector. Another line for hand luggage x-ray and inspection.

The last queue was hardest. For many of the migrants, this was their
first experience in an airport. The last “line-up” was for the bus to
the plane. As they opened the doors a crack, the crowd crushed forward
not seeming to understand that our seats were reserved on the
plane-this was not like a bus. I was pushed and shoved and almost
picked up off my feet by the mass of humanity flowing through the small
opening.

One last pat down search and I took by seat on the plane. Suddenly and
unexpectedly, I was hit with a rash of emotions. I was sad to be
leaving Nepal. I was grieving leaving the mountains as summits were
beginning to happen. I was angry and frustrated by the airport
experience. I was tired from no sleep. Given some privacy, I’m sure I
could have had a big cry. Indeed, I sat with wave after wave of
emotion-like a stormy sea crashing up against the Cape Spear shore.

Then I settled. Into the seat I had worked so hard to get. Into travel
mode of patience and bardo. Into beginning the transition home and out
of the Everest experience. Into post Everest life. Whatever that
holds. Lots of couch time to be sure. A few more movies. Lots more
talks to kids. Adults too! Back to teaching and research. Stir clear
of the gym for awhile. Rest and recovery. Reflection. Conversation.

Until the seeds of adventure and sowed into fertile soil. When the time
comes, I will know what is next and I will nurture the next dream into
reality.

Take care,

TA

Last Tango in Kathmandu 5/15/2007
Namaste,

It’s a day of “lasts.” I had my last outdoor breakfast at the New Orlean’s Café, my last sushi at the Momotarou, and paid my last visit to my favorite bakery. In each place, I bade farewell to the folks who’ve been dishing me up my recovery diet.

I’ve been mostly visiting Asia in my culinary choices: Thai, Japan, and India: variations on rice and veggies. I still have no appetite for protein.

My packs are bagged. My shoes repaired and the last few stitches placed on some new shirts as I type. One last meal out with Raj and his family to thank them for their hospitality and one last sleep, and the journey home begins.

I fly from Kathmandu to Doha, Qatar and then onto London and then St. John’s. My layovers are two and four hours so they shouldn’t be too hard to bear-I’ve had lots of patience practice of late 🙂

I had a hot shower today. My hotel room only has hot water when it is sunny. At Everest basecamp, it only made sense to have a shower when it was sun had warmed up the shower tent. My bathing regime has been dictated by the weather for the past two months. I was thinking wouldn’t it be interesting if more of our daily routines were shaped by natural rhythms even in urban settings.

I spent some time today catching up with various Everest expeditions. I anticipate as I travel home, talk with friends and family and the media, I’ll be revisiting and reflecting on my Everest experience. I look forward to sharing those with you and to seeing how the rest of the Everest climbing season unfolds.

Thanks for coming along on the Kathmandu portion of this multi-faceted adventure.

TA

Touches of Thamel 5/14/2007

Tashi Delek Amigos,

That’s a Tibetan greeting in honour of eating Mexican food at a Tibetan restaurant. My time in Thamel is winding down so I thought I would share a few things that caught my eye today.

I was up before many. Steel shutters lined the streets while I searched for breakfast. Street children remained curled like fetuses on concrete wombs. Their naked calloused feet tell of the miles they walk in search of daily survival. Their tattered filthy clothes cling to them like old friends. I slip quietly by feeling a tender-hearted sadness for these boys and the many others forced to the mean streets each day.

I sit in Raj’s office. The marketing signs in the window frame the old man perfectly. He is a singing bowl seller. His face seems caved in by his years. He caresses a brass bowl in his weathered hand and strikes it with a mallet to start the vibration. To nurture notes, he lovingly runs the handle of the striker around the rim. He hears the music. He hopes the riveting note will draw someone with money in. No one appears to hear. Pedestrian traffic, motorcycles, and a few cars weave between him and me in the rutted, broken street. No one stops to listen. He plays another bowl. I am sad again.

I decide to get brave and get a haircut. Never has someone cut so long and removed so little hair from my head. I choose a place that has a colorful brochure figuring they must cater to many Westerners. I drop in and ask how much for a haircut. The rate is reasonable and I say “Sign me up I gotta clean up this mop before heading home.” The haircutter is busy giving a Thai massage so I’ll have to wait. “No problem,” I reply, “Time is something I have lots of at the moment.”

At some point, the nice young man looks over at me and asks what I want done to my hair. I explain that I just need it trimmed up nice and neat. He says that the hair dresser is only used to long hair-that short hair is tricky-and she will have to see my hair before committing to cut it.

I try to explain that I’m not fussy-that a mountaineering team member once hacked it off with a Swiss Army knife-and that I would be fine with whatever happened. The woman arrives and agrees to shorten my hair. It seems like she is quite frightened by my wavy locks so I try to give her many positive looks. Turns out she trimmed less than a centimeter off but it must have been a big change because I got cat calls from men all day.

When they were giving out persistence, I was at the head of the line. Bargaining skill, however, I must have missed that line altogether. In cultures where prices are not fixed, I flounder. My shyness streak comes out and I prefer to look from afar. Sometimes I can get into the mood and make a game out of it and form a relationship with a vendor that makes the process work for me. Some of the folks I purchased from today I purchased from each visit to Kathmandu-that makes it fun too!

Sounds like weather’s got everyone hanging at basecamp waiting for the window. Today for the first time, I took the stairs to my room two at a time. My strength is returning. It’s taken almost 10 days at lower elevation to begin to get stronger. I wonder how long it would have taken at high elevation?

Happy Monday,

TA

Health Update 5/13/2007

Howdy from Thamel,

Some folks have been asking about my health. I haven’t vomited now in a week. I can now tolerate a much wider grouping of foods. I can’t tell if I’m gaining weight yet-I must be. There is still a “hole in my middle” and I cannot believe how small my legs are (for me). At high altitudes, much of weight loss is due to muscle wasting and I can see some of those effects on my body.

I still have transitory nausea and am still not eating nearly as much as I usually do. My energy seems to go off and on like a faucet in Kathamndu. Some days I have lots of spunk, other days hardly any. There isn’t any pattern to it so when energy allows, I explore. When it doesn’t, I read or watch movies.

I’m still counting the days until I am able to return home but I have found my “Kathmandu Legs” and have settled into Thamel. I revel in eating breakfast outside every morning and have been intentionally choosing outdoor restaurants since it’s likely to be much colder and stormier back home on the Rock.

Thanks for your continued interest and support.
TA

Juxtaposition 5/12/2007
Namaste,

I don’t often really know what I am getting myself into. The first river I rowed in a raft on was the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. My first Himalayan mountain was Everest. So, I wasn’t surprised this morning when the trip “south” of town was actually up in the hills and quite a bus ride.

Krishna, Raj’s brother, picked me up at 6:30 am so we could beat the bus crowds. At the bus park, we found a direct to Pharping, but there were no seats left. “No problem,” I said since I didn’t think we were going far. In Nepal, you don’t need to travel far for it to take awhile.

It being Saturday, many of the folks in the bus were headed to their home villages or to the same place we were going. The bus tout kept encouraging us to fit more and more folks in the bus. Eventually, I was propped up between Krishna and another man in an intimacy that elsewhere would be reserved for partners. I could not move my feet and was hanging on to the two bars hanging from the ceiling.

The road was not wide enough to let two vehicles pass while moving so the bus jerked forward then stopped frequently. On each hairpin turn, we were clipped by our own exhaust in a noxious game of diesel fume tag.
We arrived after about 90 minutes and I didn’t trust my legs to move me through the throng to the bus door. We’d given the bus folks something to talk about as it’s not that common that Western folks ride local buses. Many eyes stared at me during the whole trip and I was glad, as usual, to have the experience of being a visible minority.

Pharping is one of the places in Nepal where Buddhism and Hinduism come together. We first visited a Buddhist enclave of monasteries built there because Padmasambava meditated in a cave. As is often the case, the enclave was built on a hill. As we climbed the stairs between the various prayer halls, the monks got older as we got higher.

The first temple was dedicated to both Green Tara (Buddhist) and Ganesh (Hindu). Here, the novice monks’ voices broke and they sounded like they were chanting “out of tune.” Two other temples shared deities as well in a cooperative juxtaposition that, I think, is rare in religion.

The enclave was silent except for the “monastic music” vibrating from the prayer halls. I was once again enthralled by the monks’ deep throated chants punctuated by cymbals and horns. One older monk invited us to see a temple that had 1000 statues of Buddha and 1000 statues of a chorten lining the inner walls.

We headed next to Dakshinkali, a Hindu temple 2 kilometers down the road. Here is where the crowds were heading. The atmosphere was respectfully festive-somewhat of a cross between the sacred and county fair.
Leading down to the temple were stalls selling food, children’s trinkets, flower leis, and animals to sacrifice. Kali, is a Hindu goddess that is appeased by blood. During a fall festival, many animals are sacrificed to insure Kali’s thirst for blood (so she won’t need to cause car accidents etc.).

I learned today that if an individual or family is in trouble, they can appease Kali any day by making a sacrifice at this particular temple (which is dedicated to Kali and these kind of sacrifices). Depending on a person’s caste, they would choose to kill a chicken, pigeon, goat, or buffalo. Vegetarians can sacrifice a coconut.

The line to get into the temple to perform the ritual was probably over a 1000 deep and folks waited 2-3 hours in line to get into the temple. Given we weren’t participating, we could go in the exit to observe.

The temple is near a river so the animals feet are bathed in the river (this is so the animal will allow itself to be slaughtered). The person wishing to appease Kali can kill the animal him or herself or pay a person in the temple to do it. There are butchers just outside the temple to attend to the carcasses of larger animals and birds are butchered at home.

People can light butter lamps in the temple in similar practice to Buddhists and Hindus seem to ring bells in the temple in ways not unlike spinning a prayer wheel.

We rode back to Kathmandu with a few ex-chickens. For once, I felt reasonably safe in a Nepali bus ~~because I knew Kali had received as much blood as she wished on this particular day. There were still a few drop-offs that caught my eye and my breath though, especially knowing there had been two fatal bus accidents in the previous two days.

The ride back was even slower because the roads were more crowded. I was a bit wiped out by the travel but it was very good to get out of town and see the amazing juxtaposition of Hinduism and Buddhism.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Rum Doodling 5/12/2007
Hello,

When climbing Everest, sometimes motivation can change moment to moment. I heard more than one climber mention the Rum Doodle at basecamp. The Rum Doodle is both an imaginary mountain at 40000.5 feet and a Kathmandu restaurant icon.

Everest summitters eat free at the Rum Doodle for life. Given my bad luck, I thought I might have to forego the free meal this time round. An acquaintance from Minnesota, just back from guiding a group to Everest basecamp looked me up and asked me to join her group for dinner.

I suggested the Rum Doodle not knowing Anne would pick up the tab. The Rum Doodle’s walls and ceilings are covered with “yeti feet.” Each 12 inch foot details an expedition or trek. There are also spaces on the wall where Everest summitters sign their names. The place gives off a sense of history and the food is pretty good to boot.

I appreciated the bathroom signs: one door was labeled “For those who sit,” and the other “For those who stand.” Some of the women in the group had trouble choosing since they’d just spent a few weeks squatting. 🙂

Today was the first day I felt ready to check-in on my expedition mates and other Everest climbers. Enough time and emotion had passed that my curiousity won out. Internet is slow here these days but I can get the gist of what’s happening on the mountain. I guess there was a summit attempt last night turned back by high winds. I think I may know some how those folks feel.

Thanks to all who let me know you enjoyed the Kathmandu piece.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Kathmandu Kaleidoscope 5/11/2007

They killed the lights at 6. “Oh yeah,” I remember, rotating brown-outs. It must be Thamel’s turn for the early evening shift. Fortunately, I ate already as I need to hurry back to my room before it is totally engulfed by darkness, to find my headlamp.

Sitting here in the dark, I pay attention to the notes of humanity coming together into a cacophony of night. Someone is sawing by hand. An impeccable rhythm. A large dog barks, his jowls seemingly vibrating up to the fourth floor. Horns bleat. And honk. And thrill.

The saw goes back and forth again after a pause. Its beat is punctuated by the staccato lowering of the metal protection gates over storefronts. Some stay open making light with their own mini generators singing like cicadas. Others call it a night.

Beep. Beep. Honk. Drivers make their way home over darkened streets. Suddenly with a deep rumble, the hotel starts its massive generator and all the other sounds must now compete for my ears. Voices combine with a bicycle bell. Air hissing overrides a few other dogs’ efforts. It will be awhile before the night settles enough to let me sleep, but I now have light which makes the night music harder to hear.

Eight hours later, I awake. The birds are singing like this is the only time they will be heard. Mourning doves coo. Song birds sing. The first horn. The first motorcycle. Wheels are beginning to wake. The chaotic din begins to rise from the quiet as the sun tracks higher in the sky.

The huge dog starts in again. Nothing gets by him. His friends try to keep up in an effort that call only be called Western. Dog eat dog. Only one can be top dog. Voices join the fray. Metal gates denounce their employment in rapid succession.

Another Kathmandu day has begun.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

I am Coming Home in Less Than a Week 5/10/2007
Hi All,

After my morning pilgrimage to Durbar Marg, I got the same woman-though she was more helpful today. Toronto replied and for a relatively small upgrade fee, I have a seat on an airplane. Perhaps, I will have it bronzed 🙂 I leave here the morning of May 16th and arrive in St. John’s after midnight on May 17 on Flight 831 Air Canada from Heathrow (arrives 0045).

I was hoping for something a little sooner of course but I’m lighter with an ending in sight-though still so weary. Maybe what I am doing here is building up the strength to come home. I appreciate all your words of support and ideas of how to spend the time. I’ll brainstorm with Raj to see what’s possible given time and energy. I actually have spent a fair amount of time in Kathmandu between this and other visits.

I’ve been writing a piece about the sounds of Kathmandu which I will post later today.

Thanks,
TA

Abandon All Hope of Fruition 5/9/2007

Hello All,

Sitting in my new “down scale” hotel room. This one costs about 10% of yesterday’s (just in case I am in Kathmandu a really long time). It’s a bit mustier, has hot water only when the sun shines, and most importantly, has a movie channel.

I have watched more movies in the past 24 hours than the past 18 months. Raj had his wife take me over to Qatar Airlines in Durbar Marg-about a 20 minute walk from Thamel. They had no sign out front of their office, but we deciphered the puzzle and took a number.

The middle woman seemed quite helpful, but I drew the one to her right. She kept saying, “no seats in May or June” no matter what question I asked her. She sent a message to Toronto asking about how much to upgrade my seat since there might be a slightly better chance of getting a seat in a higher class. I’m supposed to check back tomorrow.

I asked her about buying a ticket. She said, “no seats.” I asked her about stand-by, she said “no seats but you are welcome to try.” So…I’m working hard on my Buddhist slogan of the day: Abandon all hope of going home.

I checked the internet today and Qatar did have one seat on Sunday in business class-maybe it will still be there tomorrow after Toronto gives the word, she says abandoning hope. 🙂

I’ll see what they say tomorrow and then perhaps drag my huge duffles to the airport to try stand-by. She said the Doha to London leg might also be tricky so even if I manage a KTM to Doha flight, they might not let me on. Maybe I’ll trek back to basecamp 🙂

I spent the afternoon wondering around Thamel aimlessly until I ran out of steam and wilted about 3 (which probably precludes trekking back to basecamp). I think that’s very much a legacy of the giardia. I’m slowly introducing food groups and trying to build back strength. It feels like I’ve been in Kathmandu for a month even though it’s just a day and a half. Funny how time works.

Once I truly abandon hope and surrender to being here a long time, Raj will hook me up and help me get into exploration mode but until then, I’ll just hangout here for a few more days in recovery mode.

Thanks for hanging with me.

TA
This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Rapid Change Artist 5/8/2007

I awoke in a mountain village having heard nothing louder than an avalanche for nearly two months. A quick flight later, I am jarred and frayed and battered by the chaos of Kathmandu.

Yesterday, I wondered if I would ever get out of Lukla and today, I wonder what the heck I am doing here. The crushing part of the day was when the person who picked us up from the domestic terminal said international flights were booked solid for weeks.

That was a complication I hadn’t anticipated. The news was hard to hear because all I want is to be home surrounded by friends. I don’t really have the energy to play tourist.

I don’t know if my audioblog posted to the site. I’m a bit embarrassed by it as it was raw and unfiltered-shortly after learning I might not be able to get home for awhile. Not sure why I would be embarassed now-it’s not like I have been holding back much. 🙂

After a few hours rest, I walked over to Thamel trying to let the noise, crowds, and pollution wash over me like spindrift. Lunch at the Momotarou, my favorite Sushi place, helped (Miso soup cures all).

Spend the afternoon with Raj, my Nepali friend. He gave me some advice about airlines and I will visit the office of Qatar airlines tomorrow once I have my ticket in hand. Raj and I found me a much cheaper place to move to tomorrow called the Blue Diamond-it’s on the outskirts of Thamel.

As I walked back to the Hotel Tibet in Lazimpat, I realized I had already settled in a bit. My tourist survival strategies were kicking in-I had toilet paper in one pocket and small rupees in the other.

I crossed Kantipath-a major street-in the same way you cross the Khumbu Icefall, in the company of Nepalis. I “catch a lift” by walking along side other pedestrains, since the “horizontal” seracs come fast and furious and merely crossing the street is a potentially lethal proposition.

I bought some new reading material and am trying to surrender to being here much longer than I wish…though who knows…maybe my seat will come in. Anyone out there got connections with Qatar Airlines? 🙂

From a simple life in a tent to a chaotic urban city, I am in transition once again. The guys sent down the rose one of the cooks had drawn with well wishes. It’s hard to imagine some of them being back freezing at Camp Two while I swelter in KTM. Was I really just climbing Everest?

Thanks for being there through it all,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

STOL 5/7/2007

Location: Lukla

Elevation: 2886 Meters

Elevation Gain: 400 Meters

Elevation Loss: 1000 Meters

Weather: Hot and sweaty then afternoon showers

Lojong Slogan of the Day: Don’t seek other’s pain as the limbs of your own happiness.

Today, plywood went by. And glass. And plastic pipe. And corrugated roofing. Coke. Beer. Noodle soup. Carried by men using woven baskets and tamp straps. A few women. Too many children. The Khumbu supply chain was in full swing as I imagine the mass of spring climbers and trekkers have depleted the supplies up the hill. I silently thanked each one as they went by for carrying my food and supplies up.

We met one of Mingma’s former clients today. They summitted together. He is headed up to Island Peak and basecamp. They have a deep friendship and fun to see them together a few weeks earlier than imagined. One of his client’s travelling companions, asked the inevitable question, “Will you climb Everest again?”

Anticipating this question, I took my first opportunity to try out my answer.

Will you climb Everest again?

The easy answer: Yes.

The short answer: No.

The real answer: How can I know right now?

Mingma has dropped me off in Lukla and is hustling to catch up with his former client. We walked fast again which gave him the daylight to make a return trip in one day.

We passed the “Everest Summitteers” Lodge and a sign for the “Everest Summitteers Association.” Each reminder sends a serac cleaving from my heart – though I remind myself that even if I stayed 100% healthy, I’d still have had only a 20-45% chance of standing on the summit. Lots of self-talk and soothing to that effect today and steering myself clear of all the second guessing my mind wanted to get into.

In the spirit of David Letterman, I ‘ve tried to come up with the “Top Ten” Great Benefits of Coming off Everest Early…I’m not sure I should give up my day job to write for the show, but here is the best one I came up with:

I don’t have to renew my Nepali visa and so I save $50 USD 🙂

(of course, I’m grateful for my safety, fingers and toes, being home for significant events, etc.-I’m just trying to find the humour in the situation).

I haven’t learned about my flight scene for tomorrow, but I’m trying to remain flexible in case it takes several days to get out.

S.T.O.L. stands for “Short Take off and Landing” which describes many of the air strips in Nepal. They are sloped up to slow landing planes and sloped down to propel taking off planes. They are an exciting, terrifying place to fly in/out of. So, I’m hoping for good weather and a boring flight.

Tom & Audrey-I did get your emails. Sorry I didn’t acknowledge them. I loved hearing from you.

Rayne & Xander-I would love to visit you on the way home, but my ticket takes me over the Atlantic rather than Pacific. Once I’m home and better, we’ll make plans for a visit to my favourite niece and nephew. Xanderman-I hope your hand heals fast.

Michael B.-Thanks for your candour. I look forward to talking more.

Anne-As a long time fan of yours, I appreciate you writing. I know you know how it feels.

Mary M-Thanks for sharing your journeys with me.

KW-There were so many cumulonimbus clouds today I thought we might have a thunderstorm but then it cleared. How was the sea kayaking?

WP-glad you are feeling better…it sucks to chuck to matter where you are.

Nancy-you are in my thoughts. Say hi to Ericka for me.

Lorraine-Thanks for your words and perspectives. See you on the rock.

And to the many of you who’ve written and I haven’t thanked specially…THANK YOU! Your words are a gift and are much appreciated.

With gratitude,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Men are from Nuptse, Women are from Lhotse 5/7/2007

Like the aftershock tremors that ripple through after an earthquake, I awoke this morning feeling a bit better and couldn’t help myself from running through a scenario. Pangboche today, Loboche tomorrow, EBC the day after that rest. Go up.

Then the undulations stopped and reality set in. My duffles are somewhere in Namche, I’m not strong enough even if I feel better, and that door is shut for now. Grief’s like that – you have to accept the loss over and over again.

It’s different to see women in greater numbers again. In high altitude mountaineering, about 10 percent of climbers are women. I’m used to being outnumbered. On Denali, it was 12 to 2; Elbrus 11 to 1; Aconcagua was a rare treat – there were 3 women.

On my Everest team, there were 22 summit climbers. I was the only woman. At some point, I realized that if you included all of the staff, I was outnumbered 60 or so to 1. Given that men and women often process their experiences differently, sometimes I felt lonely on the mountain.

There were also covert and overt mechanisms of competition and sizing each other up (totally understandable on the world’s highest mountain – just wearing sometimes).

I was angry only once on the entire trip. One of my teammates asked his personal sherpa if the sherpas preferred working with male or female clients. He replied that they liked male clients better because “they were stronger.” I didn’t say anything out loud because he was mirroring many cultures’ beliefs, but I sure wanted to prove him wrong.

I remember one boy writing to me asking me to please summit because his sister didn’t believe I could and he wanted to prove her wrong. I guess his sister was right this time 🙂

After millenia, gender relations are still pretty complicated…time to walk downhill.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Heading Downhill 5/6/2007

Location: Namche Bazaar

Elevation: 3440 Meters

Elevation Gain: 1000 Meters

Elevation Loss: 1600 Meters

Weather: Mostly sunny

The high altitude world is one of white, blue, and shades of grey. Whenever I come down from that stark world, I feel as though I am getting my senses back.

Today as we dropped in elevation, many colours and textures joined the palette. Trees. Leafy things. Thorny things. Flowers. Blooms. Brilliant pink, yummy purple, subdued lavender, powder brown, lime green, spruce green, narrow green, squashed green…lots of living plants adorned the trail. Birds sang. Rivers shouted.

Everest’s summit was visible today when we got near Namche. I turned and said good-bye, perhaps abiento would have been more appropriate. I was almost glad when we turned the corner and I couldn’t see the mountain any longer.

The last time we came through here was 40 days ago. We camped out in front of the lodge I am staying in. It’s actually not nearly as nice inside as we all thought last time we were here. Though the shower sure is-nothing like near scalding water in great quantities to wash what ails ya down the drain.

The nausea is still there, though now flows like an undercurrent rather than raging torrent scouring the creek bed. Meals are sticking around today, though nothing is appealing to eat. The hills were not quite so taxing today as my acclimatization is finally overcoming the overall weakness and fatigue.

I most often immerse myself wherever I am, but I now find my thoughts wandering to home. Out of every decision comes gains and losses. Yesterday I so acutely felt the losses and today, I celebrate that I will be home for three major events in the lives of family and friends that I was going to miss.

I’m hoping to be able to actually fly out of Lukla on the 8th because I am actually quite tired of entertaining myself. My books and cards are in my duffle and I don’t have enough battery power on my PDA to play games. I could use a bit of distraction 🙂

I hope you are all doing well. Your outpouring of support and understanding is pivotal and appreciated and remembered with each step downhill.

TA
This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

A Letter to My Everest Support Team 5/5/2007

Location: Phortse

Elevation: 3840 Meters

Elevation Loss: 360 Meters

Weather: Didn’t really notice

Dear All,

When I threw up breakfast once again, I ventured over to the clinic to check my weight again. I was down another five pounds and feeling poorly. I felt the confusion part temporarily and made the decision to come down.

I packed my bag cautiously to see if the clarity would stick around. It didn’t seem possible to heal at this altitude given there was not much left on the menu to eat (once I’d chucked something, I found it hard to eat it again and given I’d been chucking for awhile-there were not many options left).

The hope voice had quieted to where I couldn’t hear it anymore and the reality of not being at my best was staring me nakedly in the face. Mount Everest deserves my best, no-in reality, it demands my best. Though I’m sure I could have gotten enough better to drag myself back up to EBC, I finally admitted to myself that I wouldn’t have the amount of reserve I would need to feel comfortable and confident going back high on the mountain.

I count on that reserve to combat bad weather, extreme altitude, and steep slopes. I feel as though the illnesses I have faced over the past month, have peeled the layers of reserve and resiliency down to my very core, like shedding the outer layers of an onion.

For me, persistence is my lifeblood. I am a survivor. I can get through anything. For me, this morning in turning my back on trying for the summit, I climbed a bigger Everest than the snow and ice covered mount in front of me.

I said for once, it was okay to stop. It was okay not to push to the absolute outer limits of my being. It was okay to go home to heal and come back to climb Everest another day. It was okay to do all of this and hold my head up high for having given this effort almost everything I had. All of this new territory was stepping out on a ladder spanning a crevasse bigger than any I saw in the Khumbu.

And although yes, this allowing for my humanity, my frailty is a summit in itself, it still hurts incredibly. Grief is like glacier run-off. At times in the hot sun, it runs like torrents that threaten to overwhelm and at other times, the glacier freezes hard and nothing is felt in the frigid night.

I walked from Pheriche to Pangboche often overhwhelmed by the torrents. I was an anonymous trekker hiding behind my shades and I could allow the wild water of grief to spill over whenever it rose beyond the spillways of my eyes.

Eighteen months of energy, effort, excitement, focus, and dreams were coming to an end in the moments of those downhill footsteps. Suddenly, there was a vacuum-a large black hole-I was no longer preparing to be or being an Everest climber.

Into this void, churned the waves of grief like rancid yak butter. This grief had been hanging around the interstitial edges of my being since leaving EBC and now it had full permission to come into being since the final decision had finally been made.

In Pangboche, I found Mingma (he’d told me to find him there if I decided to come down). We talked to basecamp via Camp Two and made the arrangements for my bags and flights. We used the radio at Ang Pasang’s place-he’s the expedition sirdar. As we left his house, Pasang’s wife placed a kata scarf around my neck to signify good luck in leaving, and the glacier dam that was holding my tears in place almost burst.

I won’t cry in public so I choked the grief back into place for much of the rest of the day as I sat in Mingma’s in-laws place and then at Mingma’s place in Phortse.

I actually thought I was going to Namche today. When I contacted Mingma that all changed and he will accompany me down to Lukla. Though it was hard not to let the tears fall all afternoon, there was some comfort in walking with Mingma, his wife and son from Pangboche to Phortse.

Now, in my room at the lodge, writing to you, I am free once again to allow the sun to strike the glacier of my heart and allow the grief to move downhill, like I. I am okay. I just hurt. I will hurt for awhile as I bring this chapter of my life to a different close than I anticipated.

I’d rehearsed being felled by weather. By bad snow or ice conditions. But I forgot to anticipate being sick. New territory. Lots of learning in being where I haven’t been before.

Today as I watched Mingma’s children play, I was relieved to be heading home to Rayne and Xander. In that moment of watching the children, I knew I had made a good decision. I am willing to take risks to climb mountains but not foolish ones. My health is more important than any summit. I’ve got too many young people rooting for me to throw caution to the wind. Everest will be there whenever my dreams take me onto her slopes next, if and when.

So, I have a few things to ask of you-my Everest support team. Please stay with me as I journey home. I will continue to blog and reflect and share my experiences as I head downhill and to home. Please share your experiences of times you’ve given your heart to your dreams and had a different ending that you wished for-share the lessons that have come from these moments. Please remind me that I have indeed achieved my mission and should not allow one ounce of shame to cloud my perspective of that. And finally, welcome me to lower ground with open arms and open ears, I’ll have many stories to tell.

Thank you all for being here as I’ve undertaken this most public of personal journeys. Your presence and words and thoughts have been gifts every step of the way. Thank you.

TA

Logistics: Tomorrow to Namche, May 7th to Lukla, May 8th to KTM pending weather…not sure when flying home yet.
This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

To Family and Friends of Michael 5/5/2007

To Michael’s Family and Friends,

I wanted to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to write and express your thoughts and feelings about Michael’s Inukshuk. Your words struck a deep chord with me each time I received them.

The morning I spent with Michael’s spirit, building the inukshuk, was one of the most “right and profound” moments of the entire expedition for me. As I said, I hoped Michael’s spirit would help me to “do the thing I think I cannot do”, though at the time, I had no idea what that might be. Really-in my mind’s eye, I pictured the traverse from the South Summit.

Today, his spirit helped me to do what I thought impossible a few days ago. I’ve chosen, in the name of health, to end my Everest expedition. I know there may have been times when Michael pushed too hard or too far on his body in sports.

Today, I listened to his spirit and will come back to Everest again when I am healthy enough and with enough reserve to face the mighty challenges Everest presents.

Again, thank you for writing and letting me know that you appreciated and were moved by my gesture of remembrance. It meant so much to hear from you.

With care,
TA

To My Everest Teammates 5/5/2007

My Everest Teammates,

I imagine on this day where I have made one of the hardest decisions of my life, you are at or are heading towards basecamp, with only your summit rotation left to go.

Most of you were up the mountain, when I was hit for the second time with another illness. I had planned and hoped to be up at Camp Two with all of you. Sunday night, after ten days of “morning sickness,” I threw up much of the night before I was to head up the icefall with Jean and Nat.

The diagnosis…giardia. I spent three days at basecamp trying to beat it and then a few days at Pheriche. Today, having lost 25 pounds, still vomiting in the morning, and realizing that I didn’t have much physical reserve left, I made the decision to go home to heal.

Having been to Camp Three, you all know how much Everest takes out of you. I respect Everest too much to risk mine and my sherpa’s lives by going up without enough reserve and resiliency. Everest will still be there when I am healthy and ready again.

In Buddhism, we speak of Boddhisattivas. Boddhisativas delay their enlightenment until all beings are enlightened. Though I doubt it works this way, I hope I can be the Boddhisativa of Illness for the team. I hope that “I took it for the team”- that none of you comes down with anything that prevents your summit bid.

Rest well and deep my friends. Draw on your courage and strength as you make your last passage up and down Everest. Take good care of each other and your sherpas. Make good decisions. Be safe. Enjoy these moments you’ve worked so hard for. May you all reach your summit.

Please take a piece of me with you as you venture up again. Know that I am cheering for you every step of the way.

Mark, Jangbu and the Whole Sherpa Staff-thank you so much for all your hard work and diligence. You are a well-oiled machine.

With respect and gratitude,
TA

Finding Perspective 5/4/2007

Location: Pheriche

Elevation: 4200 Meters

Elevation Gain: 883 Meters

Elevation Loss: 883 Meters

Weather: Tolkien Like

Quote of the Day: We have little time; therefore, we must proceed very slowly. (Chinese proverb)

In the early morning, snuggled in my sleeping bag after ten hours of quality sleep, all things are possible: curing cancer, world peace, climbing Everest. Nearing the top of Nagartsang Peak, when I’m dragging steps from deep within, cracks appear in the morning’s veneer of optimism.

One thing that sea kayaking has taught me is that my perception of the sea state depends entirely on if I want to paddle or not. At 5:00 am in the morning, when I feel a bit lazy, the ocean waves seem too big to paddle. At 3:00 pm the same day, when I’ve been on the beach all day and want to get off, those same exact waves seem to be waning and paddlable.

So, it is my job over the next few days to know that my perception and perspective is highly changeable, influenced, and impermanent. I can look for trends, seek “objective” measures, and perhaps find the Lama in Pangboche. 🙂

Ken and many others have suggested trying to keep things in perspective. For me, perspective is the lens in which we perceive our world. Every once in awhile we get to glimpse and acknowledge that lens.

For me as I descend, I am once again aware of the ways in which altitude affects how I perceive. If you have never been to altitude, I will try to illustrate how it can influence things.

First, it is a bit like the frog in the pot that is heated to boiling. You don’t notice the changes until you descend.

For me, altitude (like hormones) is a grand magnifier. I don’t exactly understand how it works, but it seems like altitude (or its accompanying hypoxia) magnifies emotions, temperatures, conflicts, hopes and dreams. I can marvel in Pheriche at how intense life in EBC is/was. When I’m there, I forget that lens is in place and take is all so seriously.

Of course, Buddhism has taught me that we all have a lens of perception no matter what altitude we exist at-perhaps what I am trying to say is that lens is thicker or has cataracts at altitude.

Besides being a magnifier, life at altitude is often harsh and uncomfortable. It takes extra energy and focus to do daily activities. I also noticed yesterday, as we descended that my physical coordination got better and better. Altitude affects our ability to think and to problem-solve. The higher you go, the more challenge to push an oxygen-starved brain through its paces.

All of this becomes clearer, when the frog gets out of the hot water for a time. When I trained this year on the Go2Altitude machine, I had the experience of going from sea level to 4500 meters instantly. When I came off the machine after an hour, it was much easier to observe the altitude-induced impairment.

So…all of this is to say, if I sound like a blubbering fool, some of it is altitude and knowing this, is why I turn to good friends for their perspectives as I make my way through challenging decisions. We carry radios high on the mountain for the same reason, so we can draw on the less-influenced thinking of basecamp when we are up high.

With seven days of rest and illness vibrating inside me, I knew I couldn’t just sit still today. I felt better enough to try out one of my “tests.” Actually I shouldn’t call them tests since that implies failure-instead perhaps “information gathering experiences.”

I set out for Nagartsang Peak which overlooks Pheriche and Dingboche. It houses the gompa I visited the last time I was here. This time I wanted to go for the top and see how my body did. I am still sorting through all my perceptions, thoughts, and feelings that passed through on the 2.5 hour climb to the top. I also want to see how I do post climb as well.

Climbing to where you can climb no higher is a special experience no matter how high the peak is. I love being on Signal Hill at the Ladies Lookout, knowing there is no higher than that 150 meters, and I loved summiting Nagartsang at 5083 meters. Both are good for gaining new perspective.

As I hiked back down into Pheriche, I had a funny, ironic thought. In 2002, I spent 2 months trekking in Nepal. I had to take medication for three illnesses. Guess which? Bronchitis, giardia, and gastritis from drinking too much Nepali tea. This time I have at least avoided the gastritis :-).

Mingma dropped by this morning from Pangboche. He has a bad toothache. So, we’re quite the couple-neither of us is enjoying eating. 🙂 He’ll go down to Namche to have it fixed. While I do my best to find food that sounds appealing. I splurged and had a “Mars Momo” with lunch-basically a Mars Bar wrapped in dough and lightly fried. Anything to get the calories in. The nausea is much more transitory today and I’m liking getting my sense of humour back-it helps with perspective.

Erika & Taylor-I found the wonderful healing token in the envelope-thanks so much.

M Limerick-I love your limericks-they brighten my day and make me smile.

Colin-you always have a “quantoid” view 🙂 With your numbers influence, I figured out that Camp Two is 75% of the way up Everest!. Thanks for your perspective-always helpful. Hugs to you and Mavis. When does the London to YYT flight start?

Buddy-looking for some cumulonimbus action since those clouds got left out the other day when the code was missing. Say hi to Maine for me.

Nancy-thanks for being there all the way from GFW. I appreciate it.

Scott-glad you liked yesterday’s post-it was a big day.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Mountains of Tears and Punctuation 5/3/2007

Location: Pheriche

Elevation: 4200 Meters

Elevation Loss: 1100 Meters

Weather: Hot and sunny to cold and windy

My body is cruel. This morning when I awoke, she lifted the veil of illness and allowed some oxygen to kindle the flame of hope. I felt terrific. Awesome. Strong. In that moment, I didn’t feel like I needed to go down. I started to scheme-maybe if I did Pumori basecamp today and rested tomorrow, I could be ready to go up the Big Hill on Saturday.

Given the experience of the other morning, I didn’t exactly trust my body either. I got out of the the tent and sat on a rock, staring up at the icefall. Hoping the answer could be found in its icy folds. The morning sun was already hot-a fabulous dawn to the day.

I didn’t want to go down. I didn’t want to pack. I was at a loss to understand my experience except for perhaps my friend Vera rubbing the amethyst crystal she got to cure me of nausea, worked.

I went to the dining tent and had some cheerios and a hot drink. Then my belly stirred-not as bad as usual-but bad enough to remind me of why I had made the decision to go down yesterday. Though I felt pretty good.

I became a high altitude yo-yo once again. Go. Don’t go. Stay. Go. I’m better. I’m not better. Go. Stay.

I managed some hard boiled eggs and cheerios. I was convinced I would keep them because there was no lactose in site. If I kept breakfast, maybe I could stay. Small rumbles but breakfast took.

I did notice my quads felt like rubber as I walked around camp and they felt empty of energy. I should go down-rubber quads don’t get up Everest safely. I noticed my pants were slipping down…then noticed I could drop them down all the way without undoing the waist or fly. I should go down.

I go to my tent to pack. It’s different this time. I don’t know if I’ll be back to this nylon cocoon that has been my home for a month. Everything must go in bags-just in case. I don’t want to pack. After each item, I stop and tear up. I stop and ask myself if I want/need to go down.

Each piece brings the same question. It takes much longer to pack than usual. I don’t want to go. It’s easier to lie here in an high altitude stupor and just hope that things will get better. Another thing goes in the pack. I cry.

Finally, everything has found a stuff sack home. Some goes with me. Most stays ready to be in a duffle for transport. I am so full of emotion I can hardly breathe the thin air-it’s like the feelings have expanded in my chest filling my air sacks with an intensity that’s hard to live through.

I’d promised the docs I would let them know what was on the go. I leave my pack with Mingma and scramble over towards the clinic. A path I know well…to my best friends in basecamp. As I traverse the stepping stones over the glacial lake, the BBC guys say my buddies are over at another expedition’s camp-they’ll be gone for 30 minutes.

In some ways, I am grateful for if I’d seen their caring faces, I’m sure mountains of tears would finally have avalanched from my eyes. I asked the BBC folks to tell the docs I’d gone down to rest even though, in most moments this morning, I didn’t want to go.

I choked out good-byes to the folks in basecamp and Mingma and I were on our way. A familiar trail. We’d walked this way for this reason before. I feel weak. I feel the pariah. I don’t want to go (have I mentioned that?)

The punctuation, in some ways, is what makes it hardest to go. Is this a comma in my Everest experience? A period? An exclamation point? An ellipsis?For the first hours I walk, my mind is as busy as a mosquito in early summer trying to sort out the grammar of my life. I play through scenarios. I feel for clues. I watch my intuition. I write dispatches for each variety of punctuation. Every once in awhile, I would break through the grammatical discourse and remind myself that I cannot know right now. So perhaps the best answer for now is the ellipsis…

Mingma and I almost ran down the hill. I’m not sure what was moving him so fast-perhaps it was only “sherpa speed”. For me, at times I felt like I was trying to outpace my emotions. If I walked fast enough, I could outrun the grief that was boring a hole in my chest like an ice screw in the icefall.

It felt good to move. Movement always helps me process. At some point, I realized my mind had given over to the present moment. I’d given up the grammar lesson and was paying attention to where each footstep went.

We blew through Loboche because my intuition told me that’s where I got giardia. We stopped in Dugla-there I met Mingma’s brother, Pemba who was leading a trek to EBC. I also met Mingma’s cousin who owned the lodge. Everyone clucked in empathy at my plight (and perhaps Mingma’s).

We arrived in Pheriche in four hours-shaving 30 minutes off of last time. It was a bit like coming home and Nuru the innkeeper has welcomed me back warmly. The downhill hike had me feeling strong and confident. The few uphill sections had me on rubber legs and stretching lungs.

So, I suspect some of my information gathering in the next days will be seeing how my body handles a near-by trekking peak. For to return to basecamp, means I must be strong enough to go uphill for six hours at a stretch with few breaks. I’ll have to test my body to see if the giardia has robbed me of that ability for the long term or if I can nurse that back here at a lower elevation.

So, I’m here. In fact, I’m grateful for by body’s cruelty. The walk down today was relatively pleasant-if I had had to do it over the past three days, it would have been so awful because I felt so poorly. I’m truly happy to feel somewhat better-it just made the decision to come down twice as hard and twice as complicated.

A small novel today. A big day. An Everest sort of day-making the hard call, facing the mountain of feelings about it, and being willing to stay in limbo as I seek more information and deeper healing at 4200 meters.

I was handed a stack of snail mail as I left EBC. Seems like whenever I go down, the mail arrives. I’m really the only one who gets mail 🙂

Erika & Taylor-Thanks so much for the pictures and your letter. Erika-I like your room. Taylor-you did a great job with the printing. Flat Stanley says hello. He’s been a bit quiet lately-he’s been a bit worried about me. For sure, I’ll do my best to bring Flat Stanley back to your school.

Ann-thanks for your letter. Congrats on finding your Everest and making it happen! You’re brave and courageous.

Jenna, Arlene, and Mike-thanks for your notes as well-thanks for eating some Vanilla Dips and thinking of me.

Karen-two of yours got through-Canada and stars-one mailed April 17 took the speed route. Lots of stratus clouds today.

Moyra-So lovely to hear from my Buddhist buddy-thanks for writing.

BPT-the path of bodhi…I’m doing my best.

Jim & Monica-Nice to hear from you-say hi to Aunty Hilde for me (and all the family out your way).

Ann-Please say hi to your daughter for me. I’m glad she enjoyed the presentation I did at her school.

Roy-Thanks for the confirmation and the pre-welcome back to the rock.

Thanks to all others who wrote. I can hardly express how your words encourage, inspire, and comfort me.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Heading For Thicker Air II 5/2/2007

Hi All,

Deja Vu. Just wanted to give you a quick update. I’m headed down to Pheriche again tomorrow. Turns out that I can go see how the thicker air is treating me before making the BIG decision.

If I decide I’m not strong or well enough to come back up and try again, the folks up here will throw things in my duffles and send them down after me. I think the change of scenery and descent should help with my clarity.

Thanks to all for your support and concern.

Deb-Thanks for your words-they are right on. I’ll descend and listen to my heart.

Don-Thanks for your perspective.

Eric & Isabel-You’re awesome! I’ll be pretty hungry whenever it is I get home.

Lorraine-The big flag is up at Camp Two waiting for me. Thanks for letting me know it’s OK if I don’t get back there.

TA

How Far Down To Go 5/2/2007

This is a shot that Mingma took in the icefall. I just saw it for the first time yesterday. I love it!

Location: South Everest Basecamp

Elevation: 5300 Meters

Elevation Gain: 0 Meters

Weather: Way sunny now snowing

I woke up feeling awful again and sat teary through breakfast. I hardly ate anything and then promptly made my usual morning deposit. It became clear that I’m not going to kick whatever this thing is in basecamp.

Our trip leader dropped by with the suggestion that I go down to recover and that not all hope was lost in terms of timing and rotations. I said I would drop by the clinic, then make a decision.

Ola, one of the clinic docs, was kind enough to listen as I tried to sort my way through all of the feelings, options and logistics. It was she, a few weeks back, who suggested I go down to recover from the cough.

Basically, I’m swirling around in indecision about how far down to go. Having had so little nutrition in my system over the past several days, I can hardly imagine walking to the icefall, let alone climbing it. So, this tells me, I should perhaps stop the climb since my reserves are so low.

On the other hand, I know how much a visit to Periche a few weeks ago, gave me new strength and health. I go back and forth. Back and forth.

I don’t want to give up too early or easily and I don’t want to be stupid and push beyond my body or mind’s limits.

I did learn this morning that giardia can cause lactose intolerance and I have been eating some yogurt to try to support my GI system…so I may have been shooting myself in the foot. The docs sent me to my tent with some probiotic capsules and something else to try to settle my belly. They both agreed that it is time to go down.

So, I will go down tomorrow…the question remains how far? I still don’t have the answer. I want to talk logistics with our leader…Can I go down and see what happens? If I don’t get better or don’t want to come back up, can I be reunited with my gear without coming back to basecamp? Or should I make a hard and fast decision right here and right now?

Our greatest weakness is our greatest challenge and making this kind of go/no go decision is one of the hardest things I ever do. I think I want there to be a “right” answer and there never really is.

I’m reminded of a haiku I wrote as an adolescent:

I seek the answers to the questions

When I accept that there are no answers

I will know the answer.

So-stay tuned for as Paul Harvey says, “The Rest of the Story.”

KW-the cumulus clouds are rolling in.

Mom & Dad-thanks for the update-I don’t seem to be having much luck with health on this climb. Don’t worry though-I’m taking good care.

Ann and Graham-thanks for being such regular cheerleaders.

Shanda-thanks for sharing your EBC experience. The hypoxia plus cold plus exertion really can take the pounds off.

Katherine-That’s fabulous about your thesis-wahoo! Thanks for your perspective on the kids. It’s helpful.

Emilie-Thanks for your kind words. I often think back to running one minute and walking one minute. Two years of training have seen me come along way and you were there at the beginning!

Mary & Jen-hope all is well with you! See you soon (no matter what I decide!)

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Wasting Away in Basecampville 5/1/2007

Location: Where Else?

Elevation: 5300 Meters

Elevation Gain: Nada

Weather: Super amazing

Quote of the Day: Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. Helen Keller (Thanks Howard)

When I stepped out of the dining tent last night, the glacier was bathed in translucent moonlight from the almost full orb. The air was crisp and clean, almost pregnant. I stopped to instill the moment in my mind. “There’s change a foot,” I thought.

I awoke at 4:00 am to bootsteps outside my tent. A few of the guys were heading up. I’d slept solidly for hours and took stock. I felt great. Strong. Clear. Optimistic. Hopeful. Not queasy.

I thought to myself, “I wonder if I can go up with them?” “I wonder if Mingma would mind being awakened?” I thought, “Wow, I feel like myself” for the first time in weeks. My mind ran away with the hope and lots of scenarios sprung forth. Again, cooler judgment reigned and I spent the hours before breakfast reading and nylon ceiling watching.

At about 7, a wave of nausea came in and drenched the hope and optimism in a flooding moment. I hung with it, praying it would pass quickly since I’d felt so well a few hours back. I tried some breakfast and realized too late that I should have had my last Gravol on board.

Once again, I decorated the glacier with breakfast. Fortunately, it’s rocky cover provides good camouflage for my modern art installations. I felt immediately better as before, but then the nausea built again like waves pounding a rocky shore. With each break, I found the hope buried in the white foaming lather than licks a busy shore.

Once the clinic was open, I walked over to secure some more Gravol. The BBC is in basecamp filming a second season of Basecamp ER so they asked to capture my consultation on film. There in living color, for everyone in the UK to witness, is me describing the history of my upchucking. The docs unleashed a new theory about high altitude stomach sphincter relaxation and said “keep taking your giardia meds; they’ll kick in soon.”

I visited for awhile (it’s not like I had anywhere else to be) and then headed back to my tent. We had an early lunch (no art so far) and I’ve spent the afternoon in a Gravol-infested stupor. It’s sedative effect seems more pronounced today but for now, that’s better than the alternative.

Sitting here in the relative comfort of basecamp clawing through my mind’s haze, I see there is really no rush to make a decision about anything. It’s been a long week in basecamp. I’ve finished every book available, I’ve played 134 games of solitaire, wished for 20 vanilla dips, and have rationed out life between feeding gongs and my not so pretty “dispatches.”

I vacillate between thinking there is lots of time to recover and do a pre-summit rotation and noticing that May has struck and the mountain was summitted yesterday by five sherpas from the North side.

I need about a week for my second rotation, a week to rest, and then a week to try for the top. Of course, that schedule is subject to keeping three meals a day in my belly, gaining some weight, and cooperative weather.

This morning in my optimistic state, I wondered about aiming for experiences that might support a second attempt if the summit dream stays alive when I am back in the low country: experiences such as the Lhotse Face, setting a new elevation record, or using oxygen. This afternoon I recognize I may not recover enough to allow even these.

So, all of this is to say…I’m hanging. I’m in limbo. I’m in the bardo. Those of you that know me well know that this is both a comfortable spot (I am a Myers Briggs “P” after all) and a spot I despise. I see no harm in waiting a few days to see what the meds do or don’t do (other than losing a few more pounds) so I’m hanging with the uncertainty: riding the waves of nausea, hope, optimism, frustration, and drug-inspired stupor. I sleep. I drink. I pee. I eat. I hum songs from the Eagles. I devour your emails of support, care, and love.

Thanks to all who remind me why, in my logo, the Newfoundland flag is on the 007 rather than the top of the mountain. This journey has been about daring to dream and inspiring others to dream. I’ve done my best to make it about learning from each step, pushing myself outside of comfort, and not about a destination. So, I appreciate your words reminding me of that intention and of you reflecting the accomplishment of being here in the first place.

Many thanks to all for following along and sending such wonderful words of encouragement and support.

Leslie-Thanks for writing. I hope you get your jacket away from Steve on occasion.

Jennifer-Lovely to have words from the prairie. Fond memories of dinner at Basho.

Hunter-I’ve thought of you so often on this climb-Denali really was the foundation of this experience.

Joyce-I’m so glad that my gesture of remembrance was so well received. I am graced with Michael’s heart and spirit here as I struggle to make my way.

Marie-Lovely to hear from you. I’ve often wondered if the snowblower was worth it? 🙂

BJ-Sounds fabulous in your part of the world-please say hi to T and L and JM for me.

Sylvia-Can’t wait to tie your pantlegs in knots. Thanks for being there.

Roger and Ken-thanks for sharing your stories-it helps to know others have gone through similar things.

Trudy-welcome back. Glad to have your words.

KW-I wonder when the first cumulonimbus clouds of summer will roll in your way. I think your ticket is changeable 🙂 Won’t it be interesting to see how life evolves. Thanks for Sue’s perspective as well.

BPT-I’m really practising whichever of the two occurs, be patient. Tomorrow, I’m being grateful to everyone including nausea. Tell M to drop me a line.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

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Everest-007 April 2007

Posted on April 30, 2007 by TA Loeffler

They Shoot Horses… 4/30/2007

Location: Everest Basecaap

Elevation: 5300 Meters

Elevation Gain: 0 Meters

Weather: Highly variable

Quote of the Day: Life is short, things change.

At this point of the day, I expected to be writing you from Camp One. Better judgment was had.

Warning: This update is composed under the influence of much Gravol.

I digress. A hard night. Dinner became performance art (to quote Scott). “No big deal,” I thought. I’m used to losing a meal (though this was my second in a day). I fortunately went back to sleep fairly easily (small joys of living in a tent. You just need to make it past the zipper.)

The alarm went off at 4:30 am and I made all the right moves for a day on “the hill.” Layers on, inner boots laced, pack packed…when I went to pull my inner boots into my outers…the morning ritual began and I heaved all the water I drank all night out of me and into the tent’s vestibule.

“No problem,” I said. I got my boots on and stepped out into the cold, dawning morning. Unfortunately, this time, the upchuck didn’t make me feel better. I felt increasingly weak and nauseated. I kept trying to get my ice axe on my pack between attacks, but it became too much.

As an outdoor educator, I’m trained to assess risks. In the inky blackness, I told myself to step back and look at the bigger picture. I was now without food for almost 16 hours, and there seemed little hope breakfast would stick around.

No, this was not a condition in which to ascend the icefall! Hard words to tell myself but necessary ones. One needs to move fast and sharp in the icefall. In no way did that describe me this morning.

As you can imagine, I was overcome with emotion as I told Jean to go on without me. I called three dear friends for solace and perspective, for in that moment, I felt done. DONE. So done. So frustrated that the nausea wasn’t going away, so sad not be going on a rotation just then, so confused as to what makes sense.

All three were good to point out that I’d been a sick a long time on this trip and that maybe my body was reaching its limits. In the dark, I agreed. Maybe this was it. Maybe the game was over. Maybe I didn’t have enough reserve left. Lots of maybes.

The maybes remain. I went over to see my favourite docs to see if there was any other thing the nausea could be related to…given its intermittent nature and a few appropriate signs and symptoms, they’ve decided on giardia.

So, I’m pumped up on Gravol and have begun the two day treatment for giardia. I’ve kept lunch from becoming part of an artist’s palette and I’m hoping (with the help of Gravol) I can do the same with dinner.

With a diagnosis, comes hope. Maybe, the drugs will do their work and I can bring my eating back to normal which will bring my strength and reserve back up to where it needs to be to continue.

In the light of day, I am less clear than in the stark blackness of night. Some hope has snuck in the backdoor and I’m wanting to give the drugs a chance to work.

I’m clear that if the drugs don’t work, I’m probably done on the mountain as I have already lost 15% of my body weight. The general adage is that people who lose 10% of their body weight don’t summit.

I was feeling so poorly at the Doc’s that we didn’t talk future. They set me up with drugs and sent me back to bed. Now, with some food and water on board, I feel some better. I’ll rest the rest of today and tomorrow and then reassess my body’s capacity for climbing.

Many thanks to all for your well-wishes in the icefall. My climbing companions had a good trip through this morning and are now resting at Camp One. I miss being up there with them, but I made the right decision.

Part of a mountaineer’s job description is to make the right decisions over and over again balancing health, weather, terrain, mountain conditions, etc. I’ve always thought Ed Viesters approach was the way to go: “The summit is optional, getting down mandatory.”

As someone who is rarely sick, and for someone who is generally strong and resilient, this past month has been full of life lessons that can only be gained from seeing things from an entirely new perspective.

I didn’t/don’t wish for this new view, but can only do my best to remain open to the understandings and learnings that are presented from this vantage point.

Susan, Karen, and Judy – thank you so much for your support, perspective, advice, and willingness to listen this morning. I was a hurting gator and I appreciate you being there. I’ll keep you posted as I make my way through these next days.

I know you’re all out there cheering for me no matter what and I appreeciate that greatly.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Cheering TA Along 4/29/2007

Pufferfish

Even though TA does not have the ability to reply to individual emails and messages, please know that each day she receives your encouraging words and news. TA loves hearing from everyone. From the time she left Newfoundland and Labrador, up until April 29th TA has heard from folks from the following schools and organizations:

* All Hallows, North River
* Balbo Elementary, Clarenville
* Baltimore School, Ferryland
* Beachy Cove Elementary, Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s
* Bishop Feild, St. John’s
* Clarenville Primary, Clarenville
* Cowan Heights Elementary, St. John’s
* Girl Guide Trefoil Guild
* Gonzaga High School
* Hazelwood Elementary, St. John’s
* Holy Cross, St. John’s
* Holy Heart, St. John’s
* Holy Trinity Elementary, Torbay
* Humboldt Park K8 School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Lakecrest, St. John’s
* Leysin American School in Switzerland
* MacPherson Elementary, St. John’s
* MacDonald Drive Junior High
* Memorial University, St. John’s: Instructional Development Office; OECR Wave Tank, Faculty of Engineering; Technical Services
* Newfoundland School for the Deaf, St. John’s
* Paris Elementary, Paris, Kentucky
* QECVI, Kingston, Ontario
* St. Anne’s Academy, Dunneville
* St. Francis of Assisi, Outer Cove
* Stella Maris Academy, Trepassey
* Vanier Elementary, St. John’s
* Woodland Primary, Grand Falls-Windsor

It would be nice if you would please mention what school or organization you are from when you send a message to TA. Thanks. Also, please be sure to check http://www.myeverest.com/ta for audio updates.

Judy

Communication to and from Everest is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Taking It Easy 4/28/2007

Location: Basecamp

Elevation: 5300 Meters

Elevation Gain: Absolutely none!

Weather: Huge gusts in the morning, now gorgeous!

Lojong Slogan of the Day: Whichever of the two occurs, be patient.

It was another hugely windy night. At times I wondered if my tent would still be there in the morning. I slept pretty well and awoke to news that some teammates had headed up. The cold cutting wind made me happy to be staying put.

After an uneventful breakfast (praise be to all deities), I reorganized my Camp Two bag that will go up with me. I cleaned up my nest and attended to several mid expedition tasks (refilling sunscreen, refilling drugs, laundry, etc.).

The wind was so brisk and the wash water so cold that post laundry, I crawled back into my tent to restore my hands to life. I read some in my book and got that lovely drowsy feeling and took my first nap of the trip. The temperature in the tent was perfect and I rested deeply and contentedly until lunch.

I played about 10 games of Solitaire after lunch and am now lounging about writing my dispatch. It’s been a perfect day of taking it easy after a particularly intense stretch. Just what you all ordered! I took some codeine last night and started to use my inhaler again so my cough is much quieter today. No nausea yet today!

Jean and I have decided to do our next rotation together. We went back and forth between tomorrow and Monday for going up. The high winds this morning led us to choose Monday in hopes of a change in the weather system. I’ll be counting on all of you to be thinking of us as we make our way up the icefall again.

Judy pointed out that it was a year ago that I had my first major fundraising event. It was called “TA’s Road to Everest.” Having lived almost a month at basecamp, it’s still hard to believe the road actually led here.

A major avalanche just let go from the West Shoulder-it sent spindrift snow all over basecamp. Amazing to watch from afar. There is a huge line of people coming down the icefall. We think it is the group bringing Dawa Sherpa’s body down.

Nick-thanks for sharing your perspective on my tribute to Michael. I also appreciate the support you’ve been giving Judy, my Communications Queen.

Lorraine-thanks for continuing to post and share your own journey. I packed up the big flag today to take to Camp Two.

MC-you bring some important questions/perspectives to the questions I raised yesterday.

Katherine-any word on your thesis?

Karen-I gave the snowboard gloves to Mingma because they were too big for me. He sends his thanks. We got some cumulus clouds on the go today.

Scott-thanks for the additional noble truths…and your thoughts on bigger questions.

Darrell-can you deliver Tim’s to basecamp? Did you like my sailing/icefall analogy?

Eva-welcome back! I hope you got all you needed done-thanks for your words.

BPT-thanks for the tonglen reminder-it’s been a good practice to do.

Deb & Wilma-Welcome back! I hear the tans are good. How’s the new building?

Thanks to all for stopping by.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

In Honour of Michael Beecher Smith 4/27/2007

Location: Mount Everest South Basecamp

Elevation: 5200 Meters

Elevation Gain: 100 Meters

Weather: Sunny and Windy

Michael Beecher Smith was a young man with a huge, huge heart. He passed away in January and the loss is huge. I taught Michael in two classes at Memorial University (MUN). He was a delight to teach and my mind is filled with fond memories of him.

He was also on the wrestling team at MUN and so spent lots of time in the weight room. We often overlapped there and he was a huge supporter of all of my climbs. As a wrestler and weightlifter, Michael knew how to “play through pain.” He had to make weight for wrestling and he was always trying to get me to take my greens and other supplements because I was training so hard.

Michael seemed just to know when to throw in an encouraging word or come over and tell me to push the bar a little further than I thought I could. I feel his spirit with me here on Everest. He was so excited for me. I have thought of him often when the going has been so hard.

I know if Michael were alive today, he would be following my climb daily. With permission of his family, I decided to create a memorial for Michael here recognizing his spirit, his heart, and his tenacity in a way that will help me climb both the literal and figurative mountain in front of me.

This morning I hiked out about an hour from basecamp towards Pumori and Gorak Shep. At a spot we call “The Ridge”, I climbed off the beaten path to a flat bench of land with a spectacular view. This special spot is on the shoulder of Pumori. Pumori means “Daughter of Everest.” I’m taking liberties and thinking of Pumori as inclusive of “Son of Everest” as well.

This ridgeline overlooks Everest basecamp, the Khumbu Icefall, and when there are no clouds, the summit of Mount Everest. At first, I thought I would build a memorial chorten as is tradition here, but since Michael did not die in Nepal, I came to a different vision.

Michael grew up in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The aboriginal people of Labrador use Inukshuks (stone people) to mark paths and guide people along the featureless tundra. Thinking that we all need guidance and direction, I decided to build an inukshuk for Michael’s spirit.

As I hauled each rock, I thought of each piece representing some part of Michael’s gifts and talents. It was tricky to get all the stones to balance on top of each other. During this time, I thought of Michael’s challenges and obstacles. When I put the crowning rock into place and hung Tibetan prayer flags from the inukshuk’s shoulders, I thought of Michael’s fondness and appreciation of me.

Michael understood that I am happiest when I can combine several passions into one moment. This morning, in Michael’s honour, I brought together mountains, teaching, spirituality, and stonework. I’m sure he would smile at the combination.

After the sculpture was finished, I sat in silence absorbing the same view at the inukshuk (the same one as in today’s picture). When the time was right, I stood, touched the inukshuk’s shoulder, wished Michael peace, and returned to the main trail with my eyes awash in salt water.

There is an award for student athletes at MUN in Michael’s memory. It is called the Michael Beecher Smith Heart Award. If by chance you would like to contribute to this award, please make out your check to Memorial University of Newfoundland and mail it to:

School of Human Kinetics and Recreation

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, A1C 5S7 CANADA

Attn: Michael Beecher Smith Award

I hope in the next hours, days, and weeks that I can draw on Michael’s heart, spirit, and determination to do “the thing I think I cannot do.” (Eleanor Roosevelt).

My thoughts and prayers are with Michael’s family as they make their way through this tremendous time of grief, loss, and sorrow.

With both an open and heavy heart,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

The Inevitable Moment 4/27/2007

Location: Everest Basecamp

Yesterday morning, it was easy to tell that something was up. The big people were standing about with radios, conversations were going back and forth, and many stared up the icefall. We waited. We knew we would be told what was happening when the time was right.

Our leader came over and told us a sherpa had been killed on the Lhotse Face. The group shrank into silence. Stunned. Not wanting to believe. We were reminded not to blog or call home about the death so the authorities would have time for notifications of his family.

There were few details available and we each had to stare at our mortality directly. It is easy to drop into denial about the dangers of being on this mountain. And like passing a car wreck on the highway or hearing of a plane crash, one couldn’t help examine what we are doing here, wonder if we should be here, and notice that eventually each of us will die.

It was hard on me not to share my reactions to “this inevitable moment” yesterday. It was what I was sinking into yesterday. Over the past year, I wondered what my reaction would be to hearing of a death on Everest while I was on the mountain. I knew I couldn’t know until it happened.

Knowing the dangers of this mountain, I think I knew it was not a question of if, but when. When I first heard, a leaden curtain descended on me. I felt horrible for the sherpa’s family. I wondered if he suffered. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut.

Today, I’ve learned his name was Dawa Sherpa. I also learned that his death had already been widely reported on the internet yesterday. I gave thanks (selfishly) that he wasn’t on my expedition team so there was some distance from what would have been intense grief but it is still pulling at me nonetheless.

I questioned being here on this climb in a different way. Did I somehow contribute to this man’s death by being here? Am I comfortable with the sherpas risking their lives so much more than I do? Is this a climbing ethic I can live with? Is this a signal to stop? Do I honour sacrifice by continuing or by stopping?

These and other questions continue to swirl around in my head. I’m heading out for a planned walk that I’ll tell you about later today. I just wanted to acknowledge that I did know about Dawa Sherpa’s death yesterday and that I’m a processing it on many levels. My feelings and thoughts are complex and I suspect, the ramifications of yesterday’s inevitable moment will sit with and on me for some time.

My condolences go to his family, friends, and loved ones. I hope his team will take care of them. My appreciation and gratitude are with our sherpa staff for they make this climb possible and they undertake great risk on my behalf.

TA
This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Three-peat 4/27/2007

OK,

I know this is getting ridiculous-three posts in one day-but heck-what else is there to do in basecamp 🙂

The first Noble truth of Buddhism is “Life is suffering.” Check!

The second Noble truth is that “Suffering is caused by craving.” I crave feeling better so I’ve got suffering on top of suffering. Check!

The third Noble truth is “The way out of suffering is to give up craving.” OKAY-I guess I’ll abandon all hope/craving of ever feeling better and perhaps, I’ll feel better. Check!

The fourth Noble truth is “everything is impermanent”. Including nausea and Khumbu cough. Check!

My apologies to the Buddha if I got those wrong. I’m really working hard to make peace with feeling so lousy. Breakfast was yogurt and two small pieces of bacon-nothing else seemed the least bit appetizing. On my hike, I could feel the lifeblood energy bleeding out once again and so choked down half a Cliff Bar.

It’s hard not to get discouraged pulling each step out of the depths of my starving body. Gagging was frequent on my walk and it feels like my esophagus is being turned inside out with each episode. I’m usually such a good eater and have never had such prolonged nausea.

As folks have suggested, I’m playing the field and just trying to get calories in. Last night, I had huge joy when Pemba served my favoritist meal in the whole wide world…sushi maki rolls. I revelled in devouring (and keeping) several wasabi drenched servings. I add sugar to everything and am hoping my body figures out once again that food is not our enemy.

So…I’ll keep resting and eating and reading and posting…folks are headed up to Camp One tomorrow-they were going there today but were hindered by weather and a route-collapse in the icefall. I’m pondering Sunday or Monday for going up.

We had a real treat this afternoon. The inventor of the “Top Out” mask visited our camp. He took us through the entire system and gave lots of tips for using the mask. I was thrilled that the base mask was quite similar to the one I used with the Go2Altitude hypoxic training system so that provides some familiarity. I have never used O2 in climbing but have enjoyed lots of SCUBA diving. We’ll have the opportunity to test out the oxygen system on this rotation up.

In trying to keep the support of a joyful mind, I wanted to share one of my biggest delights…going to bed with a hot water bottle. Before heading off to my nylon abode each evening, I fill one of my water bottles with hot water. This helps warm cold toes and ease the transition into my cold feather-filled sack. Try it the next time you are camping-just make sure the bottle is well sealed.!

I also want to wish Anne Budgell all the best in her retirement from CBC radio. She once called me “Newfoundland’s most adventurous woman.” Anne-may your next path be filled with adventures of all sorts.

Dr. Walker-so nice to hear from you-your words ring wise and true.

NB-I can feel you there with me. Thanks.

Students at Stella Maris-Thanks for writing from Trepassey. Say hi to the ocean for me. And yes, I’d love to come back to your school.

Ken-thanks for the daily encouragement from Kiwi land.

Ray-Thanks for your encouragement-you do know how tough life can be up here.

Leo-I hope your move goes well-you must be getting excited. Hope Takunda is behaving himself and getting ready to join the world.

Buddy-Looking for some side-spliting lenticular clouds. I’ll try to find you by phone soon.

BPT-perfect slogan…I’ll try to keep remembering that “this too shall pass.”

Thanks to everyone for your encouragement and for putting up with my stuffing your in-box today.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Basecamp Rest Day 4/26/2007

Flat Stanley at Camp Two with some of the expedition’s oxygen supply. Each bottle weighs 17 pounds. The amazing sherpas carry them up from basecamp 3 or 4 at a time.

Location: Basecamp

Elevation: 5200 Meters

Elevation Gain: Thankfully None

Weather: Cold, deary, and cloudy

Quote of the Day: “To know something, then, we must be scrubbed raw, the fasting heart exposed.” Gretel Ehrlich (Thanks Karen)

The day began early. I listened to some favuorite music for the first time in weeks-laying luxuriously in my sleeping bag for a few hours before breakfast.

After breakfast, we had a crevasse rescue demonstration and I had that great pleasure of hot water falling on my body. The weather turned very cold at lunch and I spent some time visiting my doc friends over at the HRA.

They were excited to hear of my high altitude adventures, but didn’t really have any new suggestions for my current health challenges other than skip breakfast and try to eat later. I’ve been challenged but have kept all food down today and my cough is a little better.

Basically living at high altitude is hard on your body and as a result, life is often hard. Last night at dinner, our expedition leader said our suffering was really just beginning (“oh goody” she says-it’s been such a piece of cake thus far.) 🙂

The wind is chilly so I’m bundled up in my sleeping bag in my tent for the afternoon. I finished another book in the middle of the night and I’m about to start “In the Country of Men” by Hisham Matar. I figured it would help me understand my expedition mates 🙂

I started the day quite up and bouncy, but seem to be sinking as it goes on. A valley is to be expected after yesterday’s big day so I’m just riding it as well as the wave of fatigue that has set in.

The front wall of my tent walkway fell over today. Evidence of time passing and the glacier moving. Similarly, I changed headlamp batteries for the second time. It’s been 40 days since I left home-we’re hitting the midway mark of the expedition.

I also grew up during the Terry Fox era. I think the image of him running across Canada day after day is a good cure for self-pity-as was reading Anne Frank’s diary. I’m sorry Shakleton’s Endurance didn’t arrive in time to come on the trip. It’s another good one for illustrating how good we’ve got it.

This is the longest expedition I have been on to date. My previous record was 34 days. It’s funny how living in a tent can come to seem like the norm.

Maria-Thanks for keeping me posted about your speech. I am honoured that you chose me as the subject. I know you practised long and hard so I know you did a great job with it. Nerves are tricky. I think they help us preform our best, but we have to use that energy to that end rather than just have them run all over us. We’ve both been learning lots of late about nerves. Congrats on your bravery!

New Boss-I hope you are holding up-have you and Oma got a Everest worries support group set-up yet? I’m taking good care of myself and will continue to make the best decisions I can. Baby Boss

Shelley-The yaks haven’t made it here yet with Katie’s poem-perhaps if you have a copy of it-you could post it to this site.

KW-Thanks for the peptalk and advice. As always, your words are so helpful. Yesterday your assessment was correct -today I’ve swung the other way. Really thinking about high cirrus clouds today-maybe they signal a change in the weather.

Kristen-say Hi to Orcas for me. I could use a hit of that view from your amazing house.

Have a good Thursday,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Ice Capades 4/25/2007

Pics and updates are first posted to http://www.myeverest.com/ta You can read and post messages there. Judy

Mingma descending the icefall this morning.

Location: Basecamp

Elevation: 5300 Meters

Elevation Lost: 1200 Meters

Weather: Warm & Sunny, then cool

Quote of the Day: A ship is safe in harbour, but that is not what ships are for.

I think I’m coming to understand how women can have more then one child. I was once again swearing that this morning’s trip through the icefall would be my last and now a few hours later, the memories that caused that thought have begun to fade. Impermanence is such a powerful concept that needs to be grasped over and over again.

I awoke at 5 to pack and being the ever-optimist, had high hopes for the morning’s nutrition. I got through the meal and as soon as I bent over to reach for my crampons, I was running for some non-tented real estate to make a violent deposit. I finished and came back to my pack saying “breakfast is overrated”, which is a long running joke for me. More often it is sleep that is over-rated. I felt compassion for everyone in the world who feels nausea because of illness or treatment.

I rinsed out my mouth, put on my harness and crampons, and we began descending the awakening cwm at 6. Soon my pace slowed to a crawl and I knew I must have used up my liver’s glycogen reserve. I braved a gel and some water and eventually each step didn’t seem to have lead boots on the end of it.

I swapped out some gear at camp one and took a bit more water on board. I was still feeling leaden and weak. The undulations below camp one leading to the icefall were very taxing. My cough is acting up again and several times it was strong enough to bring on gagging again.

We kept walking and reached a part above a very dangerous section of the icefall. Mingma suggested a break and then said we had to move quickly. I didn’t think I had a quick bone in my body at that point, but I said I would do my best. In my weakened state, each step was an individual effort ,but I knew there was no other option to be had.

It was then that the metaphor of being on a sailing ship came into my head. There I was, feeling queasy and icewaves rose and fell all around me. We had no idea when an icy wave could be released from its mooring and crash down on our deck. I’m sure that uncertainty has been shared by many fishers and sailors in Newfoundland.

The path rose and fell, rose and fell. Icy blue towers hanging above. Icy blue towers fallen below. We were caught in a frozen storm that gives the illusion of stillness and permanence, but instead there was terrifying evidence laying all round of potentially murderous movement.

I was much more aware of the lethal surroundings than on the way up. There was no practical way to move any faster then, so perhaps the denial or naiveté was best. Today I cursed Mingma in my mind because it was such an act of will to make my body move. At the same time, I appreciated his knowledge of the icefall and times where we could stop briefly in a harbouring spot to delayer and hydrate.

At some point, enough calories found their way into my system so that I could begin to run with the wind and find flow in movement and clip the fixed lines. I was grateful for my relative ease with the ladders. We probably crossed close to 30 of them today.

The photographer in me loathes the necessity for fast travel through the icefall since there are so many beautiful images to capture in that vast ocean of ice. I snapped a few along the way and will send the “top shot of the day.” When we reached the lower icefall and my adrenaline began to fade, I again had to fight for each step uphill in those last unfair waves of ice.

“This should be easy since we just came down 4000 feet I thought to myself.” No such luck…when I reached basecamp many of my team mates commented that they also found those last waves taxing and unfair. I received a hardy welcome back and it’s been fun catching up with everyone’s adventures.

I’ll probably visit the docs over at the HRA to get their advice on the cough and nausea. I’m planning on a few days of R & R before formulating my next plan. I’m heading to the bakery with “da boys” this afternoon for a feed of apple pie. I hope I have more luck with it than lunch.

I arrived to some snail mail from Brenda and Karen (two letters and the box of glove options-thanks so much). I also finally got to meet Paul Adler. He was moving from Camp One to Camp Two. He is the reason you get to hear from me daily and so, many many appreciations and kudos go out to him. He coached me on the gear and software for these dispatches. He was looking strong and ready for several days at Camp Two.

Rayne -I’m glad you liked seeing your picture on my website. The heart you put on top of the mountain has given me much strength and courage to keep going. I love having your hand to hold and knowing you put yourself at the top watching out for me. I love you and Xander very much.

Mom – thanks for the update about Dad and Oma. Glad for the advise to keep taking it one step at a time and for your belief in me. Love you all.

Judy – thanks for continuing to dedicate a significant portion of your day to bring me the encouraging words of others.

Karen – thanks for the cloud ID chart-it will be very helpful in tracking the weather. It looks like we are having stratus clouds today during the afternoon build-up.

BPT – thanks for going Quaker on me. I’ll miss you tonight at Biancas-you and M should get there-and talk about me 🙂

Ray – everyone says hello. For the first time in two weeks, we are almost all in camp. Hope your cough is getting better.

Robert – 46% up Dhaligiri-can you all come and carry me up the icefall next time?

For all who thanked me for my honesty-you’re welcome and thank-you. Your receptivity to my inner process about this outer process is most supportive and helps me get through it. (Scott – I’m really hoping for only one more hormonal mountain to climb on this mountain).

Penny – thanks for all of your messages. I appreciate your perspective on my process.

And finally for all who exercised a little harder-great work-keep it up. It can be really good to dig deep every once in awhile.

Thanks again everyone for being there with every step of the way.

TA
This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

The Wisdom of No Escape 4/24/2007

Location: Camp Two

Elevation: 6500 Meters

Elevation Gain: 50 Meters

Weather: Cold then hot then cold

Quote of the day: “The true measure of one’s worth lies not where you come to be at journey’s end, but in the lives you touch along the way”- anonymous. (Thanks Shepp)

Greetings from Camp Two. I’ve decided that no woman should have to climb Everest under the influence of monthly hormones. Mine have lifted since yesterday and the Everest world seems like a different place.

Mingma and I took a jaunt out towards the Lhotse Face-it’s way big and way steep-I’m actually lost for words to describe its amazingly steep iciness. I used to worry about the icefall – now the Lhotse Face has joined the list.

Had lost and have now found my frontal altitude headache. I should go find some vitamin I (ibuprofen), but I’m hiding from the sun in the dining tent. One of my team-mates measured the temperature range in his tent from 12 degrees Fahrenheit to 130 degrees…I am CorningWare, I am Corning Ware.

Today has been a much easier day. I’ve enjoyed the views that Camp Two provides and it’s been good to have a wider range of folks to interact with. I’m still bouncing like a yo-yo on steroids, but have more slack for the ride.

I’ve been thinking about a book by Pema Chodren, one of my favourite Buddhist authors. She advocates for taking away our habitual and other escapes. She knows that it can be human nature to run away at the first sign of discomfort. She instead recommends “running towards the biting dog.”

When I climbed Denali in 2005 there were no escapes that didn’t put the expedition at risk for the entire team. We actually did a ritual where we each tied a knot in a piece of rope to signify our commitment to the team and expedition. All 14 of us summitted after 26 gruelling days of climbing. I never once had to wrestle with ideas of escape.

Everest has been a very different experience in this regard. Escape is easy and enacted in the drop of a moment. I knew having such easy escape would send my mind into the wrestling ring. I knew I would prefer the Denali arrangement where I did not have this kind of wrestling to do.

But Everest is a different mountain-I have never wanted this climb to “be at all costs.” I committed to my family, to my friends, and to my community, to continuously evaluate the hazards and risks on both big and small scales with the intention always, of safe return. So…wrestling I have done, and wrestling I will continue to do. My ring name is “Totally Awesome.” 🙂

I’m heading down to basecamp tomorrow for some thick air and many trips to the bakery. I have some weight to gain. If any of you have any strategies for “morning sickness”, I’m all ears.

My nausea seems worse around breakfast, but can also be triggered by a dry throat or coughing. Yes-I have a bit of a cough again. Mingma blames it on the Camp One water. I think it’s just khumbu cough this time. Please keep me in your thoughts tomorrow as I cross the danger of the icefall once again.

I want to say specials hellos to everyone at Memorial University-especially my colleagues in HKR and the folks in Tech Services who have climbed the equivalent of at least the world’s six highest mountains in stairs.

Also a special hello to the students and staff of Holy Cross Elementary who brought in loose change as a fundraiser for Everest-007.

Another big hello to Holy Trinity Elementary. I hear the grade fours are learning about dung. It burns quite hot and gives off a sweet acrid smoke.

Thanks again to everyone for your support over the past few days; it means so much to me.

Fiona-can you email me with how you found the Lhotse face?

With appreciation and gratitude,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Hard Day in Camp One 4/22/2007

Picture of TA as posted on http://www.myeverest.com/ta You can post messages to TA on that site and read others’ messages of support.

Location: Camp One

Elevation: 6000 ish Meters

Weather: Very gusty and sunny, now snowing again-serious CorningWare weather

I was going to do an audio update today, but would rather write. It snowed much of last night; then big gusty winds started to blow down the cmw.

When Mingma and I got up, the gusts were bitterly cold so we decided to delay our hike. Later when the winds dropped around noon, it was scorching hot so we didn’t walk then either. I had another big wave of nausea hit over lunch so I napped and now it’s cold and snowing again.

I took a short stroll around the tents on our piece of glacier, but basically it’s been a long, boring hard day of vast temperature and mood changes. A valley after yesterday’s high -another round of rollercoaster and the reality of life up high. I’ve always believed that altitude and living on half as much oxygen as usual could affect one’s outlook.

Because we wanted to keep packs light, we have no books, cards, journals…no entertainment so my mind has had way too much time on its hands. Does a mind have hands?

Health and weather permitting, we’ll move up to Camp Two tomorrow and with teammates being up there, time should pass a bit quicker. It was also a long night as you know -altitude can play havoc with sleep.

So that’s my whining for today-I hope the nausea passes soon…thanks for all your kind support and stories and experiences. They really help on days like this.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Camp One – Yahoo 4/21/2007

All entries are copied here from http://www.myeverest.com/ta TA took this picture of Mingma climbing the last ladder near the top of the Khumbu Icefall. Judy

Location: Camp One

Elevation: 6000 ish Meters

Elevation Gain: 700 ish Meters

Weather: Hot and Sunny-Clouding over now and snowing

Quote of the Day: Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you are probably right.

If you asked me this morning if I’d be lounging in a tent in Camp One this afternoon, I would have said the odds were near to impossible. For my 4:30 am breakfast, I requested one of my favourites: Japanese noodle soup with egg. It went down OK, but as I was doing the final packing job, a wave of nausea hit like a tsunami and I barely made it outside the dining tent before blowing breakfast all over the rocks.

Not the start of the day I imagined. Nerves perhaps. I went back inside sobbing wondering if I should call the WHOLE thing off. I finished my hot drink and packing and Mingma arrived.

I didn’t fess up to my rough start, but thought I’d go for a bit and see if everything settled. We reached the first ladder in about 45 minutes and I nearly lost the rest of my belly contents. For some reason, I wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel so I keep taking it ladder by ladder, step by step, wave after wave. I knew I could pull the plug whenever it got too much.

About 2 hours in, the steps and necessary narrow focus of achieving those steps had settled my being. At brief standing breaks, I took in some calories. We never stopped for more than five minutes at a go. As we made our way through the “popcorn” section, (a nasty section of very rotten ice), I began to nurture a small glimmer of hope (like the sun that was dancing on the ice,) that I might actually make Camp One.

There was traffic in the icefall and I just let everyone on my tail pass through. One kindly German fellow remarked that I was “one tough lady.” I wasn’t sure at the time, but I’m willing to accept the title now. In the ways that we do when things are hard, I told myself I never needed to climb the Icefall again.

The wiring of our brains is amazing though because lying here in amazing comfort at 20,000 feet, I can already sense a seed of willingness to perhaps tackle it again. It was 5.5 hours of some of the hardest climbing/living I have ever done, but being here now makes every second of that toughness worth it.

We had a lovely nutritious lunch of soup, bacon, and M&M’s (now you kids out there know how to eat better than that). I’ll spend the afternoon hydrating and breathing as I’ve just made a big elevation jump. I have a slight altitude headache that I hope will pass with the above strategies.

As we topped the fall, my pace was dropping off and at one point, I though camp was much further off. I was doing some serious talking to my feet and legs to keep them moving. Then I saw the tents and my mind filled with yahoo!

The views of the summit, Lhotse Face, and South Col are truly breathtaking and intimidating as all get out. Not exactly sure what my plan is. It will depend on how my body reacts to this new elevation.

Thanks to all for thinking of me today-I’m sure it helped me get up the “hill”.

Special Camp One hellos and hoorays to all the children of St. Francis of Assisi School, Outer Cove. Thanks for writing and letting me know that your mountain is half full! That’s fabulous and keep up all that good physical activity. It will get us all up the mountain. Hello to Mrs. Furey.

BPT-it was a very Buddhist day! Very much like meditation.

Deb. S.-hope you are feeling better so I can show you how to play the game of hockey. Thanks for writing.

KW-hope the paddling is fine.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

I want a Vanilla Dip 4/20/2007

Location: Everest Basecamp

Elevation: 5200 Meters

Weather: Sunny and Breezy

Quote of the Day: “Learn to be still

and know that you can still learn.” (Thanks mc)

It’s been an “org and admin” day consisting of showering (how delightful); laundry (I hate sqeezing water out of clothes and I’m worried my climbing clothes aren’t drying fast enough); packing for Camp One (eek-oh me nerves); and eating (she who eats the most, gets to the top.)

Mingma arrived in the early evening. We’re going to try for Camp One at 5 am tomorrow. I’m both scared and excited. I’ve decided to save the new Everest Basecamp bakery for my return after this sojourn up the mountain.

So since I haven’t had a Vanilla Dip donut in 34 days (a regular donut dipped in vanilla icing and then dipped in multi-colored sprinkles-eating one is akin to a religious experience for me), I ‘ve decided to blame all difficulties on that dietary omission. I should have packed some portables rainbows so I could make a reasonable facsimile here at BC. We did have donuts one day for breakfast.

Having started my monthly hormonic journey today, I can see in hindsight why the climb out of Pheriche was so hard (even though as Mavis pointed out, the “why” probably doesn’t matter).

So tomorrow feels like a big day. I know you’ll all be thinking of me as I make my way up and through the icefall.

Thanks to the kids of MacPherson Elementary and the School for the Deaf for writing.

Karen-way big thanks for the great big pep talk. The clouds are cool today.

Katherine-way big congrats on getting the thesis out. I’m way proud of you.

Liz-thanks for the multitude of memories.

Mags-way good to hear from you.

Morgan-thanks for writing. I’m now on my third Paulo book. Yes-Everest is my pyramid.

Thanks as well to all those who took time to write such encouraging words. I appreciate them greatly and I do carry you and your words into every step.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Back at Base Camp 4/19/2007

Location: Mount Everest Basecamp

Elevation: 5300 Meters

Elevation Gain: 400 Meters

Weather: Sunny and warm

I got back to basecamp just in time for lunch. It’s good to be back in this strange home of rock and ice. I was greeted with hot orange drink and I downed four cups since it was no longer 50 rupees a cup.

I trekked up the past two days on my own because Mingma had to stay in Phortse an extra day. He should return to basecamp tonight and we’ll map out a plan for the next part of the climb.

Basecamp is very quiet because all of the teammates I trekked up with have gone back up the mountain for acclimitization round two. They’ll be aiming to spend some time at Camp Two. I keep reminding myself that there is lots of time.

When I arrived Ang Jangbu handed over a snail mail extravaganza…10 wonderful pieces were waiting for my return. Thanks to Judy (I love Easter Tigger – especially the hood with ears), Karen, Mavis (with three pieces!), Leslie, Sandy, Pat and Ellen, Eva, Heather and her grade five class, and Jacinta and the students of Stella Maris Academy. Thank-you for the fine homecoming mail!

Speaking of homecomings, welcome home Mom and Dad! Glad to hear you had a good trip and that Oma did well. Glad she is able to get out walking now.

I finished eight books on my low elevation jaunt. I’ll miss the library at the Himalayan Hotel but perhaps our new teammates from South Africa ans Singapore added some new books to our basecamp collection.

That’s all the news from here. Have a good day.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Mind Welding 4/18/2007

Location: Loboche

Elevation: 4910 Meters

Elevation Gain: 710 Meters

Weather: Crisp and sunny with the usual afternoon build-up.

When I started out from Pheriche this morning, the veil has transformed itself into a welder’s face shield that dropped heavily into place. It was hot and claustrophobic and as I took my first few steps out of town, I could hardly breathe.

Along with the dark shield, many feelings descended as well: fear, anxiety, stress, excitement…you name it – it was probably there. I reminded myself to breathe and to start walking. This eased things somewhat and I began to make headway up the valley.

As the climb steepened, I was catapulted into my head and behind the shield. For the next hour, I could perceive only my weakness, my fatigue, my cough, my fear. I had conversations with all of you about how hard it was being, how if I didn’t start back towards basecamp today, I wasn’t sure I would go back, how my training had been all wrong, how I’d peaked at the wrong time, how each step felt so hard. I was really whining in my head, but I kept stepping.

The dark glass of the shield kept me from seeing the reality that nothing was wrong with the present moment-that is was just being hard to go uphill. I think it’s often hard for most folks to go up at 4500 meters. It’s not that I wanted it to be easy necessarily, but I wanted to feel strong, resilient, centered…more like how I usually am. Like I’d felt two days ago.

I searched my mind for reasons for the difficulty and I could come up with a whole host of explanations. It was as if I hoped knowing the “why” might ease the suffering of that moment. I tried to just feel the angst, the pain, the fear and let the feelings wash over and through-trying hard not to feed them or cement them in place.

I kept stepping. I reached Dugla after about an hour of this-took a short break, and tried to go gently up the Dugla Hill. My cough was already aggrevated so I knew to go slow.

I set my sights on a rock, walked to it, and took a standing break. I repeated this over and over again. All the way up the hill. I reached the top, took another short breather, and left the Climber’s memorial chortens behind, after reiterating my intention of safe return.

Having gained most of the day’s elevation, the way forward now meandered along the edges of the glacial moraine. For awhile, the Lama who does the basecamp pujas, was behind me. I heard his deep throated mantras and the click of his mala (a string of beads using to keep track of the number of mantras said).

At one point, he and I locked eyes. I silently thanked him for our puja, fingered the protection cord around my neck that he had blessed, and asked intuitively for some assistance with the morning’s suffering.

As I continued towards Loboche, the faceshield began to dissolve and my mind emptied of its urgency. Three hours had now passed and the diamond hardness of the morning has passed paradoxically into memory. I could begin to see that I had arrived here safely, that I still had energy and will to go on, and that everything (as Dory had so aptly put the other day) was OK (as was I).

I feel a bit sheepish today putting out yet another dispatch describing the inner landscape, but it is what is most compelling to me at the moment.

Besides, Loboche is really the armpit of Nepal-covered in garbage and stinking of feces. Even my best descriptive writing cannot revive Loboche. It exists only because people trek and climb here. It is a necessary stop for most for acclimitization, but I don’t think it is anyone’s highlight. I’m here because it was part of the Doc’s prescription. I’ll hike the remainder of the way to basecamp tomorrow.

Natelle-have a great course in AK. Dig deep. Learn lots. You’ll be great.

My Sangha-I miss you all-the retreat sounded great-thanks for all the tonglen and thoughts.

Liz-thinking of you today with lots of memories of 2002-on the beach in Thailand right?

BPT-say hi to Bianca for me-unless you and M already have a new Wed. hangout.

All the Newfoundland Kids-thanks for writing-I can tell you are back from Easter Break. I hope you are all being very active these days-even though I hear the weather isn’t so great back home.

Thanks for coming along on this most unusual climb.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Hanging out at the Hotel Himalaya 4/17/2007
Location: Pheriche

Elevation: 4200 Meters

It’s four o’clock at the Hotel Himalaya. The young man who appears to do all about the place has just used kerosene to plunge last year’s yak dung into flame. Those in the dining room are grateful for the heat the burning excrement will soon throw our way as the afternoon winds blow cold in Pheriche. Don Williams crones from the boom box. I’m transported to Zimbabwe where Betty Maponde first introduced me to him as I was learning to master a right hand drive truck. He was the offical song meister of our long road trips to return street kids to their rural homes. Funny-I had an email from Betty just the other day. I think Africa may be calling me back.

The dining room is ringed by benches covered in Tibetan rugs. The walls and ceiling are covered in varnished plywood. At the appointed hour, we write our dinner order in the book that matches our room number. I stick to the traditional Dahl Bhat since tradition has it that one can eat one’s fill. Given my inner hungry bear has risen from its high altitude hibernation, it’s an economical way to feed myself. I have a confession. One of my most favorite things in the whole wide world, is a hot steamy towel. Imagine my delight that at the Hotel Himalaya, dinner starts with such a warm treat. There is a candlestick on each table that hands off a spiritied light. Quite a contrast from our breezy cold dining tent at basecamp. (To be fair-it does have a heater and my down parka keeps me toasty up there.)

I have been availing of the wonderful lending library having polished off seven books already. The books are diverse reflecting the interests of trekkers: Buddhism, Nepal, pulp novels, and self-help books. I’m sticking to novels and Buddhism.

My room is about 8X10 feet. The floor is poured concrete with green astro turf. Plywood again is the finish of choice and there’s a small window overlooking the river and yak pasture. The room is unheated and I appreciate my warm sleeping bag. The walls are actually quite soundproof for a tea house and I only hear my neighbour’s cough occasionally (and vice versa I hope).

I went on another gentle walkabout this morning to the ridge on the opposite side of town. I found a spot out of the wind and watched yaks graze for about an hour. While my Alaskan animal totem is the otter, my Nepal animal totem is definitely the yak. Yesterday, I saw a Himalayan fox-that was a special moment. Today’s hike was quite ordinary and has left me wondering how my lungs will do up high. I, again, took the most gentle of paces. I guess I’ll get the answer to my question as I start heading back towards basecamp tomorrow.

Snail Mail Champions Thanks to Sylvia and Fran for getting some snail mail to me. Sylvia-the ACCT sticker is on my water bottle and Fran-the necklace is beautiful-thanks so much for your thoughtfulness.

Davin, Alex and Maddi, Thanks for your cheers and encouragment from the rock!

Lorraine, Thanks for your reminder to stay in the moment-it’s critical here (and probably everywhere).

WP, I have found the most lovely spots out of the wind here to enjoy both the sun and the landscape.

Thanks for all for coming along on this most incredible journey.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Nangkartshang Gompa 4/16/2007

Location: Pheriche

Elevation: 4200 Meters

Elevation Gain: 500 Meters

Quote of the Day: Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life. (Paulo Coelho)

This was one of those days when I opened my eyes in the morning, I had no idea what the day would deliver (guess that’s really true every day).

I knew I wanted to walk/hike today so tomorrow would be a rest day before heading back up towards basecamp. Having read Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” yesterday, I set two intentions: to walk towards Nangkartshang Gompa and to listen to the mountains.

As I climbed the ridge from Pheriche, I knew immediately that I needed to take a most gentle pace-one that allowed me to breathe solely through my nose and one that would not tax me too much since I was on assigned R and R.

As I climbed higher on the ridge, I kept repeating “gentle, gentle.” That was the mantra for the day. I cut off the main trail choosing a contouring yak path to lead me to the lowest hermitage of the gompa. I figured yaks must know how to take the best line.

About an hour in, I arrived at the lower stone retreats. I circled the mani stones three times and explored the site. All the wooden doors were locked, but I noticed a profound stillness despite the whipping wind. I had a snack and decided to avail of the stillness by meditating (something I probably haven’t being doing enough of out here).

There was a small bench of granite and I took my seat there. The Chukung Valley dropped a 1000 feet below my stance and prayer flags cracked above me in the breeze. I knew I was sitting where monks from Pangboche had sat for centuries and I felt welcomed into the sanctity of the space.

I set my eyes six feet out as I do at home, but instead of carpet, my gaze dropped into the wild emptiness of the valley below. The space seemed to be a sponge for my mind and soon I found myself deep without much thought.

When I was done, I continued up the hill weaving amid cliffs and rocks, visiting each level of hermitage in turn. Some were in ruins, others were hosts to strings of fresh prayer flags. As I ascended, I kept repeating my intention of “gentle, gentle” and I relished going uphill for the first time in weeks. It was though climbing up today, was a gift instead of a chore. Being able to be out on the slope of that mountain alone, provided me freedom from the gaze, real or imagined, I’ve struggled under since the beginning of the expedition.

I was able to climb profoundly slowly, to stop frequently to really look, and to listen over and over again to nothing but the lonely wind and the hollow sound of my mind exhausting itself.

I was tempted to climb all the way to the summit of Nangkartshang Peak, but the afternoon build-up of clouds had already begun and I knew I shouldn’t really push it. I had had a profoundly healing morning on the mount and it was time to head back to the valley-trying to remember and embrace the lessons from the heights.

Susan-I seem to have smuggled “the stick” out of your office. I’ve given it to a porter to take down to Lukla. It will fly to KTM and then be fed-exed back to you 🙂

My AppleCore Hockey Team-I thought about all of you today. I really miss playing hockey and I think hockey play-offs must be this weekend. Maybe I can “score” Camp-One while you are scoring goals during the tournament. Keep your sticks on the ice.

Lin-Thanks for sharing your journey. Indeed, “Everest” takes many forms in our lives.

Courtney-Thanks for sharing your Dad’s story with me. Illness is often an “Everest” that takes a much bigger toll than altitude ever does. I’m glad your dad has you in his corner. We all needs words and deeds to pick us up when our “Everests” are asking much of us.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Yak Jam 4/14/2007

Please be sure to check http://www.myeverest.com/ta for audio updates, as well as the initial postings of picture and text updates by TA. Thanks. Judy

Location: The Pheriche Spa for Climbers with Reactive Airways 🙂

Elevation: 4200 Meters

Elevation Lost: 1100 Meters

Weather: Warm then cold and windy

Lojong Slogan of the Day: “Don’t Be Predictable.”

Lojong Slogans

Lojong slogans are pithy Buddhist phrases that we received by Atisha in 900 AD that are used to train the mind. My Buddhist mentor sends me on adventures with a slogan for each day. It was unprecictable for me to descent. I often power through-so good to try something new.

I’m sitting in the yak dung-warmed dining room of the Himalayan Inn in Pheriche. Haven’t really been indoors like this since we were last in Dingboche – when and where, I realized today, the saga of the last two weeks of illness began.

Ironic to return to close “to the scene of the crime” to rest and recover. It’s ironic, though I will live in much greater luxury (it’s all relative) over the next few days, I’ll be forced out into the wind and cold to make these dispatches.

Yak Jams

The hike down today went better than I imagined. With each step down in elevation, I felt my cells draw in a big breath and I imagine them now all with puffed-out chests. For parts of the day, we were stuck behind some yak jams. Other than the dust they kicked up, they set a lovely pace for my ailing lungs.

I tried to get a good shot of the yak jam but to no avail. Hopefully tomorrow I get something worth sending off.

It was SO good to move today. As a kinesthetic processer, walking often gives me new perspectives. As I stepped over rock after rock in the Khumbu Glacier moraine, “the veil” came into clearer and clearer focus.

The Veil

The veil is woven of fine taffeta. When it is held close to the eyes, its presence is barely perceptable. When it moves further from the face, it forms a thick mask that is both hard to see through and hard to ignore.

Hiking down today, I became aware of the veil that I’ve been looking through for the past two weeks. The weft of its fine weave is the voice of doubt. The warp has been the various illnesses. Woven together, they have been plaguing my mind and confidence. The veil has influenced how I have perceived everything – from the color of the sky to the steepness of a slope.

I am talking Michael and Fiona’s advice to deep heart (thanks to you both for writing) and I plan to take a Nepal vacation over the next few days. I will do little physical activity; I’ll induge in lots of food (I’m already down 10 pounds from home and that’s not good); read; and most importantly, try to take the veil off. I hope to use this time to begin again-to use my great mental strength in support of myself instead of against.

As many have said, this is a path. It’s all Everest. Every step and every breath. My task as I told so many young people, is to learn from all the moments along the way.

Many Thanks

Your support means so much to me. I’m sure you all saw the veil long before I. I appreciate you holding out hope and healing during the time it took for me to see it. I’m not fooled into thinking it won’t drop into place again but perhaps I will be quicker to brush it away.

A few specific notes to folks:

Michael B-Dave Hahn says hello. He’s in basecamp with his client.

BPT-thanks for the wise words-please keep ’em coming. I’m trying to repeat ‘the path is the goal’ at least 100 times per day!

Liz-thinking of the last time we shared R & R time in Pheriche. Had my first cup of Milk tea of the trip here in honour of our 2002 trip. Thanks for your encouragement. Say hi to Leo for me.

Buddy-you melt me. Hugs. Clouds. Keep the heat gun out.

Thanks,

TA
This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Heading For Thicker Air 4/13/2007

Updates are initially posted to

http://www.myeverest.com/ta

Please check there if you would likely to receive updates quickly.

Location: Everest Basecamp South

Elevation: 5300 Meters

Elevation Gain: 300 Meters

Weather: High winds in the morning, some sun, cold in the afternoon

Quote of the Day: Always maintain the support of a joyful mind

Hi,

Was awake much of the night. There were strong gusts of wind that threatened to take my tent away. I think I saw every hour between 8 and 4 am when I got up.

I stored my boot liners and socks in my bag so they would be warm to put on. I got all dressed and organized and headed out into the night. At first, I carried that lovely “bed warmth” with me until the wind striped it from me (OK-HKR 4210-What kind of heat loss is that?)

The sliver moon hung in the gap over the icefall and the stars seemed one level brighter than usual. I watched the headlamps of the many sherpas ascend the icefall. It was like a reverse of those ski hill scenes with skiers carrying lights as they ski down in the dark.

I choked down breakfast and met Mingma by the altar. We threw rice and asked for safe passage in the icefall.

The day’s light was beginning to break through as we put on our harnesses and crampons. The “trail” was much more spiked in this time than last since sherpas from many teams have begun carrying supplies to higher camps.

In some ways, this trip up was easier than the first (they promise it gets easier). We covered the distance to the first ladder in a bit less time. Soon after doing a radio check-in, I noticed my energy beginning to take a dive and I had my first of many “cough so hard I almost vomit” sprees – so I turned us around.

We got back and I loaded up on hot drinks and headed for my tent. For the next two hours, I could do nothing but stare at the ceiling. I was profoundly exhausted. As we say in Newfoundland, “the arse fell outta ‘er.” I felt quite poorly and wondered if I was going down the HAPE path again.

Having graduated yesterday in high spirits, it was hard to make another appearance in the HRA clinic. They checked me out, my sats were fine (low eighty’s), and the diagnosis was exhaustion from being sick for nearly two weeks up high.

With me teary and knowing what the answer was, the doc said it was time to head down valley for some thick air and R and R. That it would be hard to regain the strength that I need for the climb up here in basecamp since exerting up here really takes it out of you.

Down lower is thicker air, warmer temperatures, and trails to hike on that don’t lead to avalanche slopes. I hear an avalanche just now (we hear them all the time). So the long walk tomorrow seems daunting, but I take that as evidence that it is time for me to go down. I can’t get completely well here.

Thanks for all your healing thoughts and prayers. I continue to need them. I didn’t foresee having to climb an “Everest” before the actual Everest.

Would someone please pass on greetings to Paul Adler and thank him for sharing his experience of last year. I’ll hopefully meet him when I get back from the Pheriche “spa” :-). Mingma will accompany me down to Periche or Deboche or Pangboche. Our trip leader says it might be good to see trees.

My teammates had a windy night at Camp One and made a foray towards Camp Two today. Many will return to basecamp tomorrow.

I’ll leave you with one image that stands out in my mind today. As Mingma and I descended the icefall, he pointed out that one of eight strands of prayer flags had gotten lose in the wind. About 100 prayer flags danced and snaked and celebrated their newfound freedom whipping to and fro the beat of hidden drummer.

Hugs,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Life as CorningWare 4/11/2007

Location: Everest South Basecamp

Weather: Wind, Snow, Sun, Cold, Warm, Repeat Several Times

Quote of the Day: “Stay strong in your beliefs and believe in your strength.” (Thanks MC)

Do you remember those old CorningWare commercials? Out of the freezer and into the oven. This describes life on a glacier to a “T”. When the sun is out, we’re toasty warm, blazing hot, parched, sweating, and think we are at the beach. When the sun drops in behind a cloud or gives it up for the night, the temperature plummets and we make a quick trip into the freezer.

So I imagine myself as a piece of CorningWare from my mother’s kitchen – able to withstand great temperature variation and decorated with sweet blue highlights.

The weather last night began with snow and progressed to high winds and lightning. At five a.m., there seemed to be no break in the weather coming, so the trip up to Camp One for my teammates was postponed by a day. It’s been breezy much of the day, but the strong gusts have dropped off.

I made my daily pilgrimage to the clinic this morning. Good news. My lungs are now clear and the docs are no longer concerned about HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema). They liked how the codeine interrupted the cough cycle so I’m doing another round of that today. My O2 sat was better today (79) and didn’t drop much with exertion (73). So, I did a bit more walking today – at a speed that didn’t trigger coughing – and we’re hoping for a gradual return to increased activity over the next days.

I wanted to say a special Base Camp hello to Benjamin Andrews. He is a frequent correspondent and I appreciate his commitment to following along.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Patience is a Virtue 4/10/2007

Location: Mount Everest Basecamp

Weather: You Name It, We Had it Today

Quote of the Day: We don’t do it because it is easy. We do it because it is difficult. John F. Kennedy (Thanks Fran)

There is quite the buzz about basecamp as everyone is preparing to make their first push to Camp One tomorrow. Climbers are sorting loads to be carried to Camp One and Camp Two. Some are attending orientations like I did yesterday and lots of questions can be heard bouncing from tent to tent such as “What are you sending to Camp One?” “Where are you sending your downsuit?” “What kind of food are you packing?”

Me? I have a different sort of buzz on the go. After my daily visit to the clinic, the docs decided to try to interupt my cough cycle by getting me to take some codeine. They’ve treated the underlying causes of the cough so this was the next step. Codeine can be a respiratory depressant so they didn’t want me to take it at night.

So I’ve had the most interesting kind of day trying to keep myself awake and focused. I must say the past five hours of freedom from coughing have been heavenly and I hope this day of both physical and coughing rest gives the inhaler drugs a chance to do some good work inside my lungs.

The docs and I discussed whether or not to have me go to a lower elevation to heal-they thought in their best judgment it made sense to remain here for now. I brought them some Swiss chocolate this morning.

My clinic visits provide some “girl time.” As the only woman on my expedition, I sometimes enjoy getting out of the all-male environment and sharing the company of women for small bits of time.

When I asked former Everest climbers for advice, they often mentioned patience. It will be very tough on me tomorrow when the entire team that I trekked in with heads for Camp One, but I know that it will be a time for me to practise that patience they spoke of. It’s actually snowing right now so who knows? Maybe no one will go up.

The stretch of obstacles and illness has been quite humbling. In my sea-level life, I am not often sick so this experience has filled me with compassion for me and for all who suffer from sickness or hurdles. Each obstruction has provided a decision-point location from which to continue to chose the climb. I can look back and appreciate how I have hung in despite the lassitude that both illness and altitude bring.

I’m a bit worried about how my fitness will be when I allowed to climb again. In hearing this worry in myself, I remind myself that I’m actually currently on schedule with my teammates. Given everything, I still haven’t dropped off the pace. So, it will be fine; however hard I have to breathe, however slow I have to walk, however hard it will be, I know how to make my way.

A Touching Moment

With yesterday’s technology glitches and sending out an audio blog for the second day in a row, I received this reply from Rayne and Xander. As some of you know, Rayne and Xander are my neice and nephew (almost 5 and 2). With the help of their mom Shawn they wrote, “Aunty TA-we like it when your computer misbehaves because we then get to hear your voice. We get a bit confused that when we say ‘Hi Aunty TA’ you don’t answer back. We’ve learned how to turn on the computer by ourselves so we can hear your voice whenever we want.” I just melted when I read that and I hear from many of you that you like to hear my voice so I’ll keep sending off a variety of updates.

I’m going to send this one off as text only-if it goes well-I’ll try a few photos.

I’m grateful to have you all thinking of me, sending healing thoughts, and messages of inspiration. All are wonderful to receive. I wanted to send a special thank-you out to Renee Sagebear who provided me with homeopathic remedies to bring along. I have been taking them along with the Western medications and I’m sure they are helping me heal as well.

Take good care,

TA
This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

The Icefall 4/7/2007
Flat Stanley on Ladders

http://www.myeverest.com/ta

Location: Basecamp

Elevation: 5500 Meters

Elevation Gain: Not sure-my altimeter was accidently sacrificed to the Khumbu gods today

Weather: Currently snowing with thunder in the background

My Experience of the Icefall

After years of imagining and dreaming, today was the day for me to first experience the Khumbu Icefall in its icy flesh. Knowing we’d set a goal of the lower ladders, Mingma and I set off after breakfast.

The icefall. A horrible beautiful place. Glistening in shades of white and blue. Frozen waves captured by time in undulations that range from the miniscule to the towering.

Like the gods were laughing when they spilled solid white ice cubes from heaven’s freezer, letting them melt into a chaotic terrifying heap, and then allowing them to freeze again into a river rapid of ice.

The lower icefall is more horizontal than vertical with the ice waves coming at you like a huge surfing day in Hawaii. Wave after wave to be surmounted and descended, surmounted and descended, gradually but with increasing effort, gaining altitude and losing breath.

As the fall steepened, it was almost easier as rhythms of breath and step could be recalled from the depths of memory of other high altitude challenges. Fixed lines appreared and my attention was focused by ladders and the process of clipping and unclipping my safety tether. No longer could I luxuriate into the suffering part of my mind-instead, the terrain demanded every molecule of attention I could give it.

Prior to that part of the icefall, I felt as though I was being deeply humbled by every step and every breath. The experience was picking the meat off of my bones in the way that vultures do in a Tibetan sky burial. I wasn’t sure how much of me would be left as the icy shards I was climbing, cut deep to the heart of my soul.

Again, armed with my Oma’s (my German grandmother who is 89 years old and who hates that I climb mountains) stubbornness and strength, I knew the only thing to do was continue to step over round after round of the icy knives before me and trust that I would exist at the end of the gauntlet.

As I mentioned, the climbing actually got easier for me as the terrain steepened and the focus shifted from horizontal waves to cascading ice. Setting the objective dangers to one corner of my mind, this part of the icefall felt like a vertical playpen.

I’ve always liked to climb things starting with trees, progressing to the garage, the house, and eventually rocks and ice. When we began to encounter the Khumbu’s famous ladders, I was more than ready to engage my inner climbing queen who has always loved climbing out on edges for a view.

The first ladder was a “single”: a single aluminum ladder (about 10 feet long) assisting us over a steep section. The second ladder was also a single-this time bridging a narrow crevasse. Ladder Three was appropriately “a triple” spanning a much wider crevasse: classic Khumbu. Sitting there, I captured images with my own eyes and camera that I had seen in pictures for years.

I wasn’t scared or nervous-just eager to give it a go. I crossed over and back with no crampon snags or near misses. I even felt confident enough to capture the classic photo looking down through the ladder rungs.

Flat Stanley did well on the ladders. He deftly jumps from ladder rung to ladder rung managing a delicate balancing act with each step.

After Ladder Three, it was getting warm in the icefall and time to head down. The steep section passed quickly and the horizontal waves again took a toll on my tired mind and quads. We got back to basecamp just in time for lunch having spent two hours ascending and one hour descending.

Clinic Update

I visited the HRA clinic today for follow-up. There were pleased with my progress and the absence of any wheezing but would like to see me hack free in two days or they will consider prescribing a puffer. After the big aerobic output of the morning, my O2 sats had dropped to 80 but they were not concerned. The humidity in the air here is 2-5% so I do my best to breathe through a scarf and twice a day I hang my head over a bowl of steaming water and breathe.

Back to You

Michael and Emily-I know you’ve been reading the Everest trilogy-and know one day you made “ascents” of the Khumbu Icefall on a snow day from school. I’m thinking about you. I hope the Easter Bunny finds Torbay.

Sandra-your hunch was correct-the “Icefall Doctors” are a group of sherpas hired by the national park to maintain the sytem of ladders and fixed lines through the icefall and the Western Cmn.

Scott-I got a great shot of the many basecamps from the icefall today. I’ll post it tomorrow as Ladder Three gets to be the star of the show today.

Bev-Welcome aboard. I am glad you are enjoying coming along on the adventure. Sorry thatyour knee won’t allow you to experience the Khumbu Valley in person.

Pam-Thanks for your reflections. Yes-you are right-this journey has required me tapping into my inner strength reserves sooner and deeper than I ever anticipated. I hope the well is as full as it needs to be.

Bob-Thanks for bringing my journey into your classroom. The time I spent at Holy Heart was very special and I carry some of that “Heart” with me now.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Gravel Pit Camping to the Max 4/6/2007

gravel pit camping

TA’s tent has the Newfoundland flag on top!

Location: Everest Basecamp

Weather: Sunny & Windy

Quote of the Day: (Thanks Scott)

The Buddha once said…Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

In early spring, as soon as the roadsides are clear of snow, some Newfoundlanders make a pilgrimage to their favourite “gravel pit” to deposit a trailer or RV to secure their spot for the upcoming camping season. Similarly, IMG sent sherpas out to basecamp in early January to reserve our spot in the gravelly world of the Khumbu glacier.

During the past year, when I presented to nearly 10,000 children in Newfoundland, I often showed a picture of our expedition’s approach to the north side of Mount Mckinley. We traveled up the Muldrow Glacier from its very toe, mounting gravel heap after gravel heap. The students always laughed when I refered to this as “gravel pit camping to the max.”

Here in Everest basecamp, I find myself camping amid gravel again and thought I would share some of life on the glacier with you. We are camped right on top of the Khumbu glacier. The glacier is said to move at close to a meter a day. The glacier is covered in a fine coating of gravel somewhat like hair on a newborn (not soft but barely covering the icy surface.) We’ve worn paths of convenience between all parts of camp, but we always have to be on guard for slips and falls.

Depending on the temperature, the small glacial ponds and rivers are flowing or frozen. Each team climbing Everest puts down an environmental deposit which is not returned unless the team properly deposes of all trash and human waste in mandated ways.

At basecamp, we take “dumps” into barrels. The excrement is hauled down valley by specialized porters to specific locations where it can be dealt with appropriately. Showers take place in the shower tent-often nicely warmed by the sun. You get a lovely bucket of hot water and a cup. It is a divine experience we’re allowed to have once a week.

Our garbage is collected and sorted and taken down valley to various disposal sites. Meals are cooked over kerosene stoves. Electrical power for lights, cameras, and communications action is provided by the sun. The solar panel I have on the back of my tent is charging my PDA as I type.

More and more expedition teams are arriving each day, creating similar villages on the ice and gravel. Mingma and I took a gentle hike to where the icefall route begins this morning. It gave us quite the view of the Khumbu gravel empire. Tomorrow, assuming today’s healing trajectory, Mingma and I will make our first foray into the lower icefall.

I woke up feeling much better- with a looser cough and more energy. I was praising antibiotics as the wonder drugs they are. This afternoon, having endured some “fecal” emergencies -I’m cursing the same drugs. How does that go? “When it rains, it pours!” Maybe I’m just trying to get every Everest illness challenge out of the way in the first week at basecamp.

Anyway-as many of you have suggested-this too shall pass 🙂 Thanks for all of your kind words and suggestions.

Judy-I hope you are enjoying your family vacation. Please wish your Mom a happy birthday from me. WAY BIG THANKS for being “Communications Queen” – managing my email and sending the wonderful marvelous compliation email each day.

Hazelwood Elementary Students- Thanks for all of your emails. I hope you have a good Easter break. I will go into the Khumbu Icefall for the first time tomorrow. I miss playing hockey; my favourite team is the Edmonton Oilers. Thanks to Mr. Ezickle for keeping you posted of my progress.

Scott-Thanks for today’s quote and all your encouragement.

Alison & Al-I’ve been enjoying the chocolate and Far Sise cartoons you sent along.

Ann & Graham-Thanks for the push up through my illness challenges.

MC-Thanks for yesterday’s quote and your perspective on illness and the Everest path.

Gillian-Say hi to the boys for me and eat lots of chocolate for me on Sunday.

Maureen-say hi to everyone in the IDO for me.

Trudy-Thanks for being right there with me on this journey. It’s not hard to beat NF weather this time of year. I’ll send a dose of sunshine your way.

Mavis & Colin-a big hug right back at ya!

Darrell-yup-tears are the cat’s meow-hope life on the rig is treating you well.

Shanda-I’ve been telling myself the same thing.

Mira-I hope to meet your friend when he arrives in basecamp. I understand how Everest fever can take hold-some folks from Newfoundland have been telling me it’s taking hold there as well.

Shelagh-thanks for the hug-hugs are great!

Nancy & Erika-Say hi to GFW and Mme Stoodley’s class for me. Flat Stanley says hello.

Sandra-yes-ladder practice is very helpful-I’ll put it to the test tomorrow.

Darlene-say hi to The Rock for me.

Buddy-The clouds are amazing-please wish Ye a happy Gotcha Day!

Until tomorrow,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Puja Blessings 4/5/2007

Puja Blessings

Location: Base Camp

Elevation: 5500 Meters

Weather: Initially sunny now overcast and cold

Quote of the Day: “If I may dare to step into the footprints of legends, I must place each step in unison with theirs and yet each step must be my own.”

Health Update

Hello from my little nest. It’s cold so I’m tucked into my sleeping bag typing this update. I’ve just returned from the base camp clinic with a diagnosis of bronchitis. I’m starting some antibiotics and hope to be on the mend soon. I’m ordered to rest at least one more day. The good news is that my O2 saturation was fine (84%-Judy I knew you would want to know). It will be hard to watch my teammates begin their icefall forays tomorrow, but I know I’m in this for the long haul and getting well is the first priority. The base camp clinic website is http://www.basecampmd.com.

Puja Blessings

Today, in the early morning we had our puja ceremony. I felt very blessed to attend since I had read about such ceremonies for years. The Lama arrived from Pangboche last night. The ceremony began with the lighting of juniper boughs to create a thick smoke and the Lama beginning to lead chants and mantras with four sherpas sitting beside him. It’s not unusual for sherpa young men to spend some time studying in a monastery.

The altar was a four foot high rectangle made of stone. The top was adorned with five mountain-shaped stones. On the altar, there were sculptures made of butter and tsampa (tsampa is barley flour). There were also butter lamps, chang (barley beer), mountain snacks, beverages, and katas (ceremonial scarves).

The melodic syllables wafted up towards the wakening icefall carried up and over the hazards by the juniper smoke. We will circumambulate the altar and burn juniper before each venture into the icefall. The smokey air was filled with an atmosphere of both frivolity and sacredness – a spiritual party reflecting both reverence and celebration.

Some of the climbing sherpas with tsampa on their faces. Tsampa is spread on the cheeks and forehead during the puja for good luck, successful summit, and long life. Mingma is second in line wearing his Everest-007 toque. We sipped chang throughout and threw rice towards the mountain whenever the Lama did. About halfway through the 2.5 hour ceremony, the puja pole was raised with prayer flags and katas flying in eight directions from the altar. Everyone stirred with excitement as the Lung Ta (which means windhorse) flew sending prayers up toward the Mother Goddess. The colors of red, white, yellow, blue, and green preside over every corner of our base camp.

Soon after the puja pole was raised, we each received some trampa to eat, to throw into the air, and to smear on each other’s faces for long life, safety, and summit success. At this moment, revery took over and the tsampa delivery approximated a cafeteria food fight with kindness. Blessings and good wishes were shared all round along with snacks and beverages (both alcoholic and non). A bit more rice was thrown and now our team is blessed, ready, and able to make it’s way up the mountain.

Buddhist Connections

I was touched to be participating in this Buddhist ceremony today because my home sangha (Buddhist community) is on retreat this week and I miss being there. I know that as we shouted “Ki Ki So So” and threw rice here – they would too on Saturday, so the puja helped bridge the many miles between us.

My Buddhist name is Tsultrim Mig Gya which means “Discipline Great Vision.” One’s Buddhist name is given at the the time of taking refuge (how one becomes a Buddhist) and reflects one’s life path. I’m sure my climb of Everest will require mountains of both discipline and vision.

Base Camp Update

There are 16 teams currently in basecamp and our IMG team will lead the way up for now since we are the first to complete our puja. Word has it that the icefall doctors have route laid into Camp One.

By the way, in case any of you haven’t figured it out (seems like Everest News has not), I am a woman.

Many Thanks

Thanks to the kids from Holy Trinity for the cheers and questions as well to all of you who are sending healing energy and prayers my way.

Thanks for tuning in,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Base Camp Confidential 4/4/2007

TA rapell

Big Mountain, Big Emotions

I cried myself to sleep last night. Don’t tell anyone. 🙂 I was so tired from two nights of dicey altitude sleep and my brewing cold had me feeling so poorly, that my emotions began to spill over. I didn’t fight the tears and I felt much better after the big release.

Given a headache and the cold, I took some diamox in hopes of a better rest. The increased urinary output was worth catching more winks. I woke up feeling more rested than I had in days but my cough had turned productive. The day hike to higher elevations was out for me (and as it turns out for everyone else on the team as well).

Training is Grand Fun

I felt OK enough to participate in a training session on fixed rope ascension, rapelling, and glacier travel. The session was great fun and helped me appreciate the mountain skill set I possess.

During the session, one of Nupse’s hanging glaciers let go and we watched the avalanche excitedly descend, knowing we were in a safe location. Slowly and silently the giant white cloud descended upon us. We were covered in spindrift snow by the time it passed over.

From our perch atop the ice fin of the lower icefall, we could appreciate how the base camp universe was growing day by day. It was as if the Mother Goddess had sprinkled wildflower seeds over this corner of the Khumbu. Colorful blossoms are popping up on the ice in clusters any gardener would be proud of.

Base Camp Construction

Building a base camp takes tremendous labour. The glacier ice must be pounded into submission and levelness so that tents glarore can be set up to house climbers, sherpas, kitchens, communications,and medical facilities. Base camp has its own medical clinic staffed by volunteer doctors.

Since the glacier moves a meter per day, all structures need continuous maintenance. I actually moved tents today because my initial one was quite damp. The views from my new one aren’t quite so spectacular, but I have a lovely stone entry way and I could plant petunias if I only had some soil. My new location means the Newfoundland flag should be visible to all who ascend and descent the Khumbu icefall.

Send lots of healing energy my way. I’ve been hydrating, taking vitamin C, cold F/X, and doing reiki over my lungs.

Thanks to all the encouragement from Bishop Feild School and from everyone else as well.

TA

You can see a video of the spindrift on Mike and Casey’s site:

http://www.colemaneverest.com/coleman/everest/trackmike.htm

under “Day of Sun”, 4 April 07. There’s a glimpse of TA sitting, watching the spindrift. You can spot her yellow Sportiva boots.

Judy

Busy Day in Base Camp 4/3/2007

Newfoundland flag on TA’s tent, in front of Khumbu

This is my tent in Base Camp, draped in the Newfoundland flag. The Khumbu
Icefall is in the background.

Location: Mount Everest Base Camp

Elevation: 17, 500 feet

Weather: Sunny and warm during the day, minus 5 C in my tent overnight.

The excitement of arriving in base camp continued today. We spent our first night in our new homes. The night was crisp and cool, with the remnants of the full moon beaming down on the glacier.

The day began with a briefing for summit climbers that was necessary, but left me temporarily wondering if I was skilled enough to be here. I met with the team leader and was assured that I was in the right place.

We met with our personal sherpas and got our icefall and glacier rigs together, got our radios, practised crossing ladders with our crampons on, and put our crampons to the test on the glacier.

The day helped me settle into base camp life and eager for the challenges that lie ahead. Tomorrow we hike to Pumori base camp for acclimatization and then the next day will bring the Puja ceremony.

I’m nursing a bit of a cough but the guts have settled down (hopefully I’ve paid my dues on that level for good).

TA

Monks on a Rollercoaster 4/1/2007

Location: Gorak Shep

Elevation: 5180 Meters

Elevation Gain: 240 Meters

Weather: Gorgeous

Judy, a friend who watched and helped out during the tumultuous months before leaving for Nepal, found the perfect send-off card. On the front, there was a picture of Buddhist monks riding a rollercoaster with their hands raised above their heads.

I had been using the metaphor of a rollercoaster to describe my inner process of ups and downs during the preparation phase. This morning, the image of the rollercoaster was firmly back in my mind.

I’m still struggling a bit with nausea in the morning. I have to work with my mind and body to get and keep food down in the morning. Gagging is a frequent occurrence but I know how important it is to eat.

We left Loboche and my body felt like it was on strike. Though the terrain sloped gently up, I felt like I was dragging each step out from the depths of my soul.

It was arduous in both body and mind and my thoughts cascaded to scripts I don’t want to admit to. I knew the only thing to really do was just keep returning to the present moment of putting step in front of step.

We stopped for a break before a steep incline. I took some GU on board and wondered how I was going to get myself up the hill. With more groceries on board, the incline fell away easily and the instensity of my inner world followed suit. Having survived the chugg chugg of the rollercoaster going up, I could now let go of the safety bar and enjoy the ride down. From a temporary place of impossibility, great views of mountain summits emerged.

It’s funny how many times I have to learn various lessons over and over again. On Aconcagua, I thought I’d learned the grocery lesson but I guess not quite. I am also getting glimpses of how intense physical sensations trigger equally intense mental/emotional sensations for me and one of my major Everest tasks will be learning to ride the rollercoaster with the skill of a Buddhist monk.

In 2002, Liz and I trekked from Loboche to Gorak Shep and then climbed Kala Pattar (5500 ish meters) and then returned to Loboche. I knew at the time how far Liz had pushed herself to reach the summit that day. Today, having followed in our footsteps again, I have a much deeper appreciation for that feat and I offer Liz my heartfelt congratulations once again from my perch above Gorak Shep.

In the last few hectic (i.e., rollercoaster) months before leaving for Everest, I used to joke that climbing Everest would seem like a vacation. Trying to balance work, training, trip preparations, and speaking engagements left little time for much else.

In many ways, the trek to base camp has been very vacation-like. Around the hours of walking, there has been time for reading, card playing, journaling, and taking life pretty easy. The sherpa staff have been spoiling us rotten and their efforts contribute to the vacation-like atmosphere.

Thanks for all the emails from Cowan Heights Elementary and from other places around the world. In the midst of feeling poorly, it’s lovely to hear words and stories of encouragement. I plan to do my weekly audio blog from base when we get there tomorrow!

We caught glimpses of Everest’s summit pyramid and the Khumbu icefall today as we made our way over and around kilometers of glacial morraine. We’re hoping to see Everest’s flanks bathed in alpenglow when we climb up Kala Pattar later today.

One more sleep until basecamp!

TA

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Everest-007 March 2007

Posted on March 30, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Walking in the footsteps of others 3/31/2007

Flat Stanley at Pumori Flat Stanley in front of Pumori.

I am so aware as I trek to Everest Base Camp that I walk in the footsteps of so many others. Camped here in Loboche, I am reminded of when I was last here in 2002. Then, as I trekked, so did the Ford All Women’s Everest Expedition. I remember being both in awe of the women I shared the trail with as well as surprised at how “ordinary” they looked. I still find it hard to believe that I am camped where they camped and will follow their footsteps high on Everest.

Someone remarked that we weren’t wearing gloves as we trekked. The weather actually has been delightfully warm most of the time so we haven’t had to wear gloves very often. Last night with the jump in elevation to close to 5000 meters, we all pulled out our puffy jackets and more clothes than we’d needed before.

I continue to feel better though seem to be catching the team cold that is going around. A major challenge of any Everest expedition is staying healthy over the long haul. I’m taking it easy today and pumping in fluids and Cold FX.

Our sherpa climbing team dropped in on their way to base camp today. I got to spend some more time with Mingma. I look forward to climbing with him. Thanks to my friend, Marie, I’ve got an Everest-007 toque and t-shirt waiting for him at basecamp. I’m sure everything will seem much more real and less abstract when we reach base camp in two days.

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

Different Kind of Dispatch 3/30/2007

Location: Loboche
Weather: Sunny and warm, cool and overcast
Elevation: 4930 Meters
Elevation Gain: 600ish Meters

Sometimes gifts come wrapped in funny packages. Last night something did not agree with my innards and I had to spend some time outside the tent “dispatching” dinner in a most violent way. I felt much better sans the meal, but wasn’t sure if I would be able to move up with the group in the morning.

I spent much of the rest of the night playing through various scenarios-mostly telling myself that the light of day would bring the answer. Breakfast was a big challenge, but I managed to get some hot drinks to stay down. At the decision moment, I felt less nauseous so I elected to give it a go. My duffle was given to a porter so I could turn around at any point.

I knew slow and steady was the way and just put one foot in front of the other. I was surprised that I wasn’t too far off the pace since I expected to be bringing up the rear. A few times I ran out of gas and would take a “GU” (basically flavored corn syrup) to give me the energy to keep going.

We arrived at Tuglha for lunch and I managed to keep soup down-though still not many calories on board for the day. After lunch we climbed the Tuglha hill to the Memorial Chortens for both Westerners and Sherpas who have died in the mountains. The group drew quiet and stopped to take in both the sobering and inspiration sense of the place.

I got very emotional when I saw Sean Egan’s chotren. He, like me, was a university professor in Canada seeking to inspire his students to higher aims. He died at Everest base camp in 2005. Last year, one of his students summitted Everest in Sean’s honour.

After lunch, I was able to stay with the front runners of the group, though that wasn’t my intention. When we reached Loboche, the basecamp doc remarked, “TA you kick ass!” It was then that I realized the gift of the different kind of dispatch. I could see, and take in and claim, the mental and physical strength I possessed today in gaining 600 meters on clear fluids alone. Feeling poorly allowed me to reduce my own expectations of myself and that freedom was a gift.

As we climbed higher, we began to be cradled closer by the snow-covered peaks. We left Ama Dablam behind as we climbed a peat-covered bench and the mountain shined her pearlish summit in a way that is hard to describe. As we near basecamp (only three more sleeps!), I find the excitement in my belly growing and expanding and I’m eager to see my home for the next months.

TA
This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

There is TA 3/29/2007

There’s TA!!

“There’s TA!!!” is a chorus we heard from thousands of students in the dozens of schools we visited in the province. Please keep those messages coming as TA loves hearing from the students that she has met. Judy

Location: Dingboche Weather: Sunny and warm Elevation: 4343 Meters

This was another rest/acclimitization day. After breakfast, I headed out solo again up the valley towards Chhukung and Island Peak. After yesterday’s high, I had a sense I might struggle again with “pace” so I thought it would be good to reduce the amount of external stimuli. I knew it was time for to work with “The Climb Between My Ears.”

As someone pointed out in response to one of my dispatches, climbing Everest will be as much an internal process as external. So far on the trek to basecamp, it’s been an intense internal process. By the end of walk today, I’d succeeded in reducing the amount of chatter in my mind and enjoyed drinking in my external surroundings rather than my internal landscape.

After lunch, we ventured down to Pheriche to hear the High Altitude talk at the Himalayan Rescue Association Aid Station. We were reminded that it never makes sense to ascend when experiencing any symptoms of acute mountain sickness. The memorial outside the clinic was another stark reminder of the potential consequences of bad luck or bad decision-making.

Tomorrow we make another big jump to Loboche. Hopefully everyone does well with the second night at this altitude.

Thanks to the students at Macpherson Elementary-I enjoyed your messages. I am climbing the South Col route and I will be on the mountain until the end of May.

Catch ya tomorrow,

TA

This Everest-007 Update is made possible through the generous support of AppleCore Interactive, http://www.applecore.ca

TA is in the middle 3/28/2007

From Coleman Everest 2007

http://www.colemaneverest.com/coleman/everest/trackmike.htm

Apple Dablam 3/28/2007

Please note that TA’s updates are initially posted to:

http://www.myeverest.com/ta

At the myeverest web site, you can post messages to TA, see her pictures beside the daily updates, and follow Paul Adler of Australia during his second Mount Everest climb.

Judy

Apple Dablam Ama Dablam was on my right shoulder for most of the trek. It is such a striking peak-it reminds me of the Universal Pictures logo. It’s a peak that seems impossible to climb, but I know several expeditions make their way up it each season. I want to thank my dear friends Deb and Wilma and their business, AppleCore Interactive, for making these live updates from TA’s Everest-007 possible. They are on the forefront of innovative communications and I appreciate their generous support of these dispatches.

No More Trees for Months Making the jump from Deboche to Dingboche, we have left the trees behind. We began the day in a pine forest and now, we see only small brushy scrubs and lots of rocks. As a rock wall fan, I could admire many examples of Nepali stone masonry along today’s hike. Absorbing the amount of labour that must have gone into building the walls, yak pens, houses, and lodges is near impossible. Tonight we are camped in a yak pen as we were last night. I fell asleep to the sounds of softly chewed cud and the tinkling of yak bells.

Much Appreciation Thanks to all the Grade Five students at Hazelwood Elementary who sent emails of inspiration and advice. Thanks as well to Fiona for sharing your experience. I had been telling myself the same thing, but sometimes it’s helpful to hear something from an outside source.

Someone had asked about dogs. We’ve heard dogs more frequently than we’ve seen them-though a few have tagged along at points along the trek.

Until tomorrow,

TA

Nuns and Monks 3/27/2007

Location: Deboche
Weather: Snow and cold in the morning, sunny and warm after
Elevation: Same as yesterday

Soon after breaKfast we headed down trail for about 10 minutes to the Deboche Nunnery. It houses six nuns at the moment and we made a special effort to visit since it receives far fewer visitors (and therefore less donations) than the Tengboche Monestary.

A young nun opened the prayer hall and watched with curiosity as we Westerners explored the unfamiliar surroundings. I was struck by the Buddhist iconography that adorned the walls and several times I became teary at its meaning that provides comfort and direction in my life.

Since we knew the Rinpoche was not going to be in residence today at the Tengboche Monestary, several of us chose to light butter lamps in offering for our safe ascent and descent of Mount Everest. This was an emotional moment for most as we squarely faced and accepted the dangers that lie ahead.

After lunch, I headed back up to Tengboche on my own. It was great to have some time hiking alone and I climbed high above the village to commune with thousands of prayer flags catching the wind. The ridge had several chortens (memorial sculptures) to past lamas of the monestary.

The Tengboche monestary allows visitors to observe afternoon chants. The young monks had an assortment of modern logoed clothing in yellow, orange, and red. After the conch blew, they quickly came back with traditional robes covering their more modern accouterments.

They assembled behind the head monk who swung burning juniper. The aromatic smoke filled the hall along with the melodic chants and mantras. The vibration in the hall seemed to emaniate from deep within the polished wooden floor and cradled all who heard the rhythmic syllables.

So, as this day comes to a close, I am deeply appreciative of having the dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) in my life and, I suspect from past experience, that climbing Everest will provide many more embodied lessons of my Buddhist path.

Tomorrow we make a big jump in elevation as we climb to Dingboche.

Thanks to all for your supportive messages. I receive a compliation email once a day when I send out this update. A true highlight to each day.

TA

The Road to Tengboche 3/26/2007
Location: Deboche
Elevation: 12,200 feet
Weather: Super hot then overcast and cool
Hours of Trekking: Six

Our Amazing Sherpas
Today was a typical trekking day. We were up at six, packed by seven and on the trail by eight. The sherpa staff spoil us left, right, and center with tea delivered to our tents and meal after amazing meal.

Sherpa refers to both an ethnic group of people in Nepal and to a job of assisting climbing expeditions. Not all climbing sherpas are Sherpa but most are. In Nepal, people’s last names are their ethnic group…for example, my climbing Sherpa’s name is Mingma Ongel Sherpa.

There are two major monestaries in the Solo Khumbu region: Thame and Tengboche. Today, Flat Stanley and I passed the Tengboche Monestary. Tomorrow, if the Lama is in residence, we will climb back up to Tengboche to receive his blessing.

Today’s route contoured around from Namche then dropped back to the riverand then climbed dramatically up to Tengboche.

Lessons Already
I suspect I wasn’t the only one to wonder, “if I’m breathing hard here at 3800 metres, what will it be like at twice that elevation?” When such an avalanche of doubt would descend, I reminded myself to just keep taking one step at a time and to keep my view quite narrow to the trail in front of me. This grounded me in the present moment and I could remember that “this moment” didn’t mean anything about “the next moment.” Everything is impermanent including big hills while acclimitizing.

A few questions people had asked…the distance from Lukla to Base camp is approximately 40 miles.

The market picture…there is a pile of ginger, some red chilis, some mushrooms, eggs, and tumeric (a frequently used spice).

So, already the mountains are teaching me much. TA

Sushi and Showers 3/25/2007

Location: Last Night in Namche
Activity: Training Hike to Thame
Weather: Another Day In Paradise
Highest ElevationToday: 13,200 feet

It’s Sunday. I usually send out a weekly summary to my cyber support team on Sundays. In honor of that reflective tradition, I am going to make an audio blog called called Sushi and Showers. Be sure to listen in to hear more. TA

Note: TA’s audio blogs are available at http://www.myeverest.com

Judy

Market Day 3/24/2007

From our high perch above Namche, the blue, red, and green roofs of the village form a vivid patchwork of color reminiscent of a Shepani’s apron. Soon after breakfast, we headed down to town to take in the weekly market that draws folks from neighboring villages.

The market is crowded with goods and people: spices, recently slaughtered meat, chinese shoes, and packaged food stuffs abound. We squeeze through and then explore Namche’s horseshoe shaped, cobbled streets.

My First Post Mail
Congrats to my Mom and Dad, Brenda and Jean-Marcel, and Karen for getting me my first post mail. It arrived today with Jangbu when he arrived from Kathmandu. Have I mentioned that I look to receive snail mail? My post address is on my website: http://www.taloeffler.com.

Introductions
Today I met my personal climbing Sherpa, Mingma Ongel Sherpa. He is from Phortse. Our sherpa team has 76 collective Everest summits. Mingma has summitted four times! I very much look forward to climbing with him.

The base camp doctor also arrived today. Turns out I met her in Pheriche in 2002 when she helped me get over a high altitude gastritis problem from drinking too much Nepali tea. A small world indeed!
TA

Namche Bazaar 3/23/2007

Location: Namche Bazar
Highest Elevation Today: 3880 metres
Weather: Couldn’t be better!

The night was punctuated by the a chorus of dogs competing for the loudest bark award. Morning came a delightful light and lofty views of snow covered peaks.

Everest View
We headed up to the Everest View Hotel to catch our first view of Everest. Many ohs and ahs and photographs were had. Flat Stanley was very excited to see the mountain so early in the trip. Using binoculars, we tried to identify numerous landmarks on the peak. One thing that did not escape notice was the huge plume coming off of the summit.
Acclimitizing
The hike provided us with a chance to stretch our legs and breathe deep while we introduced our bodies to the new altitude. The idea is to climb high and sleep low as a way to acclimitize. One acquires funtional acclimitization about one week after such an introduction but complete acclimitization requires four to six weeks. You can’t rush acclimitization-only support the process.

Tomorrow is Market Day
Tomorrow is market day in Namchee. Many porters and sellers will arrive with goods in baskets like I showed yesterday. There will also be meat, vegetables, and spices for sale.

Lukla to Base Camp
Someone asked about the distance to Everest Base Camp from Lukla. In my experience, people often think more in hours of travel or elevation gained. We are taking 14 days to trek to basecamp because we have lots of time and want to acclimitze well. In 2002, I got there in 8 days because I was ready acclimitizated from a previous trek.

Other Views
There are a few other folks on the expedition who have websites they are updating. Here are the URL’s if you’d like some other perspectives on the trip:

http://www.colemaneverest.com
http://www.drtimwarren.com

In answer to another question, I do have a brother. His name is Mike.

Finally, today I felt like I was easing into my Nepal life. I’m apprecating being back here surrounded by beautiful peaks and wonderful people.

TA

Back to Namche 3/22/2007
Location: Namche Bazar
Elevation: 3440 metres
Elevation Gained: 1180 metres gained
(as per Jean’s altimeter)
Weather: Beautifully Warm & Sunny

Back to 2002
Today as I trekked I remembered many more of the sights and sounds of the Khumbu. Passing tea houses where I had a meal or crossing suspension bridges over the Dudh Kosi, memories tugged at my heart repeatedly and I was transported back to 2002.

I repeatedly brought myself back to 2007 so I could drink in the colors, smells, and sensations of this trek. I can’t go far without the aroma of dung or wood smoke filling my nostrils.

Humility Awaits Around Every Corner
I am passed frequently by trains of zupkios (a yak cow mix) carrying reams of gear to higher locals. Humility is dished out at similar intervals when I notice the porters outpacing me using baskets to transport loads that weigh almost as much as I do.

We all dread the Namche Hill (a 600 metre gain) to close the day. It turns out, like most anticipated challenges, to be easier than we expect, and we arrived at camp in time to organize and get things dry.

One funny thought I had today was that the preparations for Everest were like prep school and the trek in, like “finishing school”. Altitude does funny things to my thoughts.

I’m feeling good and looking forward to exploring the Namche area as we take an acclimitization rest stop. TA

Hello from Phakding 3/21/2007

Elevation: 8700 feet
Weather: Pouring Rain

At last, after 18 months of planning, the trek to Everest has begun. We flew to Lukla early this morning on Yeti Airlines. Flat Stanley was excited for his first flight on a Twin Otter. We trekked about 4 hours to Phakding, arriving in the pouring rain.

I spun my first prayer wheels asking for determination, courage and confidence. Prayer wheels often mark the entrance to villages. They are brass ringed wheels with prayers imprinted in the brass and on scrolls inside. As the wheel spins, the prayers are released.

It’s very good to be underway as walking helps the nerves move on as life becomes the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other.

We’re off to Namche tomorrow.

TA

Hi from Kathmandu 3/19/2007
Hi. Just a quick note to let you know I arrived safely in Nepal. I just had lunch at one of my favorite Thamel haunts and I’m getting ready to go pay a visit to Boddhinath Stupa. As it is not much beyond Tibetan new year, the stupa should be flying many, many colorful prayer flags.

Raj, a Nepali friend, met me at the airport with a lei of fresh flowers and a kata. I’m going to visit his family for dinner tonight. Thamel seems to be bustling with tourists these days.

We are having a team briefing tomorrow afternoon. I look forward to meeting everyone then. The 36 hours of travel passed relatively quickly and flying over two nights has me so messed up that the transition to Nepal time shouldn’t require too much effort.

More soon,

TA

Happy St. Patrick’s Day 3/17/2007
The week began and ended with send-offs. Several friends gathered Sunday night to wish Flat Flanley and I well. It was lovely to see everyone and one of the highlights of the night for me was the Vanilla Dip Tim Bits. When I learned six months ago that Tim’s could make them as a special order, I knew I wanted them at my send-off party. They were an absolute delight to ingest–mini religious experiences in every sprinkled self-contained bite.

My second big send-off of the week was at MacDonald Drive Junior High school yesterday. It was the last day of their spirit week and I did my last presentation and the school chorus did a very moving version of “There ain’t no mountain high enough.” The media were there in droves and it was a terrific ending to the adjunct program of the expedition-in all I spoke to over 10,000 kids in the province in the last 10 months.

Now with parties, packing, and good-byes done, it’s time to embark of the big adventure. I’m taking several wonderful gifts along: a four-leaf clover, a gold stone, and a hand-spun, hand knit hat. The hat is a real Newfoundland-to-Nepal-and-back-again hat. It has a coloured stripe that was silk handspun by women in Nepal, and a cream stripe that is fleece spun here in Newfoundland, and it has a bit of grey wool in it that textile artist Janet Davis in Wesleyville had leftover from hooking a giant mat of fish flakes that just exhibited in The Rooms – the gray wool was from the cod tails.

According to Vera, who gave it to me, the Gold Stone is a stone of wisdom and science along with great drive and ambition. It teaches us to reach for the stars and reminds us of the light within the darkness. Earl who sent me off with the four-leaf clover also gave me this quote: “There is no luck without discipline.” Thanks to Janine for the wonderful massages–I’m heading to Nepal with a relaxed body. And thanks to all for the well wishes, cards, batteries, trail bars, and chocolate!

As I finished packing, I realized that I couldn’t find Flat Stanley. Turns out he was hiding in the T-shirts from Sunday night. He was feeling a bit anxious and scared but we had a chat and he’s ready for the Big E. I’ve got two huge duffles weighing about 60 pounds a piece, all the tech gear in the carry-on and hoping the big snowstorm off the eastern seaboard lets me get off the island later today. If not, it will be great practice for the enormous amount of patience and sitting and waiting that will be required of me in the next ten weeks.

So, I’m off (you sure are son!) That’s a line from a melodrama I was in high school. Little did Mr. Hamilton know when he introduced me to rockclimbing and mountaineering in 1982 that I would be heading for Mount Everest. My goals are to have fun, learn from every step, come home safely and try my best to reach the summit. I know the next weeks will be long, short, up, down, hard, amazing and everything in between. It’s time to go. I’m filled with gratitude to all of you for bearing witness over the past year, month, week, and days and I am buoyed by knowing that you’ll be there every step of the way. Big hugs, TA

Total Vanilla Dips the past week = 1, Vanilla Diplets = 13 Total for the Climb = 45

Leaving on a Jet Plane 3/16/2007
I had a fantastic send-off this afternoon at MacDonald Drive Junior High. The chorus sang “No Mountain High Enough” and I received a standing ovation from the 600 kids. There was lots of media at the event so watch for me on NTV and CBC St. John’s tonight.

With parties, packing, and good-byes done, it’s time to embark of the big adventure. I’m taking several wonderful gifts along: a four-leaf clover, a gold stone, and a hand-spun, hand knit hat. The hat is a real Newfoundland-to-Nepal-and-back-again hat. It has a coloured stripe that was silk handspun by women in Nepal, and a cream stripe that is fleece spun here in Newfoundland, and it has a bit of grey wool in it that textile artist Janet Davis in Wesleyville had leftover from hooking a giant mat of fish flakes that just exhibited in The Rooms – the gray wool was from the cod tails.

According to Vera, who gave it to me, the Gold Stone is a stone of wisdom and science along with great drive and ambition. It teaches us to reach for the stars and reminds us of the light within the darkness. Earl who sent me off with the four-leaf clover also gave me this quote: “There is no luck without discipline.” Thanks to Janine for the wonderful massages–I’m heading to Nepal with a relaxed body. And thanks to all for the well wishes, cards, batteries, trail bars, and chocolate!

So, I’m off (you sure are son!) That’s a line from a melodrama I was in high school. Little did Mr. Hamilton know when he introduced me to rockclimbing and mountaineering in 1982 that I would be heading for Mount Everest. My goals are to have fun, learn from every step, come home safely and try my best to reach the summit. I know the next weeks will be long, short, up, down, hard, amazing and everything in between. It’s time to go. I’m filled with gratitude to all of you for bearing witness over the past year, month, week, and days and I am buoyed by knowing that you’ll be there every step of the way.

Flat Stanley briefly went missing but I found him working out hard at the gym. He wants to be in prime shape for the challenges of Mount Everest. Thanks to all for your support and good thoughts! TA

Less than a Week to Go! 3/11/2007
It was a very busy week! I spoke at eight schools-four of which were outside St. John’s. In school, the Grade two’s had made small Newfoundland flags on Popsicle sticks. During the “We are the Champions” song they wove them in unison and I just about melted. We passed the 7500 kid mark and I’ve been receiving great feedback about the Physical Education curriculum we designed called “Train with TA.” The PE teachers at schools where I have visited say it’s been a tremendous resource for them. I’m proud of the outreach program. I have three more schools presentations this week including a big send-off on Friday at MacDonald Drive Junior High.

Along with all of the presentations, it was my last big week of training. I didn’t quite get it all in but I think it’s OK since I’m on the taper part of my program. I’ll do a bit more in the upcoming week and then it’s time to take it to the mountain in less than a week.

Life continues to be an emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs, fears and confidence. I’m just riding the waves and know that the upcoming week will be filled with celebration and good-byes. Excitement continues to sprout and I imagine it will blossom as I finally land in Kathmandu.

As you know, I am taking Flat Stanley to Mount Everest on behalf of the Grade Three class at Woodland Elementary School in Grand Falls-Windsor. Zachary Davis, a student in that class, dropped by my office with his dad to meet me. He brought a tape-recorder and conducted a most professional interview. He knew his classmates had some questions and so he wanted to bring the answers back. I gave him some prayer flags to take back to his school because they have a large Everest painted on the wall and I thought the prayer flags might be the finishing touch.

Saturday, Mrs. Stoodley, the teacher of the class came by the house to meet me. I loved hearing about how the school was embracing the climb. Like St. Francis of Assisi School in Outer Cover, they will move Flat Stanley up the mountain as the children complete physical activity. Her class held a gum drive to raise money for the expedition. Wow!

Summit Day Vigil

I have a request. I would ask that in whatever way you might do it, you would give thoughts and prayers for my safety while I am on the mountain. Some of my friends are going to keep a candle lit, others have a picture of me someplace they can see it, others will just call me to mind. I’ll be starting the trek to base camp on March 22.

Along with keeping me in mind for the whole climb, I would ask that those of you that are willing to hold vigil on the day/night I am going for the summit. Perhaps some of you might gather together and hold me in the Light or watch Everest TV shows or play a game of hockey but I am comforted by the idea that my friends and supporters will be gathered around me on that big day. IMG does its best to keep people informed during summit bids with frequent email updates. My summit bid will happen sometime during the last two weeks of May.
Contacting and Following TA on Everest

I hope to update my website daily if the technology cooperates. If you would like to send me an email while I am on the mountain, you can email me from my website or at taloeffler@yahoo.com. My site moderator will amalgamate all of the emails each day into one large email that I’ll download via my satellite phone. I won’t have the capacity to respond to individual emails but I will post answers to questions to my website.

You will continue to receive a weekly update via email. If you would like to receive more frequent postings, you can sign up at http://www.myeverest.com. I will be posting updates there as well and that site can accept comments and can email you whenever I post an update. The site will go live very soon and you can set up an account there if you wish.

TA’s FAQ’s

Here are some answers to the questions I most frequently get when I present to kids.

What does TA stand for?

Totally Awesome

When did you start climbing?

I started climbing trees when I was nine. I then moved onto climbing the garage, the house, rock cliffs, and eventually mountains. My high school had an outdoor pursuits club and that gave me the skills to begin my career as an outdoor educator.

Why do you climb mountains?

I climbed Denali because I needed a really big project in my life to throw my heart and soul into. After that experience and seeing how, by sharing my process, others were inspired, I’ve continued to climb and adventure as a way to move others and myself forward. When I climb to high places, I see my world and myself in new ways. Even when I return to sea level, I carry what I saw with me through the rest of my life. I also love living and adventuring outdoors–it’s when I feel most alive and most “me.”

How many mountains have you climbed? What is your favorite mountain that you have climbed?

Actually, I forgot to count. I figure I have climbed 40-50 mountains in total. Denali is my favorite mountain to date.

Will you be the first Newfoundlander to climb Mount Everest?

I usually answer this question by saying “I made a mistake at birth.” I was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta but now after 12 years in Newfoundland consider myself a NBC (Newfoundlander by Choice). As far as I know, I am the first person from our province to climb Mount Everest.

How do you train for Mount Everest?

I train 15-20 hours per week. I run, attend step aerobics with a pack, lift weights, do yoga and pilates, play hockey, ride my bike, and meditate. I train a few hours in the morning, at midday, and then in the evening.

How do you train and fundraise and still manage your job?

I don’t have much down time. I haven’t watched TV in four years. I multi-task. Sometimes I don’t get much sleep. Memorial University has been very supportive and my job allows me some flexibility in scheduling.

How much can you bench press and leg press?

I can bench press 160 pounds and leg press 750 pounds.

Have you always been fit?

I have always had a good level of fitness. When I started training for Denali, however, I had never been a runner. So I began by running one minute and walking one minute, running one minute and walking one minute. I then gradually increased the mileage until I was able to run more than 25 kilometers. Before Denali, I had never trained to the extend I do now. I am fitter now than ever before in my life.

How much does it cost to climb Mount Everest?

Mount Everest is an expensive mountain to climb. My budget is $60,000 which includes the Everest permit, outfitter fees, my personal Sherpa, satellite phone and airtime, gear, and travel.

Where do you get your equipment for the climb?

My gear came from many sources including my personal stash, Mountain Equipment Co-op, The Outfitters, and Arthur James. The new equipment I needed for Mount Everest cost about $6000.

How is your fundraising going?

I have raised about $29,000 thus far. I’m thankful to all of the folks who have supported Everest-007 on the grassroots level by buying t-shirts, toques, carabiners, attending public talks, and making donations. As of yet, I have secured relatively little corporate and no government funding. I’ve mortgaged the house to make up the shortfall for now.

Are you scared about climbing Mount Everest?

You betcha! Mount Everest is a mountain with many hazards. I have worked hard to develop a high level of fitness and skill that I hope will help keep me safe but there are no guarantees. I’m scared of the Khumbu icefall, the effects of extreme high altitude, and the traverse to the summit. I have learned to work with my fear and use it to practice good hazard management. All said though, I am both excited and scared.

Have you ever fallen into a crevasse or been in an avalanche?

Knock on wood. Neither my team nor myself has ever fallen into a crevasse or been in an avalanche.

Will you climb with oxygen?

I will use oxygen on my summit bid. Using oxygen reduces the chances of getting frostbite.

How long will it take you to climb Mount Everest?

I leave St. John’s on March 17 and will return during the first week in June. It takes two weeks to trek to base camp and six to eight weeks to climb Mount Everest.

What will you miss while you are on the mountain?

I will miss hockey! It seems just when I get my hockey legs back it’s time to go climb another mountain. I will also miss my friends, family, and Buddhist Sangha. I’ll miss the smell of the ocean and of course, I will miss Vanilla Dips!

What books are you taking to read on Mount Everest?

I’m taking Endurance, The Story of Shakleton’s Expedition, The Dairy of Anne Frank, Training the Mind, and Awakening the Buddha Within.

What will you do after Everest?

I plan to sit on the couch! After some couch time, I’ll see what comes next. At some point, I would like to complete my climbs of the Seven Summits. I still need to climb the “A” continents: Antarctica, Africa, and Australia. I also want to return to filmmaking and do a post Everest speaking tour.

Thanks for your continued support! I can’t believe it’s less than a week.

TA

Total Vanilla Dips the past week = 1.5, Total for the Climb = 41.25

Happy March 3/4/2007
March certainly came in like a lion around here! I had students out in some of the stormiest weather yesterday afternoon! I was very proud of them as they put all of their semester’s learning to the test while digging out their quinzhees in some ferocious blowing snow. I tramped from quinzhee to quinzhee checking in on each group as the afternoon wore on and the snow piled higher. I pitched my megamid thinking I would sleep there but given the big gusty winds, I played hermit crab and dug out one of the leftover “snow balls” from the trip three weeks ago and crawled into through the small hold to make my home for the night.

I brought my Everest North Face Himalayan down suit to try out–the stormy conditions were a perfect trial. Looking slightly like a cross between Big Bird and the Michelin Man, I waddled warmly from group to group. I really felt like I was cheating but it was great to try it out. I made my first excretions through the “rainbow zipper”– how amazing not to bare my bottom to the howling wind.

I felt like I was transported back to childhood and the infamous “snow suits” that all Canadian children of my generation went outside to play in. In my entire school career, we never had a snow day or recess cancelled because of weather–we just bundled up and went outside in all conditions. I do remember once, freezing my hands pretty good in grade five because I was punting a football at recess in minus 20 degree temps and preferred my bare hands to gloves because I could kick the ball further. Perhaps, this all explains a few things.

You have all heard, “Be careful what you wish for–you might get it.” I thought to myself, “High up on mountains, folks often sleep in their down suits–perhaps I should try sleeping in mine.” About an hour after that thought, a student came by saying that she’d ended up with a scrap of a sleeping bag instead of one of the school’s new winter bags. I paused and thought. I quickly realized that I needed to give her either my down suit or my sleeping bag…since I was currently snuggly in my suit-she got the minus 29 summit series sleeping bag. I got my hood, my summit gloves, and my boots. She had a toasty night. I missed having covers.

I crawled into my quinzhee and pulled on my neck gaitor, positioned my hood, and put my backpack over my pad where my boots would lay. I’d taken my big Everest boots on the trip as well because I’d had to replace the pair I’d taken on Aconcagua because of a zipper issue. They didn’t have my exact size to send back so I had to go up one size. I’m happy to report that the new ones will work fine (which is good because there is no other option). Anyway, it was funny to be trying to sleep with no covers, big boots, and a fluffy hood. I curled up and was mostly pretty warm through the night and getting up in the morning was simplified since there was no warm bag to have to get out of into the cold.

Those of us who braved the freezing drizzle to get the campfire going were treated to a spectacular view of the lunar eclipse. The clouds parted just in time for us to see the moon return after its time of darkness. The tiny sliver of light seemed to penetrate the sky to land right on the freshly fallen snow. A rare glimpse of skyward magic heightened by the contrast from the brutal weather earlier in the day. Flat Stanley who came on the overnight again was struck speechless by it all!

This week time seemed to speed up once again and I’m worried that the to do list seems to be getting longer instead of shorter. I had some good success with the PDA and learning to post to the myeverest website. If you’d like to get daily reports from the mountain, you can go to http://www.myeverest.com and sign up to receive emails when I post to the site. My website will also be updated daily or close to it and Judy Cumby will still send out weekly updates or more frequently when exciting things happen (like I reach base camp, my first trip to the ice fall, etc.). My expedition will also be covered by Everestnews.com and Alan Arnette’s Everest site. If the technology cooperates, I should be able to send reports and pictures from almost anywhere on the mountain.

As many of you know, the Omamobile is covered in bumper stickers. I have a new thermos and new duffle bags I’m taking to Everest. They seem so fresh and new that I was thinking that they might need some stickers to liven them up-so if you have any fun or inspiring stickers lying around–send them my way-they help me think of you as I climb.

I spoke to a few more schools this past week. There are a few precious moments to report. I often use the metaphor that we all have an inner puffer fish that blows up inside us and pokes us until we pay attention to our dreams/passions. So at an elementary school on Friday during the question and answer period at the end, a fifth grade girl put up her hand and said incredulously, “So ALL of this was because of puffer fish?” When I asked the group, “What is your Everest?” A young one in Kindergarten put up her hand and beamed, “My Everest is to be a butterfly.” Out of the mouths of babes!

I have one last big week of speaking at schools-eight more this week with a road trip to Placentia on Tuesday. Not sure much will get removed from the to do list this week. It’s also my last big week of training-that’s hard to believe! Eighteen months of sustained training is almost coming to an end-that means I must be going to EVEREST!

Eek. Double eek. I actually still have trouble saying that out loud. Denial is easier. I manage my fear and anxiety by breaking it down into steps/phases. I currently think of it as trekking into base camp. Then it will be climbing Island Peak. Then the first big trip through the Ice Fall. Then I might need to give up the denial 🙂 and actually face/accept/celebrate/imagine that I am actually going to climb Everest. I struggle to find the words to describe how my mind works with all this at the moment.

I do know that all the signs are starting to point towards a rapidly approaching departure…I’m off to play my second last Sunday hockey game before leaving, I sat my second to last meditation sitting this morning, I’m scheduling dinners and breakfasts with friends, these are all signals to me that transition will soon be upon me and I’ll be back in Kathmandu very soon.

Thanks to all for your well wishes, good thoughts, inspirational sayings, and prayers. I’m going to need them all. And thank you for coming along on this journey with me–I can’t imagine doing it without you.

TA

Total Vanilla Dips the past week = 1, Total for the Climb = 39.75

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Everest-007 February 2007

Posted on February 28, 2007 by TA Loeffler

Happy It’s Almost March 2/25/2007
For those of you outside St. John’s, you might not know that we were hammered here by a huge storm on Monday night that brought close to 2 feet of snow overnight. Shoveling was the order of the week and everyone seemed to think it would be excellent training for me if I did all their shoveling. I mostly answered with “shoveling is the one thing I don’t feel like I need to practice.”

I was thankful that the snow had the decency to hold off and let my fundraising event go forward. It went really well. The new show was very well received and Greg’s film was fabulous. All in all a very successful evening and a huge sense of relief when it was done as it had been a big bunch of work to pull off. I started using some of the new material I created in school presentations this week. I love watching the audience reactions to various part of the show-always relieved when they laugh at what I think the funny parts are. Thanks to all who attended the show and to those who purchased tickets that enabled some young people to attend.

I end each presentation with a question and answer session and I am always amazed at some of the astute questions that kids ask. I spoke to over 800 kids this week bringing the total number of kids reached directed by Everest-007 to around 5400. I’m guessing that number will reach 10,000 before I get on the plane on March 17. I get the sweetest emails from some of them. Here’s one from a Grade Four student:

Hi, TA I’m from Holy Cross Elem. school and you did a presentation at my school a few days ago. The last thing you said to us was “What is your Everest?” My Everest is to be a teacher. Some of the teaches in my school have inspired me. I would like to teach so I could touch children’s lives. Good luck!

Here’s where you can read more of them: http://taclimbsdenali.com/messages.asp

The snowstorm facilitated some much needed time at home for me and I did the first round of gear organization for packing. I have a bedroom dedicated to my Everest gear. I’m started to amass it all in one spot, check the lists over and over again, wait for gear to arrive via post, make shopping lists, etc. With the luxury of time at home, time seemed to slow this week and it began to look possible that I might be ready to go when the time comes.

There continues to be hundreds of details of take care of, hours of training to put in, leads to follow up, and website updates to do. I’m eager for my PDA to arrive this week so I can start patching all the tech pieces together that will allow me to cybercast off the mountain.

I attended a Buddhist training workshop this weekend. The timing was perfect. The mountains have been a critical part of my Buddhist path and my Buddhist path has been a critical part of my mountaineering. It is often on the mountains that I get an embodied learning of the Buddhist dharma (teachings). So I was eager for the workshop and the teachings it would bring. We spoke of daring, being a warrior, and about Right Effort.

I’ve been thinking much about effort and exertion of late. I continue to feel like the training path has been long. Over the past months, I’ve become more aware of what I’ve given up to follow the Everest path and on occasion, my mind drifts to post Everest life where time may be more spacious and I won’t have to ration my couch time. Right Effort has to do with discipline and gentleness and being present and going with flow-not pushing through but moving with grace and spontaneity. A good teaching as I ready for departure. Like Aconcagua, Everest will be a marathon. It doesn’t really matter what shape I start the expedition in, what matters is the shape I am in eight weeks in when summit week comes into clear view.

It is then that I must be rested, healthy, motivated, clear, determined, and full of will power. Patience. Compassion. Humility. These will be critical parts of my Everest path. Add a dose of Courage. Lose several doses of ego. Add generosity. Stir in bunches of motivation and a dollop of fearlessness. Mix. Bake. Freeze. Bake. Freeze. Protect with baby butt cream. Be open to the path, make the path the goal, listen for messages, and go gently forth with joy and gratitude for the opportunity.

My friend and AppleCore mentor Wilma wrote Tim Horton’s a few weeks back suggesting they come on board as a sponsor. They wrote back this week saying that they get hundreds of such requests and they would pass on the idea to their marketing folks. Most everyone says to me at some point that Tim’s should be my sponsor since I love Vanilla Dips so much (I did visit Tim’s three time on Thursday around the various school visits).

Anyway, along with the note saying “no”, they did send $10 in Tim’s Gift Certificates so you may all want to write Tim’s and tell them your version of the Vanilla Dip Queen story. At worst, you’ll get no reply and at best, at some point they may come on board as a way to stop hearing so much about the wild Newfoundland woman who loves colorful sprinkled donuts. Write to Paul House at house_paul@timhortons.com. This week it took until Thursday evening until a Vanilla Dip crossed my lips.

Some weeks I can turn over the writing of the weekly update to competent hands. This week I was on the cover of The Express, the weekly I write a column for biweekly. Kim Kielley did a fine piece about my preparations for Everest as well as the influence of Buddhism on my climbing. Here’s what she wrote and here’s the URL where you can find it on the web: http://www.theexpress.ca/index.php (click the cover story)

It is a real gift to inspire and motivate other people.
And that is a gift TA Loeffler endeavours to share when she speaks.
The adventurer, educator and motivational speaker tries to ignite others into believing in themselves.

Loeffler, once dubbed Newfoundland and Labrador’s most adventurous woman, is climbing Mount Everest in less than a month.

It is the greatest mountaineering mission this 40-something MUN professor of outdoor education has undertaken. She has already climbed Mount Elbrus, Aconcagua, Denali (or McKinley). Everest will be the fourth of the seven summits she intends to reach. (These summits are the highest peaks on each of the seven continents.)

On the Everest mission, Loeffler must take a page from her own book and inspire herself. A 29,035-foot mountain is no place to lose your nerve or stop believing in yourself.

The physical regime to prepare her body for Everest is grueling and, to the layperson, borders on cruel.
On average, she works out four to five hours per day for four weeks straight (she rests on the fifth week). She runs, lifts weights and deprives her lungs of oxygen during hypoxic training sessions to artificially create the high altitude and low oxygen of Everest. She plays hockey, too. Combine all this training with her teaching and speaking schedule and she is fortunate to squeeze in six-and-a-half hours of sleep a day.

Much of Loeffler’s drive stems from her spirituality. She is Buddhist and embraces the teachings of her faith in a way that makes everyday occurrences life lessons. “In some ways,” she says, “the mountains and the Buddhism have gone hand in hand. It’s also my Buddhist path.” Loeffler says she spoke with her Buddhist teacher in October after coming back from Elbrus, Russia, the highest peak in Europe at 18,540 feet. In some ways, she says he gave her permission to have “the mountaineering at the moment, to be my Buddhist path.

“Because I was struggling to get all my meditation in and I wasn’t reading as much Dharma as I should be.”
As an example of how she links her beliefs and exploits, Loeffler explains how she considered climbing with a rope team up Mount McKinley (also known as Denali) as a lesson in Buddhism. “You have to travel linked together. We were worried about crevasse falls. In Buddhism, there’s a concept that in our existences, we are both alone and we are together. We are both having to do this life, this path, this existence.

“We were 50 feet apart. We were very alone. We couldn’t talk with each other. But we had to move in step because that’s the only way that it works. “So you’re having to keep your rope at the exact tension. You don’t want it too loose and you don’t want it too tight, which is another Buddhist lesson. It’s not too tight, not too loose. You’re trying to find the middle path. “So there I was, desperately alone, in my head, breathing hard, taking the steps, but then having the sense that I was together with these people on my rope team, with the people on my expedition. And it was that moment of realization of both of those things at the same time. It was just like, ‘I get it.’ ”
On that expedition, Loeffler continues, if they all didn’t get to the summit, then no one got to the summit.
“Each one of them (the mountains) has taught me different Buddhist lessons,” Loeffler says. “If people are astute and step back when I’m doing my presentation, I’m actually sharing those Buddhist lessons, just not using Buddhist words.”

The Alberta native and bi-weekly ex/press columnist says with a chuckle that she “has been a Buddhist anywhere from 25 to two years.” It was in 2004, while in the middle of a mid-life crisis, that she revisited the religion. Then in April 2005, Loeffler took the vow to become a Buddhist.

“You have to participate in a refuge ceremony. You get a new name. My Buddhist name is Tsultrimygya. It means disciplined, great vision. The teacher you take the vow with is the person who gives you your name.
“It describes your path. And he saw my path as one of using great discipline to give great vision.” Once the vow is taken, Loeffler explains, being a Buddhist is basically dedicating your life to the service of others, hopefully assisting everyone towards their own enlightenment.

That’s why tackling Mount Everest this spring is about more than just climbing a mountain, she says.
“That’s where the idea of more than a mountain came out. It’s more than me. In some ways, I feel like, if I wasn’t reaching out to kids and adults with the adjunct things to the expedition, I might not have kept climbing. That’s where the deeper motivation was coming from.”

No longer could she say, with any conviction, that she would climb Everest ‘if ‘ she got the money. “(I) set the path in place for being able to go to Everest and basically decided to do whatever it took to be able to go. Someone did say, ‘If you’re not willing to take this huge risk, then why should anybody else?’ ”

And while lack of money is one hurdle she must overcome (she’s $30,000 short of her $65,000 goal and is less than a month before she leaves for Nepal March 17) death is also on her mind.
“I have to step over the remains of other mountaineers. Of course, I’m scared. There’s a Buddhism saying, ‘Death comes without warning.’ I want to be paying attention. My mission is to inspire people. I don’t want kids to have to deal with their hero dying. I am thoughtful to this.”

While fund-raising isn’t her forte, Loeffler hopes people from this province will support her and buy a foot at a time to cover her 29,035 foot climb to the summit. (To offer support, visit the web/link below.) She hopes her trek will benefit future generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. She wants children to believe in themselves.

“The mission is about inspiring youth,” she says confidently.

Thanks,

TA

Total Vanilla Dips the past week = 1, Total for the Climb = 38.75

Happy VD Day to Everyone, 2/16/2007
Yes, I did receive a Vanilla Dip for Valentine’s Day! All three Vanilla Dips this week were gifts. My rate of consumption has risen considerably of late but perhaps that is because I am banking edible prayer flags for the journey to Nepal. Once in Nepal, I’ll be able to stock up once again on real ones. I am once again willing to bring back prayer flags for folks at a cost of $25 per string of 25 prayer flags. Let me know before I go if you’d like to order a set or six.

Another busy week is coming quickly to a close. I’m writing my update early to make one more plug for my last fundraising event on Sunday evening at 7:30 pm at the INCO theatre on the MUN campus. I’ve been burning the midnight oil polishing the new show and have enjoyed revisiting and reflecting on the road that has led me to be leaving for Everest in four short weeks. I’ve had fun pushing “Keynote” the presentation software I use to the limits of its ability (as well as my laptop’s) and expressing my creativity been joyful as well. Please join me for TA’s Road to Everest-007 if you can. Thanks to those who bought tickets to enable kids to attend in your place.

I spoke at several schools again this week and I loved some of the messages the kids sent me afterward. I’ll share two of them here:

I really liked the pressentation that you did today in our school it waz amazing. The funny picture that you had on the screen in our gym waz the one of you with the baby butt cream. I hope that you come to our school some other time and tell us all about the amazing hike that you went on Mount Everise. When I am older I want to be just like you climbing big humungas mountains. I loved the pictures that you showed us I hope you bring in some other good pictures too that are really funny.

This is a student from Holy Cross school wishing you good luck on your trip to Mount Everest. If i was you i would be jumping out of my socks because i would be soooo scared! You really dont know how lucky you are to have the courage to climb the largest mountain in the WORLD. Mount everest, WOW that is a huge mountain. Im getting scared just thinking about it. But me and my whole school are wishing the greatest for you. And i have this fantastic feeling that you are going to make it. Well when you have reached the top pleassssse come to Holy Cross Elemantary school and tell us about your great adventure. PS: we will be crossing our fingers for you , GOOD LUCK

It continues to be a challenge to fit everything that needs fitting into my days. It’s tempting to drop some training in the face of mounting to-do lists but I’m trying hard to stick to the plan. This week a few training things got left behind but I’m hoping to do better next week. I suspect the next four weeks will be a roller coaster of emotion as I make final preparations, start packing, and begin to say good-byes. I continue to vacillate between excitement and terror, energy and fatigue, focus and confusion, confidence and fear. I just wait patiently for the avalanches of feelings to wash over and then go about whatever it is I need to do.

My goal is to leave St. John’s reasonably relaxed and rested so I’ve decided to take no more speaking bookings until I return home. I have a few big writing projects to finish up and lots of logistics to think through.

I’m hoping some of you will send mail to me in Nepal. As you may know, I love to receive mail. They will bring mail into us at base camp a few times during the expedition. Here’s the address:

TA Loeffler (Everest expedition)
c/o Great Escapes Trekking
P.O. Box 9523
Kathmandu, Nepal

Please don’t send anything of value or that needs a customs declaration…your words, thoughts, encouragement, and news are all that need to go in the envelope. It takes about three weeks for mail to get to Nepal.

We made lots of updates to my website-there is a new section of Everest resources for kids, some Everest FAQ’s, and my Everest itinerary. Flat Stanley now has his own gallery as well. http://www.taloeffler.com

I’ll close this update for now. I’ll admit to being a bit pooped out and not at my most creative or reflective-my apologies…I used all that up in my presentation for Sunday. Thanks to Penny Cofield and Isabel Cumby for stalking my freezer with yummy healthy food this week, you’re the best!

I hope all is well with you,

TA

Total Vanilla Dips the past week = 3, Total for the Climb = 37.75

Greetings from a Bright Sunny Sunday 2/11/2007
I woke to beautiful winter light as I emerged from my megamid this morning. A megamid is a pyramid shaped nylon shelter with no floor. It’s great for winter camping since it pitches quickly and allows one access to the snow floor it’s erected on. The night air had been brisk but my new Everest sleeping bag was roomy, warm, and down-right cozy. I crawled into bed at about 8:30 pm and luxuriated in 10 hours of bag time, sleeping nearly all of it.

I was out with a group of students in the deep recesses of Pippy Park. They slept in quinzhees they built during the afternoon. The weather was fantastic with the occasional fit of flurries to keep us on our toes. Being out in the snow, of course, turned my thoughts to Everest and the challenges of living outside in the snow for eight weeks. On the winter overnights before Denali, I remember being scared by the cold I experienced during the overnight and wondered what it would be like to be out in the cold for five weeks. Now, several years later, that kind of cold doesn’t scare me anymore–it just reminds me to live mindfully on the mountain.

Flat Stanley arrived in St. John’s this week and began to prepare for his ascent of Everest. He accompanied my outdoor activities class on their winter overnight. He helped dig a quinzhee, cooked over a camping stove, and spend a warm night in his new sleeping bag. Stayed tuned in the coming weeks for more of Stanley’s training and adventures.

This past week was a rest week and like so many other rest weeks, it seemed to be full of life challenges that filled the space that training normally does. It’s almost as though the universe ramps up life during rest weeks to keep me on my toes. Once again, the sewer was up to its old tricks again by freezing and spewing nasty contents all over the back room. This go round however, my humor was harder to find and the resulting emotions harder to tame.

In the end though, I was grateful for the life lessons of staying with frustration, working through hard spots, and eventually finding humor is the darkest and dirtiest moments. It also seemed that I was learning lessons in how to ask for help this week. As I so profoundly said, “When’s it easy to ask for help, it’s easy. When it’s hard to ask for help, it’s hard.” The week gave me some practice in the later case.

Around Thursday, I my body caught up with enough rest and so resiliency began to rebuild in my body and soul. I began to wake before the alarm and I started to look forward to training again. That’s always a sign I look for to know I’ve had enough rest. It’s amazing to me that I have just one training cycle of four weeks remaining before I go…the last week will be another rest week (hopefully less eventful) to allow for packing and managing the 100’s of details that will need to get done before I go.

After a year of fundraising, I’m still a bit shy (30 grand) of my goal and so this week, I put the Newfoundland Tricolor flag that I carried to the summit of Aconcagua for sale on EBay. Bidding started at one dollar and it is now up to $66. You can bid on the flag at the URL: http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130076238793

As a result of a press release that I sent out about selling the flag, Jennifer Pelley wrote an article for the Grand Falls-Windsor Advertiser…you can read the article at this URL:
http://www.gfwadvertiser.ca/index.cfm?iid=2285&sid=18639

There are still tickets available for my show on February 18th at the INCO Theatre. Once again, I am collecting tickets for a youth group-so even if you can’t attend, you can buy a ticket an enable a young person to attend the show. Contact me if you’d like a ticket. The toques have sold out again but I’ve got lots of t-shirts and carabiners.

I visited the International Travel Clinic this week and was thrilled to learn that the only vaccination I had to update was typhoid. My satellite phone arrived and I’m hoping all the rest of the cybercasting gear arrives soon as well. My goal is to send an update off the mountain as close to daily as I can. At some point, I’ll organize a system for people to sign up for daily or weekly updates. There are so many details to organize over the next month that I fear they may begin leaking out of my ears.

Anyway, another week on the Road to Everest has unfolded…life is rich and full (which is my code word for just shy of overwhelming.) I feel like I’m juggling many balls in the air these days and I hope that I don’t drop too many of them–as it seems inevitable that some will fall. I vacillate between excitement and terror and am trying to find the middle way between the two. I’m guessing the next five weeks will be a roller coaster of emotions leading up to the Big E.

Thanks to all who are pitching in and lending various hands to Everest-007. It truly is taking a village to pull this off. School presentations are continuing at three or four per week and it’s hard to describe how amazing it is to watch the kids respond to the photographs and stories. Reaching out to kids is what is keeping me going right now. I hope all is well with you. Take care. Drop me a line about what you are up to…

With gratitude,

TA

Total Vanilla Dips the past week = 3.75, Total for the Climb = 34.75

Newfoundland Tricolor For Sale on EBay 2/5/2007
I leave for Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world, in six weeks. After a year of fundraising efforts, I am still $30,000 short of paying for the expedition. As a result, I have placed the Newfoundland Tricolor flag I carried to the summit of Aconcagua in December of 2006 on auction at EBay. I hope that there will be great interest in owning this flag given its potential for becoming a collector’s item. The flag is item 130076238793 and can be found at http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=003&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=130076238793&rd=1&rd=1.

You can see a picture of the flag on EBay or in the Road to Everest Photo Gallery: http://taclimbsdenali.com/dynamic_photos.asp?strAdventure=everest.

Let the bidding begin!

Thanks,

TA

Happy Six Weeks from Today I Leave Day 2/3/2007
I was supposedly taking students out winter camping this weekend but given it rained all night and it is supposed to rain much of today and tonight, I get to write to you instead. Instead of “sleeping inside a snowball” as my students call it, I get to catch my breath after an insanely busy week (even by my standards). I’m in my fourth week of training and the cumulative fatigue usually catches up and bites me right about now. Fortunately, the training plan allows schedules a rest week for when the fatigue dog bites and so next week my training hours will be significantly reduced.

There is only one more training cycle left between Everest and I. One more time through the Cosmic Yang and I’ll be pulled out of the oven and left to cool. Some days, these days, I declare, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done.” I did a VO2 max test the week before last and got the results this week. Fabien, my colleague who did the test and who is helping me with the hypoxic training, declared as a result of the test that, “You are ready for the big peak.” That’s been my sense of late but nice to have it confirmed by objective numbers. My goal for the last phase of training is to maintain what I’ve got, perhaps eek out a few more strength gains and maybe a more cardio fitness before heading to Nepal for the ultimate VO2 max test.

I also decided this week to climb Island Peak in Nepal as part of my acclimatization for Everest. It is 6180 metres high (very similar to Denali) and provides amazing views of Mount Everest. Depending on how things go, this climb can either spare me a trip through the dreaded and feared Khumbu Icefall or at the very least, will make my first passage through the icefall easier because I will be better acclimatized. What this means is that I will trek to Everest base camp, rest a few days, participate in the Puja ceremony and then trek back down the valley a ways to climb Island Peak. I’ll return to base camp a week better acclimatized and the route through the icefall should be ready for my to make my first foray through it. Here’s a link to an expedition that climbed Island Peak in 2005. http://www.nus.edu.sg/everest/newsflash/islandpeak.htm.

This was also an exciting week because I picked up my North face down suit and minus forty-degree sleeping bag from The Outfitters. They helped me acquire these high altitude specialty items. I will be making an appearance at the Aliant Winterlude tomorrow and I’m hoping that the temperature drops a bunch so I can wear the suit! It’s yellow so you might mistake me for Big Bird!

The Fog Devil’s hockey organization asked me to drop the puck at the game on Friday night. They were having Lady’s Night at the game and wanted a cool lady to drop the puck. It was very exciting to step out in front of the crowd. The game announcer told the crowd that the Newfoundland flag I was carrying was the same one that had been to the summit of Denali and Aconcagua and that I was hoping to take it to the summit of Everest. The Fog Devil’s team stood up and was joined in many the crowd-I was very touched by the gesture. They also put the Everest-007 logo on the scoreboard. You can see pictures at http://taclimbsdenali.com/dynamic_photos.asp?strAdventure=everest.

As I write this, I am realizing that it was a big week for many things coming together. A Grade Three class from central Newfoundland asked me several weeks ago if I would be willing to take Flat Stanley along to Mount Everest. Flat Stanley is a storybook character who had a bulletin board fall on him and left him flat enough to travel by envelope. Like myself, Flat Stanley loves to travel and see the world. He brings backs stories and pictures from his adventures. The teacher had an artist do a rendition of a Newfoundland Flat Stanley and he will travel attached to my expedition clothing. You can see Flat Stanley’s picture at http://taclimbsdenali.com/dynamic_photos.asp?strAdventure=everest.

Because Everest is such an arduous mountain, Flat Stanley will be undertaking a rigorous training program between now and then. He’s also hoping to have a website during the expedition. You can learn more about Flat Stanley at http://www.flatstanley.com/. This week we received copyright permission from Flat Stanley’s publisher so now we publicly announce that Flat Stanley and I will be climbing partners.

I also took the big step this week to order the satellite phone and associated technology to allow me to cybercast off the mountain. It’s been a long haul of learning about all of the options and sorting through which one made most sense in terms of features and cost. It was a substantial investment but I look forward to communicating with all of you and the youth of Newfoundland and Labrador throughout the expedition. Thanks to those to responded to my request for satellite airtime. I’ll be in touch soon with the details.

Thursday I appeared on the new TV show, Living Newfoundland. We shot the piece about two weeks ago. You can watch the entire episode on-line by clicking here: http://www.cbc.ca/livingnl/?page=segment&sid=637. I’m in the first segment of the show so I’m easy to find and you’ll get to see me training on the hypoxia machine and climbing some stairs.

Speaking of stairs, we launched the MUN Everest-007 Stair Climbing challenge this week as well. For the month of February (heart month), we’re hoping that individuals and/or teams of folks will take the stairs more often and try to reach of the summit of Mount Everest by using the stairs. There is no cost to participate and even if you don’t live in Newfoundland, you can jump on board and climb some stairs. See this website for details: http://www.mun.ca/humanres/wellness/stairway_challenge_2007.php.

I did several presentations this week to diverse groups of people. Wednesday I spoke at a 30-year employee appreciation luncheon. Thursday I spoke at a Planner’s Platter luncheon and then to the most wonderful group of girl guides and Friday I launched the Stairway to Health project. Slot all those in around some training and teaching and I can see why I’m a little pooped out come Saturday. I do love doing the presentations, especially the ones for kids-they ask the best questions!

I received my latest Everest-007 toque order and they are selling fast–I only have 14 left. Let me know if you’d like one before they all disappear. They are $15. T-shirts have also started to move and they are $20. Carabiners are $5. I’ve still got some tickets for the Feb. 18th show-bring a few friends and make a night of it.

Lastly for this week…a few other ways to help…if you have some digital memory lying around the house because you bought a new card for your digital camera-let me know. I’m looking for Sony memory stick or memory stick pro and for compact flash cards. I’ll use them to store photographs and data during the expedition. I could also use some hand and toe warmers (the ones you shake and they get warm) and energy bars/gels such as Clif bars, Power bars, or Gu.

I hope your week went well. I will confess that after my workout on Thursday that I ventured to Tim’s and they had a Chocolate Dip Donut with Sprinkles. Giving my love of chocolate, I thought it might have potential to dethrone the Vanilla Dip as “Donut of the Decade” but fear not–it was nowhere near the religious experience!

The sun has just ventured forth and I’m wondering what I’m doing sitting here writing instead of heading out to my snowball but like everything else, weather is impermanent.

Have fun and take care,

TA

Total Vanilla Dips the past week = 1, Total for the Climb = 31

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