Everest One Year On

It's hard to believe that one year ago to the day, I was standing on the roof of the world, watching the sun rise on a windless, cloudless and beautiful morning. So today on a day of reflection, I can't help but note how fast time can slide by.

On May 21st 2008, our team found itself in the thick of it. Pushing forward, one step at a time, we experienced the thrills of the climb in a manner where I had to catch myself on occasion and be reminded that like everything, it was not forever. One day, the climb would end and everything would become a memory. I wrote down everything I could, took pictures at every opportunity, and pressed myself to make the most of the experience. Largely, it worked and the memories remained intact. Giving slide shows or telling stories continues to remain as exciting for me now as the day I first placed foot on the Khumbu Icefall.

But now there is a new set of climbers, a new set of teams. It is their time, their turn. Beginning in March, I have been reading their stories one at a time as they have worked toward the summit. Some echo similar experiences to those our team faced. Many are new, steeped in human interaction and uniqueness. I want them to succeed, have their experiences, reap their rewards, and then return home safely.

So there I am- reading blogs, tracking the progress of my friends. Many have already summited- this years push happened a few days earlier than last year. The weather was a little warmer, the snowfall a little more irregular. These teams didn't have to face the threat of a Chinese blockade that forced slow progress to higher camps, but they did have their own challenges. I'm proud of them, and once again of the clear-cut display of human spirit that comes shining through as people defy a host of obstacles and overcome.

So it has been an interesting ride, and today of all days there are many things going through my head. Emotionally, it is a strange feeling to be sure. I can close my eyes and vividly recall my own experiences. I am there, in spirit. I crave to be back.

So long for now, heated toilet

Few things in the world can bring such placid moments as a heated toilet seat that also allows one to use a bidet, vibrate, and for those less private moments emit an electronically initiated flushing noise. What happens when you become used to such pleasures and then have them taken away? Toilet withdrawal.


During the last two days of our time in Tokyo, we ran around, checked out some familiar sites and stumbled across some new ones.

One of the first stops was Edo Museum- located right next to the Sumo Hall at Ryogokyu Station. For 600 Yen, you can ascend six stories to the spacious viewing floors and check out all sorts of cool exhibits from mustachioed Samurai armor to replica dioramas of ancient Edo settlements (complete with little binoculars to look out across all the tiny people and buildings).



We then had a really nice tie-in of all things Japan: a wide variety of wood cutting prints showing sakura blossoms and iconic snow-capped Fuji- our winter nemesis- decked out in tons of color. From Edo Museum this was a solid transition into sakura blossoms alongside the Imperial Palace and Yasakuni Shrine.

Alongside the Imperial Palace and located midway to the Tokyo Station railway stop is one of my favorite statues- this being of the brilliant tactician and loyal Samurai Kusunoki Masashige. Masashige is known for giving his life in protection of the Emperor during the 14th Century:

"During an internal power struggle, the Emperor insisted that Kusunoki meet another Shogun's superior forces in the field in a pitched battle. Kusunoki, in what would later be viewed as the ultimate act of samurai loyalty, obediently accepted his Emperor's foolish command, left his death poem with his young son and knowingly marched his army into almost certain death. The battle, which took place in modern-day Kobe, was a tactical disaster. Kusunoki, his army completely surrounded, committed suicide along with 600 of his surviving troops. According to legend, his last words were Shichisei Hōkoku! (七生報國; "Would that I had seven lives to give for my country!")"- Wikipedia

And then it was time to go. Off to Narita we went complete with tons and tons of bags. Reid, Hiromi, Schactler and Peterson all surprised me with a birthday cake at the airport, which was a complete surprise and flattering to say the least.

Then we processed through customs, had some last minute sushi, a last glimpse for now at cool & campy Japanese signs. And then Japan slipped beneath the wing of our 777 bound for Seattle.

I'll miss you heated toilet.

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Fugu & Sakura

Yesterday we walked around and went to various shrines and temples in the greater Tokyo area.

First stop was Ueno Park, where cherry blossoms (sakura) are almost in full bloom. You can tell that in about 2 or 3 days, these blossoms are going to go bat crazy and explode with an array of pinks and whites that make the Washington DC Tidal Basin seem like the kid brother who wants to play on the basketball team.

Because of the Sakura festival underway, oodles of foodstalls and vendors come out to ply their wares and sell goods. 99% are legit, some are your standard scam artists that we had a fun time calling out at one point. This is one vendor that didn't get a sale from us:

At the Kaminarimon Shrine with giant chochin, Asakusa is one of the more traditional areas of Tokyo to visit, and it's throngs of tourists makes it easy to see that it is as popular as it is busy. And why not? These shrines were one of the first places I visited in Tokyo, and I routinely come back here to bring people new to the city. It is literally chock full of shops, chotchkie stores and kitsch, but you can still find a nugget of gold nestled away in one of the hundreds of shops selling Japan keychains, replica swords, mochi, Godzilla figurines and Ninja facemasks.

By the senso-ji shrine, Schactler tried again, for the second year in a row, to get a good fortune. This is where you place your luck in the hands of an obscure metal box that you spin until a thin piece of wood akin to a chopstick comes out. On it, you read a number and pull a piece of paper out of a similarly numbered drawer. This, then, is your fortune. As we all learned, there are several layers of fortune: Supreme Good Luck, Good Luck, Moderate Luck, Luck, and Bad Luck. Schactler tried twice, and both times ended up with Bad Luck fortunes.

Given that our next stop was to eaf Fugu (blowfish), we thought it wise to make sure the waitress was aware of this, and to ask the chef to be extra special careful with the cuts made on his blowfish.

So off we went, to Akasaka (not Asukasa.. Akasaka) to eat up on our fugu meal. Tucked away in an obscure side alley, we found our store- it's sort of hard to miss if you are searching for it, given that massive blowfish replica on top of the store and a hundred odd fugu swimming around aimlessly in a tank wondering what happened to Bob and Joe, who were just there with them until a minute ago.

So while the sashimi comes out and is the version that is considered the most likely to inflict harm on a person eating it, there was one dish - a shabu shabu version that hit our table and was so fresh that chunks of meat were actually still twitching from where the poor fish was wriggling up until about 5 minutes earlier. That fresh.. crazy.

While everyone got out of there in one piece, one guy said that he felt his lips turn numb, and two eaters lips literally and honestly turned blue. I wish I were kidding about this, but it's the truth. Crazy stuff, but still quite an experience to remember.

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Fuji Return

Heisman'ed again.. That's all I can say.

But even with a turnback, it wasn't something this team wasn't aware of. After all, each person on this team had been turned back at least once already, so we all went into it fully aware of what winter Fuji could (and did) throw at us.

After doing battle with some park ranger who did a fantastic job of convincing us that we weren't allowed to go forward (in his mind, essentially saving us from ourselves)- only to learn in hindsight that he really couldn't tell us, just warn us.. we found another route and continued on. Making a nice spot and bedding down, we all fell asleep like kings. But to show just how dramatically this old joker threw us off, I superimposed our route, turnaround points and how far we had to go out of our way once we encountered our setback:

At 7am we kicked it and made solid progress until about 9am, when a storm brewed basically out of nowhere. We were all excited because up until that point we truly all thought that we were going to summit this time. Then clouds moved in, and then a storm started dumping snow along with 75mph winds. We found a shelter at one point to try and hunker down out of the wind, and that worked for a few minutes until we all started getting cold- temps dipped to -20.

It was at this point that one of our team started feeling ill and essentially passed on the summit push. This is always the right thing to do, but unfortunately too many people can fall victim to "Summit Fever" and ignore all of the warning signs. With wind whipping around corners, snow whiting out even the small area we were holed up in, we made a call. I had already been up this part of Fuji in the summer months and knew the trail, having way-pointed it up and down in my GPS. But I also knew where I had placed the wands and knew the trail that I had led the team up, so I offered to take our one teammate down while the remaining 3 attempted to push higher.

The two of us sticking close together as we navigated the wands off of the snow field, we looked back and for only a brief second saw the rest of the team heading higher and quickly disappearing into the blizzard of white. On our way down, I noticed that the winds were strong enough that the marker wands placed on the way up were knocked over, so if that GPS failed...oohh nellie.

Fortunately, it didn't. The remaining 3 teammates moved farther up the mountain and made another thousand feet when this freight train of wind hit so hard that the whole team was literally flattened. At 7,000', this wind was strong enough to make me worry about the others, but for them the wind gusts were severe enough that they understood they had reached their turnaround point. Many of the wands placed to mark the route had been knocked over, so in a whiteout like we had it was a bit of a challenge given none of our original tracks were there- washed over with new snow and wind. So use of the GPS was critical, and through this tool they navigated themselves back down to where we were located and the whole team was together again.

It took about three hours to get back to the car, where we grounded our gear, loaded up and headed straight to McDonalds for a hearty meal. On the way home, Dana was A-driving and stayed awake with me while everyone in the back slept like champs. We finally made it back to Tokyo last night around 10pm and slept for close to 12 hours.

It was only after returning to the warm and safe confines of our downtown hotel room that we began the "what if" conversations. But like last year, this weather was so extreme, and so strong that there really wasn't much debate on the right course of action- and we had taken it. Even if that damned park ranger hadn't stopped us and made us go around, we would even now still be stuck on the Fuji Subaru Line trying to figure out how to get our car out- the road is still snowed in and closed 2 days later. I guess everything happens for a reason.

So, there's always next year.. or even before that if timing works out.

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Tokyo walkaround & prep for tomorrow

Today we spent the day walking around Tokyo, picking up last minute items, doing some shopping, and generally having fun. One of my favorite hobbies whenever visiting Tokyo is to pick out all of the great signage and ads to see how creative one can get with them:

As usual, we spent a great deal of time zipping around the city via subway, where we had some fun and entertained other riders.

We also walked from Roppongi down to Tokyo Tower, where we rode up the shoe box sided elevator to the very top, which was swaying like mad from winds. It was a nice reminder of where we are headed tomorrow, and how buffeted we are going to be when at 12,000' and completely exposed.

Tokyo Tower is the highest point in Tokyo, so you get quite a view from the top. We did come across this one great sign embossed on the bannister, which directs you to Mt Fuji way off in the distance. Wow, how great, we all thought and gazed out at a snow-capped mountain that was plainly visible. Then two thoughts raced through my head: (1) Wow, that's alot of snow we are going to have to hump through, and (2) why is the sign in braille?

After a great team dinner of oysters and extremely delicious Japanese food, we all returned to Hardy Barracks where we packed and prepared. We also found a website that had some recent pictures of the Fuji Subaru Line above 4th Station, where we plan to park our van and begin our assault on the mountain:

Snow. Lots of it. That means snowshoes from the get-go, and slow going the whole way up. It also means being extra vigilant for snow conditions. One last check of the forecast revealed this:

Temps are dropping like a rock again, and winds aren't showing much relief. This is going to be a slow and cold experience. Because of that, our gear is overflowing with what we are bringing- and that = heavy packs.


Oh well, it's going to be fun for sure- we are all completely excited!

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