Kevin's Everest tales

A mountaineering tale that you might not want to hear and more!

text by Kevin Moore

Kevin joined the 2006 Everest expedition and was a good teammate.
He was wise enough to turn around when he reached his limit.

The inevitable slide show question

Kevin tells his wife about these things that everyone wants to know but is afraid to ask.

Hey Lisa!,

I feel that it is my duty to send this particular e-mail to you and anyone on your forwarding list so that I might shed some light on the realities of mountaineering and thus be of some service to humanity. Perhaps the following accounts will help extinguish any lingering romantic notions that some may have about climbing large mountains. (Please note: The squeamish are best advised to go read something else).

So there I was on the North Col of Mt. Everest the other day (elevation 23,000ft) in what was essentially an acclimation hike, when I felt that most natural of impulses to evacuate my bowels. Under normal circumstances, this is no big deal, but when it is blowing snow outside, and one has suffered an on-going case of the "Tibetan Two-Step", such a bodily function takes on an immediate urgency.

I was alone in a small dome tent that was being partially used as a Sherpa storage tent for breakfast foods in what was rapidly becoming a desperate situation. There was no time to put on my liner boots, plastic overboots, parka, gore-tex bibs, gloves, etc. and make it outside to hang my behind over the yawning abyss of the designated crevasse and relieve myself, so I began looking around the inside of the tent in a mild panic.

My intense gaze brought me upon a box of cereal. The box of cereal looked back up at me as if to say, "What?!!" Quick as a cat, I snatched the innocent from among his fellows and promptly removed the inner plastic bag containing the grains. Then, in a 'MacGyver' inspired stroke of genius, I ripped the box into a small tray configuration complete with spatter-resistant sides (the narrow box ends that say, "Nutritional Information-Questions? Comments?-phone etc, etc.), and proceeded to do my urgent business in a well-targeted squat position. AHHHHH!!!

For me - MONSTROUS RELIEF! - for the box? - the ultimate disrespect. Upon completion of the necessary paperwork, I carefully folded my prize into a tidy satchel and then placed it outside the back door of the tent to freeze almost instantly. Ouila! (Martha Stewart would be so proud!). A little Purell hand-sanitizer and I was good to go! (after becoming solid as a rock, and I was dressed to go outside, into the crevasse it flew).

Later on, I informed my fellow teammate Frederick (from Sweden) of my dire predicament and cereal box salvation. Fred, who has many high-altitude summits around the world to his credit, was quick to let me know that I was very lucky to have a piece of cardboard laying about. His story: "We were on an expedition to climb Dhaulagiri and were stuck in our tents for ten days in a raging storm. The winds were so strong we thought we were going to die! There was no going outside for any reason at all; we were forced to line our hands with toilet paper and....."

So on these cheerful notes I shall sign-off, my dear, in the sincere hope that you never take up mountaineering.

Your Husband, Kevin

Full service haircut

Frontier Zhangmu

Ok, so we roll into Zhangmu, after an eight hour ride from Everest Base Camp on what was mostly an extremely rough 4-wheel drive, teeth-jarring "road". By "we", I mean Anne from Britain-USA, Johan from Sweden, Patricio from Ecuador, me from USA and our Chinese driver in a Toyota Landcruiser.

Zhangmu is a border town that is built on a series of switchbacks (the road) that zig-zags steeply up the side of a canyon. Large waterfalls (and I mean LARGE) shoot down between the buildings in what would normally be a side alley. Very bizarre. The buildings that are dug into the side of the mountain (uphill side), have water squirting off their roofs onto the street. The buildings on the downhill side of the street are built on all manner of unsafe stilts and pylons. There are hundreds of garishly painted trucks from Nepal waiting to go through Customs squeezed into every conceivable turnout and parked bumper to bumper in front of all the businesses. These trucks have one-liner sayings emblazoned across the tops of their windshields and front bumpers. Mostly from Rambo and Schwarzenegger films though my favorite was the one that simply said, "God Help Me". The truck interiors are festooned with silk flowers, plush pink carpeting, posters of female Indian movie stars, multiple statues of Hindu deities, etc. It reminded me of the often colorful plumage of male birds.

Since I was in dire need of a haircut and shave, I asked one of the ever-present money changers on the street if there were any barber shops still open. This fellow took me by the hand back up the road to a respectable looking place and I asked for a haircut and shave using hand gestures and mime. It was obvious to me that the barber (stylist?) was gay and that the two lovely Chinese girls were his assistants. Not a problem, I just want a haircut and shave.

He sets me down and proceeds to cut my hair with nothing but a pair of scissors at a speed that I thought excessive. Watching him in the mirror, he was an absolute BLUR of motion - the Edward Scissorhands of Zhangmu. I swear I thought I might lose an ear to this clown! The shave (with a straight razor) was even more harrowing. The girls were all smiles as they handed Torquemeda his instruments. By the end, my nerves were pretty well shot so he asked if I wanted my hair washed. I'm thinking, "This should be a soothing contrast to my ordeal, why not?". One of the Chinese lovelies then washed my hair in a fashion that was indeed relaxing. At the end, the barber asked me if I wanted the girls for the night. "Excuse me?", I asked. He then proceeded to use finger gestures to emulate a rather crude depiction of copulation for my enlightenment. The girls smiled. I was somewhat flumoxed by the offer, but managed to gesture toward my own finger to imitate the putting on of a wedding ring. This was entirely misunderstood however, and was interpreted as some new, kinky American perversion. The barber dismissed me with disgust and I then exited his FULL SERVICE establishment.

Everyone back down at the hotel commented on my new, improved appearance.

Damn Commie fund raisers!

The Maoists wake Kevin on the way back to Kathmandu

By Kevin Moore

[Note: I, Jamie, have a bit of experience in dealing with trailside Maoists. The bus and Nepali staff already has a pass from the Maoists so they were not the target and me aggravating them would not endanger our local staff. The two other "Maoists" with him clearly did not want to back him up, I asked them. If there had been any danger of a real incident I would have taken a different approach and paid...]

On the bus ride down from Kodari at the Chinese border to our destination of Kathmandu in Nepal, we were all starting to go half asleep with the rhythms and jostlings of the road. Village after village, young boys herding goats, terraced fields of rice, corn, and barley, patches of forest, hand-cut stone houses, a flash of color as we sped past women in saris, there seemed to be an overall hypnotic tranquility to the rural images that came into momentary focus as my head lolled toward the side window. This stupor induced by the pastoral scenery and rhythmic vibrations of the road was suddenly interrupted, however, by the bus coming to a sudden stop in a semi-forested stretch of highway across from some huts. Three small Hindu-looking Nepalis had flagged down our mid-sized bus and one of these men boarded up at the front left side (the driver is on the front right, as in the UK). After a short conversation with the driver, it became immediately apparent that this unwelcome halt in our progress was in fact an attempt to extort money from the rich imperialists courtesy of the local Maoist faction. What they didn't count on, however, was that our expedition leader spoke fluent Nepali and had very little patience for skinny little unarmed twerps trying to take the funds of his clients. In fact, our fearless leader got right up into the comrade's face and let him know in very precise Nepali that the "peoples struggle" wasn't going to get a single rupee from us!

Since we all knew that the Maoists have a fondness for tossing grenades into non-compliant vehicles, it was no surprise that I began to hear windows begin to slowly slide shut behind me. I love it when people think. [Jamie says: that was an isolated incident when Alex plus one climber from 7 Summits was in an unmarked vehicle travelling alone during a major shutdown of the road in 2005. A grenade was lobbed thru the window of their vehicle and the climber had part of his heel blown off, Alex received some shrapnel which he had removed only after the expedition finished. See Explorers Web.]

The argument up front was starting to get heated, and I began to surmise that this whole situation could "go south" real easily. Our leader was just short of poking this little communist in the chest as he unleashed what was clearly some of his own pent-up feelings regarding their method of fund-raising, if not the very heart of Chairman Mao's ideology. Despite my apprehensions, it was heartwarming to see someone with the courage to stand up to what was supposed to have been a routine extortion of trembling tourists. In fact, you could actually see the regret and perplexity in the eyes of this little Maoist. Clearly, it wasn't supposed to go like this.

For my part, there wasn't much I could do ( can't speak the language), so I ended up fantasizing what I would LIKE to do if I were able. My imaginings are not politically correct, or even suitable for family viewing, but I can dream whatever I choose and in this particular instance I visualized a response that gave me a primal comfort. I saw myself slowly pull a 9mm Glock automatic pistol out of my daypack and walk briskly to the front of the bus and, without hesitation, put the barrel of my weapon six inches from the forehead of the astonished commie leader. Ignoring the pleadings from behind me, I pull the trigger and watch in calm satisfaction as my weapon fires and his head snaps backwards. The inside front windshield is now spattered with carnage... the body crumples down and falls out on to the pavement as the two remaining Maoists watch in horror...the next day, headlines scream; "AMERICAN FIGHTS BACK!!!" (or in the case of more anti-US dailies, "WEALTHY AMERICAN SHOOTS UNARMED PEASANT!!!" - Whatever - ). My secret little mental reverie was deliciously satisfying in it's own special way. It actually surprised me that my mind was able to conjure such violent imagery.

In the meantime, while I was busy dispensing vigilante justice in my mind, the confrontation had spilled out onto the highway in front of the bus and now included all the male members of our team backing up our intrepid leader. At this point I snapped out of my little fantasy and realized I was sitting in the bus with all the womenfolk daydreaming while the men were all outside defending democracy. I then scurried out, joined their ranks and assumed the most menacing posture of which I was capable. Our miserable little bandit was now surrounded by tall, angry foreigners who demanded to know why they should be expected to help pay for a cause they don't believe in. Even Patricio from Ecuador was squared-off, hands on hips, leaning in and unabashedly defending capitalism, hard work and personal responsibility.

In the end, our fearless leader threw down 40 yuan (less than $5) and we all re-boarded our bus. We then sped off, now fully awake, revelling in the happy outcome of our little ordeal and feeling a certain triumph over the severed tentacle of communism. Of course, had we been looking down the business end of an AK-47, my spending money for Kathmandu would have been much diminished.

Kevin