LINES
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Plains Sickness
Home, after Tibet I understood one more thing: mountain sickness is not what I went through in Rilong. It began after I came back to the plains, and it torments me every day. The mountains call me back. If it were not for work, I would come home only to get a haircut, wash and…
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A Newspaper on the Chorten
The pass near Jara Lhatse, 2004 We reached the top at 14:56. There are no maps of this area, and the locals simply call it the pass by Jara Lhatse. It was the fifth birthday of my newspaper that day, so in a fit of festive high spirits I named the pass after it and…
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A Song on the Pass
Near Jara Lhatse, about 5,000 m, 2004 One of our guides stopped below the pass and took off his heavy Tibetan coat. My only theory was that he needed the toilet. Kirill said the meaning was different: the spirits of the pass would feel sorry for a freezing Tibetan and not keep him up there…
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Paid in Painkillers
Lhagang, 2004 The seven of us: four short Tibetan horses and three riders whose tired feet almost dragged along the dusty path. We had hired the horses and a local guide to get over the ridge before dark, and paid him a few painkiller tablets. “I have never been over that pass,” he muttered. “But…
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Today One Mountain, Tomorrow One Mountain
No guide, no map, and an old woman who had never been there telling us exactly when we would arrive.
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The Mountain Did Not Let Us In
Half a metre of fresh snow in the night, new snow over ice, food for one more day. Mountaineers say a mountain either lets you in or it doesn’t. This one didn’t.
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Three in the Morning
Rilong, 2004 At three in the morning I woke up in a sweat, burning, my heart about to jump out of my mouth. I crawled out of the sleeping bag to the thermos and made green tea. When I had drunk it and my breathing settled, I felt so good that I cannot describe it.…
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Mountain Sickness
Rilong, 2004 A five-hour acclimatisation walk, 550 metres up and back down. By the evening mountain sickness had knocked me flat. For seventeen hours I lay in my sleeping bag without undressing. I could not look at mountains: when my eyes fell by chance on the mountain embroidered on my rucksack, I was sick. Chills,…
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Euphoria
Rilong, 3,350 m, 2004 We walked up the only street looking for a hotel, sharing our impressions of the road. Sound carried amazingly in that crystal air. I felt light and happy, as if after a glass of something strong. It was euphoria: the first sign of oxygen starvation. The bill came the next day.