September 25, 2000 - Near Pethang Ringmo, Tibet

Note: I began writing this post a couple days ago while, interestingly, waiting out a storm in the Colorado high country above Fairplay. I didn’t know then that there were many trekkers stuck in the Kangshung Valley. I wish them well, and safe returns, and also send my support to so many people suffering under this brutal and lingering monsoon in Nepal.

The weather on the eastern side of Mount Everest is notoriously fickle. Clouds and storms drift upward from the warm plains of India, travel up the Arun Valley into Tibet, and get funneled into the cul-de-sac of the Kama Chu and Kharta Valley. There the moisture becomes stuck, hemmed in by 10,000 foot walls of snow, ice, and rock.

As such, my clients - Dale and Sylvia - had been in the Valley for days, catching only glimpses of the peaks we knew lay hidden in the mists. We’d occasionally get a glimpse: a sweeping buttress arching skyward; a jagged patch of snow hovering, etched against a steel blue hole in the cloud; billowing bursts of pulverized ice roaring from the hidden heights above.