Ben tellin' it like it is. **Warning the following blog post contains adult language**
Name: Ben Dennison
Age: 20
Hometown: Dover, MA
Area of study: Chemistry
Year in school: Entering Junior year
I joined the Everest Base Camp Expedition because... As a member of the Honors college, I am required to go abroad at some point, and looking at the different programs, none of them really grabbed my attention like this one. Being able to come and spend two weeks out in the woods hiking through the Himalayas sounded amazing, and the kind of experience that I wouldn’t have again, so I was absolutely sold on it. I already enjoy hiking and the outdoors, so this was way more up my alley than spending a few weeks on the Italian coast or something :)
I'm involved with the SU collaborative research studies by... I am an undergraduate researcher in Dr. John Chisholm’s organic chemistry laboratory. I worked in his lab this past year and am planning to return to it for the upcoming school year as well. This is a different field than most of the Researchers on the trek, but it has been really cool so far to see how field research is conducted compared to the laboratory work that I am used to.
The specific things being measured are splenic contraction from exercise, arterial stiffness, balance, hemoglobin mass, and many other things. The major thing that I’ve noticed is that I get a lot of capillary blood taken, and a lot of ultrasounds taken. Despite being pretty far out of my wheelhouse both course and research experience wise, it has been really interesting to be able to participate in field research like this.
I'm most looking forward to... Getting to see Everest Base camp and do the sunrise scramble up whatever mountain it is [Kala Patthar]. The trek so far hasn’t been easy but getting a chance to see the sunrise over the tallest mountain in the world should be an absolutely breathtaking experience. Even just seeing the tip of the peak to day was awesome.
My favorite part of the trip so far has been... Probably the highlight so far was seeing Everest, a global landmark that I have heard about my entire life. Seeing it in person was a truly wonderful experience. A close second was the first day of trekking. As I will talk about later in my daily recap, the altitude has definitely been something on the climbs, but day one was a much milder bit of walking. The views were still breathtaking, and the workload was way lower, so it made for an excellent first day.
The worst part of the trip so far... The worst part of the trip was the climbing up, as we got higher and higher. I have never been at altitude before so there has been a learning curve to say the least. Today, we went from Namche to Debouche. This part of the trek requires us to go from Namche down into the valley to cross the river, then back up the other side, for only a net elevation increase of 380m from Namche, despite descending and ascending a far greater amount! The bulk of our elevation gain came at the end of the day with a brutal, nearly 2 hours of climb straight up. Normally, when hiking I can find my groove pretty readily, and just march on ahead with ease, and I was able to do that for the bulk of the day today, but with the climb up higher than I have ever been, catching my breath becomes a challenge, everything starts hurting, and my pace slows to a crawl. At the peak of it I could scarcely go more than 15 or 20 steps before I needed to catch my breath. As one of the other students likes to say, it was definitely type 2 fun, as writing this now I feel pretty accomplished that I have made it this high up on what is, retrospectively, no where near enough training.
One thing most people don't know about me... Up until this trip not only had I never left the United States, the furthest that I have been is Washington D.C.
Daily Recap
Today was divided into two distinct parts for me. The morning was characterized by beautiful views, easy hiking, and good conversations. After leaving Namche, we began our ascent out of the village to meet up with the Sherpa participants. After the brief uphill, the ground leveled out and we began walking along flat, well flattened paths. Along the way, Anthony, another one of the students and I, as well as a couple of the sherpa participants, led the pack. I was able to find my stride and had a great time.
Thanks to the cloudless sky, we were treated to views that paled anything that I had seen in the states. I caught my first glimpse of Mt. Everest, an experience that was kind of unreal. As someone who has been hiking since I could walk (thanks Dad), the ideas of the most famous peaks have never been far from my mind. That’s part of the reason I came on the trek, the alure of even seeing Everest. Although only the very tip was visible, it gave a tangibility to where I am, that seems to grow incrementally from the airport, to Lukla, and now finally to laying eyes on the tallest peak in the world. Closer to us was another peak, Ama Dablam (Wes’s favorite), a beautiful peak that looks down over the valley wall that we were walking along. Walking through a valley surrounded by the tallest mountains in the world is an experience unlike any other.
There is something that is indescribable about looking around at the mountains and seeing what is truly a limit in nature. I think that, perhaps counterintuitively, knowing that I am not going to climb Everest enhanced this experience. Yesterday, as I’m sure Sophia mentioned we watched SHERPA, a film about the 2014 icefall disaster. I could talk about that movie for a while, but in summation, it really shifted how I view the Everest climbing, and made the chance to view Everest that much more special. In addition to the sublime views, there was also great conversation had along the way. Anthony, Kaesang (one of the Sherpa participants in the study) and I discussed different animes along the way. It was awesome to see how three people from Colorado, Massachusetts, and Kathmandu, all had common ground and could chat their way through the tallest mountains in the world. Although we at the front of the pack maintained a mildly breakneck pace, it was still not bad, and made me far overconfident for the afternoon trials and tribulations.
The second part of the day was the large climb from the glacial river all the way up to Debouche at 3,840m (12,670 ft). Although this is still considered “mild” altitude, it is far far higher than I have ever been, let alone climbed to. The summation of the climb was it sucked, so so hard. The first 1/3 wasn’t that bad. It was hard going, and by no means easy, but I was able to maintain both a decent pace as well as decent breath control. After that, sh*t really hit the fan. As I climbed up and up was seemed to be a never-ending series of switchbacks, each seemingly steeper than the last, I felt my self-slowing down more and more in an attempt to find a pace that would allow be to breath well. But alas, no reprieve would come. The most aggravating aspect is that after resting for a minute or two, I was able to regain my breath. Once I started walking again, however, no matter how long I rested, I never seemed to make it more than 2 or 3 minutes before I was huffing and puffing in a way that is usually emblematic of only the most intense exercise for me. Lydia, another one of the students, set a good pace for the second third of the hill, but even her excellent pace was eventually too fast for my god damn lungs, as by the last 1/3 I was doing pretty piss poor.
The last 1/3 or so was worst of all. By that point, we were high enough that I was getting the edges of a headache, was nearly out of water, and pretty much unable to get more than 20 or so paces before I needed (or wanted) to stop and catch my breath for a few seconds. As said before, I have had exactly 0 experience with altitude of any sort before this trip, and I got to say, it has really kicked my butt. By this point, my backpack felt like a ton of bricks, and all I wanted was to be at the top. Despite the headache, lack of air, and general exhaustion I made it successfully to Debouche, and frankly if you asked me even 15 minutes prior, I would have said that’s a dubious proposition. Despite all these issues, I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank Anthony for lending me a trekking pole, a piece of equipment that I had never found useful, up until today.
Awaiting in Debouche was food, warmth, and rest. After eating some pasta, vegetable soup and much needed warm tea, the trek seems much less terrible. But this is the most aggravating aspect of the hiking to high altitude. It wasn’t like pushing myself at sea level where the muscles gave out first, rather it was my lungs being unable to provide. The upside is that the recovery time is better, the downside is that the trekking feels disproportionality difficult compared to even the evening after.
But, as I sit here writing and sipping hot chocolate in the Lodge, I can say that this experience has been and likely will continue to be type 2 fun, that is to say, it is a lot more enjoyable to think about the experience afterwards, than to do the actual experience.
On the docket tonight is the second research talk, this one from Pontius, one of the post-doctoral researchers running the spleen study. It was pretty interesting, but I am definitely at a loss for some of the stuff as I haven’t taken any physiology classes, but I am able to get most of it on my peripheral knowledge. The talk was about the different previous studies conducted on different groups and how altitude changes the way spleens contract or relax based on oxygen content in the air.
To my parents, I am alive, and despite the hundreds of words complaining about hiking, I am having an absolute blast, and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now!
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