The Hands of Sanjay Kulung

To put this entry into context, I had crossed the Cho La pass the day before. It took me close to 14 hours because I had become sick the night before in Dzongla after walking from Gorak Shep. In the 48 hours it took me to get from Gorak Shep to Thagnag (including going up and over the Cho La pass [5,300 meters]) I had only had a bowl of museli with milk, half an energy bar, and nothing else because I was sick and simply couldn’t stomach any food. This left me very weak going over the pass, and very dehydrated. I should have anticipated being so dehydrated from the nature of my illness, but being tired and weak, I did not. Getting down to Thagnag where this story starts was very long and difficult. Thagnag is the town just before the destination of Gokyo, which is just on the other side of a glacier flow.

November 9^th 2010

I left Thagnag later than everyone else who had been there the night before. The woman who cleans the rooms was embarrassed and confused to see me. 2 egg omelet and a tuna sandwich. Luckily I managed to get them down without a problem.

Still dreary and weak I started off and hit the moraine (per someone’s suggestion) a little north of Thagnag. I simply couldn’t see where the path would be and on gaining the top of the moraine, I saw farther south 4 porters whistling along on a well-beaten path. I slowly made my way around the mountainous (at least it felt like it) unlevel part of the moraine. I found the well-beaten trail and made my way into the glacier. This glacier, unlike the two I had crossed had huge deep pools of water that were more like lakes than pools, slowly draining southward. I followed the path down to a split between ridges that was separated by water. Too much water to pass. I tried to find another path, inventing my own as I went. I slowly made my way south down the middle of the glacier. Frustration set in quickly as the cairns I DID find let to dead ends or paths disappeared into bolder strewn geography.

Me weakness and my frustration both worked against me, it was some of the slowest going yet. My aimlessness aided these enemies and each time I gained a ridge I became more confused as to which way people crossed the glacier.

Looking back there must have been a better path to the north - the direction I had originally set out for before seeing the porters. God only knows where those porters came from - probably walked through the water, though it hadn’t been worth it at the time for myself.

I continued slowly, slowly, slowly, trying to be mindful of my foot falls. I knew in my condition it would be far too easy to sprain another ankle or get a foot trapped, or even break something. Bolder hopping was a Devil’s dance, taunting slips, slides and falls. So I rested often, and tried to focus while watching my boots waiver and fall solid onto some askance angle. Farther and farther south I went.

I seemed to be getting closer to the second moraine, but the slowly flowing lakes were starting to compound and bunch up between that moraine and the land I was gaining. When I reached the closest ridge to the moraine, my unfortunate suspicion proved real. Between the moraine and ridge upon which I stood was no longer a slowly flowing drain from the higher glacier lakes. Before me was a loud and joyously angry river that seemed to explode at every point. It gorged itself with ice up against the largest most massive boulders that held way at points in the rush. Between these points was a gush, an utter ejection of water. No place presented path for crossing the icy blood of the glacier.

I looked up. The sun was still high, but the mountains to the west of me were huge dark shadows. Sunset was not for many hours but soon I would be in shadow, which I feared, being the foreboding prequel of the night. Crossing the Khumbu glacier at night, however dangerous had been more than doable thanks to the clear path. This glacier was a hot mess and a desperation to get across it was rising in me.

I followed the river south and as I did it became steeper, faster and more angry. But there seemed to be more boulders and possible places to cross the cold crashing curse.

I went farther down and I could see down into the valley where there was another village. And just across the icy rage, high up was a stone fortified pathway that I presumed went to Gokyo. Just a little farther down, I thought I could see a conglomeration of boulders that might separate the waters enough for my ancient refuge nation of one.

Down I went and climbed out on to the preliminary rocks. It looked like I could make it. I attempted to look at the final space between boulders from as many angles as I could. It seemed feasible. The problem was that I couldn’t get a perfect understanding of the distance between two crucial rocks until I was on the closest of the two. Getting to this rock, however, required me to jump down to it, just far enough so that if I needed to get back up, I wouldn’t be able to. I turned on my belly and with two excellent handholds, slowly lowered myself, pack and all, down on to the boulder. It was situated essentially three quarters of the way across the river. My feet barely touched the rock and I let go; on the rock I turned around to look at the gap. It was too far to jump. If I had been at full strength, and had I not had the large pack, I knew I could have jumped it, but the day had already been long - long after two very long and debilitating days. To make matters worse, the river had splashed up water on each rock, which in turn had frozen, making the farthest, most useful part of the rock inaccessible for risk of slipping on the final jump. The second rock presented a symmetrical danger. In essence, to make the jump, I would only be able to use half of the boulder I was on (ice portion included, I could probably take three full strides on the boulder) and would have to propel myself far enough to land in the middle of the second boulder. Realization of my situation set in and I started looking around for a way out. My eyes frenetically shot around at other boulders, all unreachable, and then my gaze went to the sky. Up on the stone fortified pathway, there was a lone porter, resting his load against the wall and watching me. With the roar of the river drowning out any sound, it was the only gesture I could think of that would transcend all barriers of language: I put my hands together and raised them, as if in prayer and looked at the porter for mercy. That young porter’s name was Sanjay Kulung, a 15 year old boy from Gokyo. He walked up the path towards Gokyo a dozen paces and then placed his load down on a ledge and proceeded to effortlessly and quickly descend the rocks until he was on the boulder adjacent to my own. He spoke almost no English and beckoned me to come across the gap. I shook my head ‘no’ and then realized that he was talking about my pack. I took it off quickly and practiced a few swings with it to see if I could hurl it the distance. My chest was echoing with the pound of my heart. An idea came into my head. I put down the pack and dismantled parts of it. The compression sac with my sleeping bag hanging off the back, I threw it to Sanjay. The small tent, I threw, my water bottle… until the pack was bare and then I practiced the swing once again. I felt confident I could get it across. I heaved it back and forth and finally lifted it with my whole body into the air and watched as it sailed over the rushing water and landed with a crash on the rock, Sanjay’s hands grabbing it simultaneously and dragging it to a safer spot. There was only one thing left to get across the gap.

Sanjay looked at me and his hands beckoned for me to jump. I looked down at the gap - the rushing water, impatient, and crying for me to fall. If it happened, there would be little chance. The pressure would slam my stunned body into boulders and there would be little life in it as it tumbled down the rest of the way into the valley. I looked back at Sanjay’s beckoning hands, I looked back at the gap and I took the two steps back to the edge of the boulder. I looked at the rocks on either side of the gap and visualized myself taking the steps and flying across the gap. I inhaled very deeply, consciously, several times and looking one last time at Sanjay’s beckoning hands, I closed my eyes. I thought of my Mother and my Father, my family, and all my friends. I thought of everything I had done in life, everything I had accomplished - everything that had led up to this moment. And then I thought of everything I wanted to do - my hopes, my dreams. I opened my eyes, said to myself, “Not Today.” and I jumped.