I have just been reading an article on 100 Epic Adventures, which starts with ‘What we are encouraging you to do here is to leave your comfort zone behind, move beyond the boundaries of your known experience and challenge yourself in a field where you are less sure of yourself, of what you are capable of and of how you will cope’. What a load of balderdash, can’t you do it just because you enjoy it. Does everything have to be a ‘challenge’ or a ‘journey of self discovery’. I hope I’m returning to the Himalaya because I love the scenery and the people, not to ‘discover’ myself. I’ve no need to do that, I know who I am and where I’m going. So the title was not in any way meant to be a metaphor, but a statement of fact.
I’m on my way to Muscat then Kathmandu, with the usual mix of excitement and apprehension. Time, as I’ve hinted at before, is very selective in the way it appears to store memories of past expeditions and experiences. My, almost childish delight at seeing Cho Oyu appear on that long winding road in Tibet, the exhilaration of stepping out onto the near vertical Serac wall on the way up to Camp Two. The pure joy of seeing the sunrise over the Annapurna Sanctuary with Matthew, of seeing Makalu for the first time and reaching the summit of Island Peak….however the debilitating cold, the disappointment of retreating from Cho Oyu and the days of boredom waiting at Base Camp to acclimatise or for the weather to improve and the awful ever changing paths over glacial moraine. These memories have turned somewhat hazy and retreat further into obscurity as that ever lengthening ‘Old Man Time’ moves on.
There will be times during this trip when My thoughts will return to those darker memories, but more often than not I will find that excitement and wonder that I had on my very first visit to the Himalaya and the Annapurna Sanctuary.
For now, though, I will sit in another airport, which looks exactly like every other airport, where people with blank tired faces wonder around aimlessly ‘cos there is nothing else to do. My flight to Kathmandu leaves in a couple of hours, so please excuse me while I become one of those blank tired faces.