Hunkered down at 16,000 feet above sea level, in the modest village of Lobuche, trekkers on the KarmaQuest expedition to Nepal were quick to bed but slow to sleep. By 7 p.m., almost all were zipped up in their sleeping bags, with only one or two remaining members still huddling in the common room around the faint warmth of a stove burning yak dung.
Having hiked for seven days, all were beyond tired and in need of a good night’s rest.
  
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The sherpas knocked at 4:30 a.m. and everyone rose to pile on layers, down a quick bowl of porridge, and set out with headlamps aglow in the early morning twilight.
From the beginning, trek organizer Karma Lama of Half Moon Bay had stressed the focus and goal of the trip would be the experience of walking among the mountains, not summiting lofty peaks. The elevation of Kala Patthar --18,190 feet -- was etched into the minds of all the participants. But as the sun rose after the first hour on the long, rocky trail, the mental and physical experience of the journey sharpened the focus to simply putting one foot in front of the other.
As was often the case in earlier days on the trek, Ken and Sally Coverdell of Miramar soon found themselves at the head of the group behind Pemba Sherpa. Knowing the day would be harrowing, Ken embraced the opportunity to walk in close proximity to one of the six local guides that assisted Lama in leading the expedition.
“The neatest thing for me on the journey was having a pacer,” he said. “I’ve never felt like I was in better hands than being with the Sherpa people. Getting behind them and learning to walk at a reasonable rate given the altitude, I was amazed at how slow it was.”
“It’s one step at a time and it’s a meditation. I felt like a yak with my horns right behind the next person,” Sally Coverdell recalled. “I had headaches but was trying to ignore them. That was actually the most spiritual day for me, although it was probably the day I felt the worst too. I didn’t drink enough water and got dehydrated.”
Step by step, each member plodded along for four hours lost in their own thoughts but finding the strength to push on despite physical ailments or mental anguish. As the last ascent began past the town of Gorak Shep, it was still unclear where exactly the trail would end. The oxygen needed to climb also often felt out of reach.
“The last 300 feet, getting up that rock to the top of Kala Patthar, was probably the biggest personal battle I’ve ever fought,” Ken Coverdell said. “The higher we got I was more nervous about the thinness of the air.
“I would count a hundred steps, then bend over and take ten or 20 breaths just to get enough oxygen back in my lungs for the next hundred steps,” he said. “And every 50 vertical feet that started to reduce to the point where every 50 steps I had to take 30 breaths.”
Surrounded by some of the tallest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, Coverdell soon found himself atop the summit drinking a cup of hot tea poured by the sherpas and watching the others, one-by-one, managing the last steps and coming over the crest.
“It was so pleasurable to see the look on people’s faces as they joined me on the rock because they were all really feeling success. I don’t think it was goal oriented, but just the feeling of self-power.
“I didn’t have the goal of climbing a peak or hitting a certain elevation, but that was a tremendous feeling of personal satisfaction. Frankly, I was elated. Because I had the personal vigor and power to do it,” he said. “I took a lot of satisfaction in having climbed that.”
After tying a ceremonial scarf signed by each member of the group to a line of prayer flags arching across the summit in the cold wind, the 20 members of the expedition gathered together for a group picture. Miramar resident Michael Powers set-up a tripod to film interviews as others snacked on their pack lunch of a boiled egg, fried bread and sugary crackers.
There were clouds appearing among the snowy peaks, and after 15 minutes Lama urged the group to begin the long descent back to Lobuche. Experienced mountaineers seem to always have the difficult task of cutting short mountain top celebrations in an effort to return to camp before the deathly temperatures and wind arrive with nightfall.
Heading back to camp also meant a return to quiet introspection. The climbers had to thread together thousands of steps on a trail through the vast moraines of glacial debris and meandering ridges. For five days the group would retrace their path to Lukla for the flight back to Kathmandu. Awaiting them was the relief of removing their hiking boots for the last time on the journey.
Ken Coverdell realized, looking back on the experience, that “just the process of looking down and focusing where my feet were going and paying attention to how I was breathing actually made me so present in the here and now that even the idea of looking ahead wasn’t necessary.
“Focusing on those little steps, one foot in front of the other, is what ultimately moves you down the trail,” he said.
“It’s the confidence to perform and step forward no matter what, knowing that with little steps, one after another, you achieve what you seek. Maybe it’s simply crossing the room or climbing a mountain,” he said. “Maybe it’s raising a child or building a business.
“There is always the desire to somehow skip ahead. Just figure something out and skip steps 7 to 19,” he said. “Before coming to Nepal, I had hoped to maybe meet a monk or have a conversation with someone and receive some gem of truth that might propel me forward. Instead I think I found that wisdom inside.
“All that is really needed is to take the time to do the steps that are required,” he said. “You can’t get catapulted ahead of the steps required for learning.”
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