The art of breathing

One of those automatic responses I referred to yesterday is just breathing. I’ve never realized how much I have always been on auto-pilot when it comes to simply breathing in and breathing out. Now I understand. It’s easy to know that I’m short of breath as we climb at these altitudes. We take 30 steps, stop and rest. Then we take 40 steps and rest, etc. But we have found that we often are huffing, puffing, and struggling for air when not actually climbing, and asking ourselves: “Why am I out of breath?”
The answer is simply: “Because you did something without realizing that you don’t breathe when you do it. Like speaking. Ordinarily, we say what we say, then breathe afterwards. The longer the thought being expressed, the longer the time without breathing. Hence, everybody is learning to speak in cryptic sentences, keeping everything to a minimum, because 10-15 seconds without breathing leaves you gasping. No long philosophical discussions here.
I’ve caught myself dozens of times doing something where I have to remind myself: “Breathe, Jim.” Focusing the camera, taking a video shot, brushing my teeth, having a long drink of water, tying my shoes, and literally dozens of other such things are situations in which I’ve found myself not breathing because I usually don’t breathe when doing them.
So breathing is so much more of a focus than it’s ever been before. I’m so much more aware of everything my body is doing, because it’s talking to me all the time. Or at least, I’m listening to it all the time now. Maybe that’s the difference.

Day 3 Trek
This is our 27th wedding anniversary and, unfortunately, Carol woke up feeling ill for the first time on the trip. Hope it’s not cause and effect. Physically, she had a tough night, and her throat is sore. Looks like she’s looking for a plan “B” on the sleeping comfortably and warmly thing. Mentally, she is discouraged, thinking of the other group who only walked one day and had hotels, hot water, showers and beds. She’s second guessing herself at the moment wondering why she chose this trip which is so difficult, rather than one that gave us most of what we get here without the arduous nature of the high altitude.
Another clear morning greeted us when we got up and exited the tent. Just seeing the peaks in the clean, clear air instills us with an enthusiasm for the day to come, no matter how hard it will be.
True to that theory, today was the most difficult, but most spectacular day of our trip. I suppose that the two go hand in hand. To get to that really spectacular view, it can’t be easy or it wouldn’t mean anything. As Dave said: “I took over ten years of English and didn’t learn anything that could accurately describe today.” We’ve all seen movies of the Himalayas, with the beautiful scenery, or the IMAX movie, and all I can say, is that it’s even better seeing it through our own eyes, but more about that later.
We awoke at six and got out on the trail around 8:30. Manoj wanted to get over the pass we were climbing before the weather deteriorated. It was a very steep climb, and we made it in a steady snow storm. Not heavy enough to deter us, but still for the two-hour climb it drifted all around us. We climbed from the base of Shao La where we stayed at an elevation of 15,750 to the top of the pass at around 17,000. It was a very steep climb.
The first part of it was the usual rock scrambling, then it turned to a solid snow field, through which we climbed in a straight upward manner, no zig-zaging. It was our real introduction to Himalayan mountaineering. We couldn’t believe that climbers do this for ascents of thousands upon thousands of feet at even higher elevations, while we climbed just over 1,000 feet and were exhausted.
Manoj told us when climbing to always look just one step forward, never up. If we want to see where we’ve been, we could stop and admire how much we’ve done. But that it is very discouraging to look up and see how much more there is to do. To that end, I stopped at one point and turned around to see the view. It was amazing. In one direction, a mountain cast in snow, to the opposite direction, a rocky mountain with no snow on it at all. Still anther direction there was a lake totally frozen, and in another, a lake with no ice on it at all. Windward, leeward, sunny side, shady side, each element and physical characteristic added its personal touch to the view.
We crested the top after a steady two-hour climb, which left us really looking forward to the descent to our camp here at Joksam.. Well it just didn’t turn out that way. We spent the next 4 hours picking our way through those rocks which somebody had moved into our path from where we left them on the other side of the pass.
The climb down just rattles the knees and jams the boots into your toes. We descended to 13,500, so we came down over 3,000 feet from where we had climbed “Just” 1,000. The ascent is demanding, slow going, one step in front of one step. The descent is bone jarring. Your entire weight comes down upon the knees and at the end they ache and demand relief.
BUT--- that’s the bad news. The good news was that while we were descending the snow stopped, the cloud bank in front of us cleared, and there it was. Our first view of an incredible Himalayan peak, Makalu, the world’s sixth largest peak, at 27,782 feet. We had seen a hint of it before, but today it was just there, directly in front of us. We didn’t just get to see the peak poking it’s head around from behind another mountain in front of it, but the whole mountain, from base to peak. We sat and ate lunch with this magnificent kaleidoscope, not of colors but of light and shadow, as the clouds moved in and out, allowing the sun to cast the entire mountain in light, then teasing with shade and showing all the nuances that you couldn’t otherwise see when you just see the mountain in its glory of light. And Everest still lies ahead. As I sat there watching the mountain, it was deliciously warm. I’d worn thermals for the summit, and now with the sun out, I was toasty warm. I just spread out and enjoyed myself. It was the first time I’ve actually been warm when not in my sleeping bag.
Tonight’s dinner was topped off with an anniversary cake for our dessert. We all shared it, and then we took the remainder to the cooks and the Yak pas, who seemed very unsure of what they were getting into. Chocolate cake is not exactly part of their usual diet.
I had enlisted Manoj’s help in getting some amber beads which Carol had seen in Lhasa and liked, but said that she didn’t want to have to carry around, so I had Manoj get them for me and I gave them to her this morning when we woke up. The group wanted to know how we had come together and since they are in the early 30’s, the fact that we’ve been married for 27 years was pretty amazing to them. So Carol and I get to add the Himalayas to places where we’ve celebrated our anniversary. A nice touch, indeed. We all wanted an early bed tonight. It had been a day that did not encourage staying up late to discuss the world.
From beautiful Tibet
Carol and Jim