DAY 359: Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander mountaineer became Sir Edmund Hillary when in 1953, he became the first man to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on the planet at 8848m ASL. But he wasn't alone. It wasn't until recent years that a lot of credit went to the Sherpa guide at his side, Tenzing Norgay. Hillary might not have made it without Tenzing Norgay, as the conditions at the top of Mt. Everest are severe and life-threatening -- in the Coen Brothers' 2003 film Intolerable Cruelty, George Clooney's character says something to the effect, "No man can make it without his Tenzing Norgay." (I saw the flick on a plane.) Perhaps if the Sherpa people of the Himalayas got more press back in the day, Hillary might not have taken all the initial glory. (To be fair, Hillary did fully respect the Sherpas and put a lot of money into their community when he got it; on the flipside, it's not like Tenzing Norgay didn't have the support of other Sherpas either.)

"YOU COULD COME HERE with nothing and book everything here," I heard a man say in an American accent.

"I'd rather pay the money [for a package tour booked in the States,]" a woman answered.

This was one conversation I overheard as I stood on line at Kathmandu airport with my Tenzing Norgay at my side, a Nepali named Tilak who had been assigned to me by the Himalayan Glacier trekking agency. He wasn't a descendant of the more-East-Asian-looking Sherpa mountain people of the higher altitudes, but a more-Indian-looking Newari people of the lowlands, although he had been born in the western mountains and had six years of guiding experience under his belt.

We had tickets for the 8:05 a.m. flight to Lukla, the airport town servicing the Everest region (about 40 km. south of Mt. Everest summit), where we'd land and proceed on foot. We'd go "The Sherpa Way," lugging all our own gear, in contrast to those two Americans I heard (in a group of eleven) who would go with a full support team of porters, guides and yaks.

It was 7:40 and Yeti Airlines' 8:05 flight to Lukla hadn't called for boarding yet. Same at 7:50 and 8:06.

"Did we miss it?" I asked Tilak.

"They said eight, but it's Nepal!" he said, chuckling. "Don't worry, we will go today." Today was a good thing; the previous weeks, people spent 4-5 days waiting at the airport for the sky to clear up.

Eight thirty rolled around and they called for boarding -- the eleven Americans all got on and I got my gear to go through to the security gate. At 8:38, everything was in motion but, "We didn't get it," Tilak told me. The next scheduled flight was 9:40.

The airport in Kathmandu was a madhouse of hundreds of people trying to get somewhere and the only way to get on a plane was to muscle your way through. Tilak did most of that for me and before 9:40, we got to the boarding room. Then we just waited some more. The monitor displaying the departure schedule might as well have played a screensaver.

A CALL FOR THE "E" FLIGHT eventually came and we boarded a small twin-propeller plane with a French package tour group. The flight attendant passed out cotton to soften the noise of the engines in flight and soon we were 20,000 ft. in the air.

"Look at the mountains," Tilak told me. Sitting in the front row right behind the pilot and co-pilot I saw what they saw: the snow-capped Himalayas were right in front of us (picture above) and it reminded me of a scene from Indiana Jones at the Temple of Doom. I couldn't exactly hear what the two pilots were saying to each other, but I hoped it wasn't:

Co-Pilot: You know how to fly, don't you?
Pilot: No, do you? Uh, how hard can it be?

"Look," Tilak pointed out to show me what was coming up ahead.

That's the runway? What is that, like a little rest area strip off the interstate? It was a strip of asphalt in a tiny narrow valley in between some high mountains. I'd seen more asphalt in a supermarket parking lot.

The pilot did know how to fly and land after all, and brought the plane softly to the ground. He was thanked with applause at touchdown. The only problem with the landing though was that cotton got lodged in my ear and Tilak had to pick it out for me.

LUKLA, A SCENIC SHERPA TOWN at 2860m. ASL is a small community of houses, farms and shops, mostly catering to the trekkers coming from the airport -- an airport that Sir Edmund Hillary had built to ship building materials for Sherpa houses and schools. The hiking trail started as soon as you exited the baggage claim room, but we stopped at one place for lunch that proudly served "Everest Starbucks" coffee. We had tea and dahl bhat, a staple Nepali rice and vegetable dish, instead.

The goal of the rest of the day was to hike to the village of Phakding, about 6 km. away on an undulating path through the Himalayas. The trail went passed fields, from village to forest and back to village again along the way, without much strain on the body -- a good preparation for the harder days ahead to Everest Base Camp. I saw other trekkers on the way with yaks to carry their things -- their Tenzing Norgay's if you will -- and I sort of felt proud to be doing it the Sherpa way, carrying my own gear like a mountain man. (The load wasn't at full capacity; I'd left most of my stuff in storage in Kathmandu.) Perhaps carrying my bag instead of using a yak made me blend in with the other Sherpas porters carrying gear for clients; Western trekkers always greeted me with "Namaste" ("Hello") on the presumption that I was Nepali. In fact, every Nepali Tilak and I encountered thought we were brothers.

The trail followed the Dudh Kosi River and took us over bridges and through several small villages -- passed little Sherpa kids, stupas, sacred mani rocks and Buddhist prayer wheels -- each with many humble "teahouses" where people could crash, thus eliminating the need for bringing a tent. We made it to our final destination of the day, Phakding, by mid-afternoon and checked into a guesthouse -- coincidentally the one where all the Sherpas of that big eleven-person American group were staying. The Sherpas weren't without their own personalities; in one case, two of them got into a fight and one had to be restrained from stoning the other to death with big rocks. (I think the other might have said something about his mother.)

In contrast to me doing things "the Sherpa way," the eleven Americans arrived soon and they shared the dining hall with me. I met a couple of them and I learned they were all from Portland, Oregon and had been trekking buddies for years, although it seemed to me they did everything the easy way. Two yaks a person? C'mon. They kept to themselves all night, leaving me to chill out with the Nepalis hanging around, including my guide Tilak. And what do you talk about with such people? Pro-wrestling and DHTML coding, of course.

At the end of a long day, it was finally good to be out there on the trail, in the footsteps of Tenzing Norgay -- and that other guy.

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