JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi by Daniel Linden (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

chicken in a sauce and rice and vegetables. I couldn’t help myself, I reached forward and took a chicken thigh from the serving dish and bit right into it. It was stringy, tough and dry and it was delicious. I looked at Cook and thanked him. He bowed slightly and said that this bird had stopped laying eggs. Then he and Bim left and we ate a wonderful lunch. We are meat eaters and unapologetic. In this part of the world, however, a chicken is worth far more for the eggs it lays then the flesh it can provide for one meal. A chicken is never butchered if it lays eggs. Hey, there’s a lesson….

We idled away the rest of the day and prepared to leave the following morning. After another sleepless night we dug out our goose-down coats and hats and gloves and prepared to climb up to Gokyo. At 15,700 feet it was the highest we will have climbed so far and it is well over 1,000 feet higher than the tallest mountain the Rocky Mountain chain. In my youth I had summited five of Colorado highest peaks - the fourteeners they’re called – and thought I was standing on the top of the world. If the weather would clear we would be so close to Cho Oyo it would feel like we could touch it. And you can stack two of the Rockies Mountains highest peaks one on top of the other and still not be as high as Cho Oyo. Unbelievable!

We left and moved out slowly. The climb was steady and intense, but a step and then a breath was still possible if we were not going up a switchback or steep slope. No one spoke and the view remained the same: fog, low lying cloud, occasional drizzle or snow flurries. In such an atmosphere a person tends to withdraw and so we went, quietly trudging onward. Eventually we crested a ridge and I made out the form of Cook standing in front of a stone lodge. It was really little more than a shelter, but it was at least enclosed on all four sides, had a roof and bunks inside. There was a shelter below and alongside for porters and yaks. It was deserted.

We went inside and I chose a bunk and threw my duffle on it. Bim started a small gas heater that some kind soul had brought and either left or donated. It was enough to provide some warmth and keep the frost away, but I would really have enjoyed my wonderful old cast iron wood stove from my home in Maine. Now that was something that would have warmed this shelter to t-shirt comfort. Of course I did not have a clue where the nearest tree could be found so it would have done us little good.

It was tea time and Cook began the time consuming job of trying to boil water at 15,700 feet in altitude. I went outside and tried to lighten the mood by giving the guys a guided tour. I pointed east and said, “Down there is Ngozumba Glacier. It begins well up the southeast slope of Cho Oyo, one of the 8,000 meter giants. There are fourteen mountains in the world over 8,000 meters and we can see four from here.

“Yeah,” said Chris, “the view is spectacular.”

“C’mon Chris, I’m trying to…”

“Sorry!” He threw a hand into the air and walked away.

I turned to Curtis and Christian and shrugged. “No. I’m sorry. But I can’t help the weather.” I went back into the shelter and found Bim and Cook tending to the water.

He saw my face when I came in and must have thought I was unhappy with the lodgings, such as they were. “Sahib, we had rooms in the lodge for last night, but when you changed, that is, when we did not come they gave our rooms to the next group. I am sorry.”

“What rooms? What are you talking about?”

“At the lodge. In Gokyo.”

“I thought this was Gokyo.”

“No, Sahib. “Gokyo is over there.” He pointed.

I stepped back outside and looked around. We could have been anywhere. There was only fog and drizzle. The last time I was here it had been glorious. The glacier sends crystal clear water cascading down into a series of lakes that are an intense emerald green. There are huge boulders that look as if they are just discarded playthings for giants. There was a lodge, I remembered, but not much of a lodge and yes, this was not the same type of terrain for the village. Now that Bim had told me I recognized that this was clearly not Gokyo.

My three companions walked up and I told them what Bim had said to me and Chris once again looked peeved. He was clearly not feeling well. Several nights of little sleep and thin atmosphere can combine to put a person severely out of sorts. “I want to go there,” he said.

“Okay,” I slowly responded, “but Bim made it clear that there is no room for us. We have experienced this before.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s fine. They’ll have something hot to drink and a place to dry off and get warm, won’t they?” He looked hard at the ground. “That’s all I want right now.”

“Okay,” I shrugged. “Let’s go.”

I went back into the shelter and told Bim to lead us to the lodges. He bit his lip and glanced at Cook, but he stood and took his coat from a bunk and walked out the door without a word. Ten minutes later we came from behind a huge pile of boulders, some as big as a house, and walked into the yak pasture in front of the lodges at Gokyo. Now I recognized my surroundings and I was shocked. Two new guest lodges stood where the old one had been and they were large and looked very comfortable. They made our