On the Top of the world: Base camp Everest

My feet are numb or on fire. I am not sure which. The view is spectacular but the thought of removing my gloves to operate the camera’s controls is unbearable. The wind is making the cold worse, and I imagine that it must be hovering near zero. I have managed to clamber up the 100-foot high moraine, but here at 17,000 feet, there’s only half the oxygen that I am used to at sea level, and I have to rest after every three steps as if I have just run a 100-metre sprint. Yet I am feeling at the top of the world, and have the crazy urge to sing the Carpenters’ song. That’s because I am at the top of the world. Nearly.

I am standing at the Everest North Base Camp in Tibet. In front of me is the Goddess Mother of Earth or Qomolangma, as the Tibetans call the Everest. The ribbed stone pyramid towers over 29,000 feet into the air (that’s 8.8km vertically!). The giant stands grand and solitary on the horizon. Correct that. Everest is not on the horizon, it is the horizon.

This daunting mountain has beckoned adventurers for nearly a century. I try to imagine what it would be like to be in George Mallory and Andrew Irving’s stout boots and fleece jackets marching down here 90 years ago. Or Reinhold Messner in 1980, who reached the summit on his own. In just four days. Without oxygen.