Nepal 2018: Nigel’s Chronicle  

Prologue

Dateline: Toronto, March, 2018

I’m working from my home office and the phone rings. I can see that it’s Arthur Murdoch following up with me on a discussion we had about a trip he is leading in November to Mount Everest Base Camp. When we left off a few days ago, I said I’d think carefully about it and now he’s calling to try to close the deal. My adventure partner Shelley has already committed - and her sister Ainslie is close to doing the same - so I’m feeling the pressure from her too.

The NFL schedule won’t be out for another month so I have no idea how many games or which games I’d be missing by leaving the country – and the continent – for three weeks. I won’t use that as an excuse when I talk to Arthur, I thought; maybe I’m not fit enough and I don’t even like hiking that much anyway; I’m quite scared of heights and what about those suspended bridges? I don’t sleep well in a dorm setting; I often catch a GI infection when I travel to third world countries (as if I really do that very often); maybe I’d be in a better situation to do the trip in a year or two…..

“Hello Arthur, how are you?”

“Good. I’m trying to finalize the group for Nepal and I’m hoping that you will be joining us. Have you made a decision?”

He was clearly ready to deal with all of my excuses. In particular, he shot down the idea of waiting a year - or until next time. “Enough delay will allow you to use the excuse that you’re now too old to do it so that’s a good way to guarantee that you’ll never go”, he offered.

He was right. And I had nothing to counter this point. After addressing my remaining questions and promising me that single rooms would be available in the teahouses on the trekking trails, I had nothing left. Like a salesman who had overcome all of his prospect’s objections, he had me. I knew it and so did he.

Arrival

The streets of Khatmandu and the chaotic traffic they carry were relatively calm for our first encounter. After all, it was well past 11pm when we were all finally issued our tourist visas, collected our luggage and proceeded outside the airport to meet Connor, our Outward Bound Canada (OBC) lead course instructor, who had arrived the previous day to finalize and confirm some of the more important arrangements. With him was a man named Mingma who works for a tour company called Ang Rita in Khatmandu which OBC hires to arrange ground transfers, hotel reservations and other logistics. Mingma presented each of us with a marigold garland as he shook our hands and welcomed us to Nepal. The flowers were real.

After a short drive in a van with our luggage tied on top in a way which would probably be illegal in Ontario, we arrived at the Yak & Yeti hotel which is a quiet, gated oasis amidst the mayhem of the city. It looked and felt like a normal western hotel with crisp bed sheets and a television that worked. I tuned in BBC World News for a few minutes as I tested the electrical outlets to see if I could charge my phone (I could). After a 15 hour flight to Hong Kong where our newly formed group spent most of the day roaming around the busy streets and sizing each other up, followed by an evening flight to Khatmandu, “tired” only begins to describe how we were feeling. Breakfast, we were told, would be at 9.30am. Connor reminded us to use only the bottled water to brush our teeth. Good night.

After a good sleep and a shower, we caught the last 30 minutes of the breakfast buffet and had our first full team meeting around the hotel restaurant table. “What was each of us hoping to get out of this course (trip)?”, we were asked. I had been forewarned that there would be plenty of requests to share our feelings, hopes, concerns in a quasi-group therapy format. Sure, I can play that role, I said to myself, and being the team player that I am, I volunteered my bit early on in the session (an approach I stuck with throughout the trip and one which generally served me well): “I do a lot of wilderness canoeing in Canada and I’m hoping to find some of the same kind of enjoyment I get from that in this very different kind of adventure…” or something like that. Others talked about their goal of meeting the clear objective of reaching the “top” (not of Mount Everest itself of course but to make it to Base Camp and to the top of Kala Patthar) and the opportunity to learn some of the culture and history of a part of the world to which few of us had ever ventured. 

As I now know, OBC programs are called “courses”; the OBC staff who lead them are called “instructors” and, by extension, I suppose the participants are “students” in some sense. Nomenclature aside, I gather that OBC courses are intended to be journeys of self-discovery but within a team setting. Sharing in an open and safe environment was an integral element of the course I describe here and I was generally happy, if not eager, to share and to absorb and process the thoughts and feelings of my team-mates. 

After our team breakfast meeting, we re-boarded the van en route to the “Monkey Temple”. This mid-morning journey through the streets of Khatmandu was our first real exposure to its chaotic traffic with directional flow and lanes serving as only vague guidelines. There are easily 20 motorcycles/scooters for every car with various sizes of vans and trucks also mixed in. Traffic moves the way schools of fish do; at first glance, it looks like utter chaos with no rules of order. But as we moved between small streets and major thoroughfares on what felt like an untraceable route to the temple, I noticed that the flow of traffic actually does follow a logic – just one very different from the comparatively rigid traffic rules of Canadian streets. I also realized that there was something distinctly different about the use of horns. In Toronto, horns are usually used to express anger and as a means for the honker to point out that she has been wronged in some way by another driver. In Khatmandu, horns are used to sound brief warnings that the honker is about to enter or come through a particular space or that another driver may be getting too close (as in less than an eighth of an inch) to the honker. Horn use in Khatmandu appears to be about communication, cooperation and civility, rather than anger, indignation or aggression.

The Monkey Temple enjoys a prominent location offering views of the city and the surrounding valley. Dogs and small monkeys peacefully co-exist with tourists and vendors; they appear fully at ease with the daily throngs who pass through. Most dogs happily relax or sleep while the monkeys seem pre-occupied with searching for and perhaps stealing food if they get the chance. After an hour or so, we were back in the van and back in the mayhem (I use the words “chaos” and “mayhem” interchangeably in this piece to describe the traffic in Khatmandu) en route back to the Yak & Yeti.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent with final duffle bag packing and inspection by our OBS instructors with plenty of time to feel the stirring of butterflies in our stomachs as our trek to Mount Everest Base Camp - the reason we came all this way - was about to begin. The morning would come early with a 5am departure to the airport and the last leg of our air journey – to Lukla, known as the most dangerous commercial airport in the world.

After a somewhat chaotic check-in for the flight, I realized that I had I left my Kershaw knife, which I have had since 2002 and use exclusively (until now) on canoe trips, in my carry-on daypack and not in my checked duffle bag. By the time I realized this, the duffle was long gone through the check-in desk and probably on a cart on the ramp beside the plane. “If you have sharp objects in your bag, you will lose them”, declared the security official as she passed the carry-on bags through the x-ray scanner. Resigned to having lost my knife, in the hopes of minimizing the scene around its imminent seizure, I tried to make eye contact with the person who was watching the screen as my bag passed through. I was unable to do so because he was reading a newspaper. My daypack emerged from the scanner; I grabbed it and walked away. The only use I found for my Kershaw knife over the course of the trek was cutting 250mg Diamox tablets in half – something I did every day except for the two days we were above 5,000 metres (when I doubled my dosage).

The 27 minute flight to Lukla was uneventful in clear weather with the snow-capped Himalayas coming clearly into view to the north. The landing was smooth on the uphill runway and we were on the small ramp a few seconds later. As we got off the plane and started making our way to a teahouse for tea and a final team meeting before we set out, I noticed the faces of the trekkers waiting to fly out. They had just completed the journey we were about to begin and it reminded me of the scene from Platoon when Charlie Sheen’s plane finally arrives near the front line in Vietnam and he sees the hollowed-out faces and distant, blank gazes of those whose tours were finally over and were heading home. Except these trekkers looked just fine. Maybe a bit chilled but happy and healthy. If they can do it, so can we, I thought.

“Please share any fears you have” was the subject of the last official team meeting as we drank “milk tea” around the varnished pine cabinet-like tables which look partly like desks and are typical in teahouses. “I worry about having a GI issue”, I offered, embellishing a little by adding that I stopped going to Mexico years ago because I would come down with a case of the runs every time I went. Others mentioned trepidation around the physical challenge, the altitude and the cold. Unspoken were the reservations I’m sure we all had about spending the next 12 days with each other, uninterrupted, and in the context of whatever challenges – known and unknown - lay ahead of us.

The Trek Begins

After retrieving our trekking poles from our duffle bags, they were zipped up, placed in white grain bags then mounted and tied on the backs of three yaks which would accompany us on the entire trek. These particular beasts of burden were actually a cross-breed between yaks and cattle. Two of them seemed relatively docile but one had an attitude which would flare up a couple of times later on. The “yak driver”, a very cheerful man in his 60’s named Childress, was tasked with marshalling the yaks to Gorakshep, site of the furthest and highest teahouse on our journey, and back. They didn’t often travel alongside us but were either behind us or ahead of us somewhere along the trail. Sometimes they would pass through as we were eating lunch. They usually arrived at our nightly teahouse destinations within an hour of our own arrival, giving us time to relax, have some tea and peruse the dinner menus.

Day one of the trek took us mostly downhill from Lukla through various villages with plenty of teahouses, shops and small farms. A misty fog moved in just before we stopped for lunch where we were introduced to “Sherpa Stew” which is a thick, mostly root vegetable soup. Janet, an executive coach from Vancouver, presented the first of her “conundrums” which, after exhaustive questioning and analysis, we eventually solved. The poison was in the ice cubes.

After lunch, we came to our first suspended bridge over a deep valley. Being fearful of heights, I had worried about my ability to cross these bridges which allowed clear views, for those daring to look, through the strips of sheet metal under our boots at what was usually a raging glacial river far below. But much of my fear magically dissipated upon seeing the much higher level of anxiety shown by Mark, a media executive from Toronto. Mark and I became suspended bridge crossing partners. I led and he followed close behind me, repeatedly counting the stitches on the outer compartment of my day pack. We eventually learned to proceed first across these bridges so as not to be impeded by those who followed and wanted to stop to take photographs.

A second bridge led us to the west side of the river and the village of Phakding where we would stay the first night. For dinner, Mary and I each ordered something called a “pizza set” which included what looked like a pizza but didn’t have the texture or flavour of pizza as we know it in Canada. I mostly avoided pizza after that. The bedrooms were decent with en suite bathrooms. A small crying puppy awoke us in the night and had to be let outside by Shelley.

I ordered porridge for breakfast. Another mistake. It was thin and soupy. Later in the trek, I and others would discover muesli and hot milk. We departed on day two just after 8am in fine, clear weather en route to Namche Bazaar.

Namche

“Gore-tex sucks!” declared Connor. A cool afternoon mist had rolled in as we neared the end of the steep climb to Namche and, having felt a bit of a chill at a rest break an hour earlier, I had donned my Marmot Gore-tex jacket and a clammy perspiration was now getting the better of me.

“I have my pit zips fully open”, I replied, wiping my brow and wondering if I was feeling a bit of late afternoon hypoglycemia.

“Gore-tex doesn’t breathe nearly as well as they want you to believe it does. What you need is a windbreaker; not a raincoat. I can help you find one in Namche.” Connor offered.

Namche is the largest community in the Khumbu region, nestled along the side of a valley surrounded by steep mountains. With an elevation of 3,440 metres, its name is actually Namche Bazaar which describes the market which was in full swing as we arrived. We ascended past rows of vendors offering vegetables and other foodstuffs as well as a range of clothing and other basic consumer goods on the way to what seemed like a never-ending set of stairs to the teahouse where we would spend two nights to acclimatize to the altitude. It would also be the location of the last shower we would have for eight days. Part of Namche looks like a Swiss tourist resort with many shops catering to trekkers and selling all conceivable kinds of trekking gear, clothing and accessories – some of it actually name brand but much of it in the form of cheap and crappy knock-offs. And at least two “Irish Pubs” as well.

Our “acclimatization day” in Namche did not involve much sitting around. Instead, and to change things up a bit, we had a hike planned. And what a hike it was. Among other things, we got our first full view of Mount Everest after climbing straight up for a couple of hours to an exposed ridge. The visible part of the top of Everest is striated black rock and its peak showed the iconic plume of cloud spilling off toward the east. We continued on to the Everest View Hotel where we sat on the sunny deck, drank tea and took in the stunning mountain vistas.

We then descended northward into a picturesque valley and the village of Khumjung, home to a large monastery and a high school built by Sir Edmund Hillary in 1962. Our lead Sherpa guide Lhakpa attended the school where he learned sufficient English to become a trekking guide. After a satisfying lunch of noodles and mixed vegetables, we toured the school (it was a Saturday so classes were not sitting) before we made our way past a government yak farm and back to Namche.

Namche is also home to a monastery where the sitting monk happens to be the uncle of our Sherpa guide Mingma. Some of us went with Mingma to visit the monastery and his uncle who welcomed and blessed us each individually. He said to me that I would live to the age of 108. I was feeling quite buoyed by this revelation until I shared it with the others who reported that they each were told the same thing. Turns out that the number 108 is significant in Buddhist liturgy. Before we left the monastery, Janet handed her iPhone to the monk and asked if he would snap a photo of us. Standing in his bright red robes in the ancient monastery, he did that and then, without prompting or instruction, he switched the phone to selfie mode, turned, stood with us and snapped a hilarious shot of the group with himself in the foreground. As he handed the phone back to Janet, he asked her how she liked the iPhone 8S as he was thinking of upgrading to it himself.

Before dinner, a few of us joined Connor for a shopping outing. I was in the market for a non-waterproof wind jacket – which I easily found at one of the legitimate stores. I paid 14,000 Nepalese rupees – or about $140 USD – for a light Black Diamond jacket tested by Connor for breathability. The test is quite simple: literally see if you can suck air through it with your mouth and, if you can, it will breathe. I also got a sun hat with the blue eyes of Buddha above the word “Nepal” on the front and a buff.

Moving Above 4,000 Metres

Day 4 was bright and clear in the morning as we moved onward and upward from Namche toward Phengboche. After lunch, some minor group issues emerged with Shelley, a professor at the University of Toronto and Mary, an IT manager from Orangeville, feeling that our pace wasn’t quite fast enough for them. The issue was aired, the OBC instructors emphasized that the team would not split into faster and slower groups and we resolved to maintain cohesion and move on together. In retrospect, what was really needed was simply better spacing between us – especially on the steep and narrow sections with trekkers, porters and yaks clogging the trail in both directions at times. Shelley told me 30 minutes after our group discussion on the trail that she was happy to have had the chance to express her mild frustrations and that she had regained a peaceful state. Mary seemed to take a little longer to come around.

In the afternoon mist, we passed the large monastery at Tengboche (which we would visit on the descent) and descended again toward the river and another suspended bridge. The longest day of trekking so far brought us to the teahouse in Phengboche at 4pm. The rooms had exterior curtains hanging outside the doors.

Dinner was particularly good - for me at least – with delicious cheese and potato spring rolls and pasta with tomato sauce. After dinner, we split into groups of two to re-connect with what we were hoping to get out of the course and what success might look like for each of us. I paired with Evan whose long history with Outward Bound (including being a former member of the International Board) makes him well-versed in these touchy, feely group sharing moments which are much less familiar to me. When we reconvened, I talked about how pleasing it was for me to be cultivating meaningful individual relationships with each member of the group. Before bed, the cribbage board came out. Mark learned quickly. Connor took the game. Janet showed us a card trick.

Day 5 was bright and clear and cold. After breakfast, we watched Childress preparing the yaks for the day’s journey. Two were docile and deferential but one was much less so. We watched with a measure of nervous tension as Childress, who presumably has decades of yak driving and handling experience, very carefully worked a rope around the horns of our ornery yak who stood calmly but fixated on Childress. The look on his face said “I actually had other plans for today so you may want to re-think this business of getting that rope on my horns and then loading me up with duffle bags”. In the end, of course, he acquiesced.

After an early ascent to warm us up, a rather short and easy walk along an open meadow plateau brought us to Pheriche (4,300 metres and well above the tree line) and the Himilayan Inn, a teahouse where we would stay three nights in total. It has a large common room and the bedrooms are clean and comfortable with en suite toilets which require that the tank be filled with a jug from a large barrel of water for each flush. After lunch, Shelley and I circumnavigated the village and its many walls of piled stones. Ama Dablan, a strikingly steep and elegant peak overlooks the village from the south. At 3pm, we made our way to the Himilayan Rescue Association Medical Clinic for a presentation by the young staff doctors there – one from Minnesota, one from Belfast and one from Australia - on the effects of altitude on the human body, the various acclimatization strategies which are usually followed by trekkers and an in-depth look at the two main kinds of serious altitude sickness. It is the highest medical facility in the Khumbu. Multiple games of cribbage were played before and after dinner and I finally won a game.

Day 6 was our second acclimatization day. After a leisurely breakfast at 7.30am, we set out for our day hike which would take us above 4,800 metres under spectacular clear skies. Along the way, Janet floated her second conundrum which I eventually solved after listening to relentless questions from some of the others. I wasn’t really trying to solve it; it just came to me: the man who the bartender pulled a gun on had the hiccups.

As I now know, Outward Bound courses often include a “solo” element and our instructors decided that our Day 6 acclimatization hike would be a good time for it. So we dispersed around the slope – some higher, some lower, some around corners and none within eyesight of any of the others for a period of about 40 minutes. Upon regrouping, I spoke about the concept of geological time and how the mountains which surrounded us are the result of the momentum of the continents coming together and pushing the land skyward. Mark mentioned menu planning. Evan explained how he lay prone with his head facing Ama Dablan. Afterward, some of us walked a bit higher before returning to Pheriche for lunch. In the afternoon, I wrote a piece in the group journal about time machines and tourism in the Khumbu. After dinner, the three-handed cribbage game was razor thin with all three players within two points of victory. Connor won the game. Again.

My day 7 breakfast was apple muesli with hot milk and two boiled eggs. The weather was clear and cold. Again. We made our way to Lobusche at 4, 910 metres. For the first time, I did experience a very slight altitude related headache for the first couple of hours after arriving at the Oxygen teahouse in Lobusche. Extra water and some down time were the remedies. The ibuprofen and Tylenol I took had no effect.

As the dinner hour approached, the sunset on Lhotse was spectacular and easily visible from the east window of the teahouse common room. Just after the sunset, an equally spectacular almost full moon rose behind Lhotse. Many of us went outside for a better view and hundreds of photographs were taken.

After dinner, more cribbage was played. Most of our group retired early but I stayed up with Connor and Lhapka. As we sat, Connor, who is planning a trip to EBC with his family, asked Lhapka to list the names and prices of the teahouses we had stayed at so far. He obliged. I noticed that the teahouse prices for accommodation seemed low (I had only seen the food prices on menus). This led to a larger discussion about economics in the Khumbu and in Nepal generally.

Lhapka is a 27-year old trekking guide whose English is excellent. As our lead guide, he was highly knowledgeable, endlessly patient, always helpful and never unavailable. When Connor and I asked questions to dig deeper into the issues of exploitation, poverty and corruption in Nepal, at first he seemed reluctant to share his thoughts on these matters with us, his clients. But, seeing our keen interest in pursuing these questions, he soon overcame his reluctance and painted a compelling picture for us of how difficult life is for most Nepalese citizens. The plight of porters (whose back-breaking work is described in the epilogue) seems particularly harsh as they need to spend a large proportion of their earnings on food, all too often at full tourist prices. After his jarring description of the reality of life in Nepal, I retired to bed feeling sad and conflicted by what I had heard.

The Summit

Day 8 was going to be a big one. If all went according to plan (including having clear weather in the afternoon), we would reach Gorakshep (the highest village in the Khumbu and the “end of the line” in terms of indoor accommodations) and then, in the afternoon, the summit of Kala Patthar at 5,545 metres, the highest point on our journey and the closest we would come to the peak of Mount Everest.

   

The trek to Gorakshep was difficult for me. Not that it was overly physically challenging but most of the trail consisted of narrow passageways over and through rocky and undulating terrain, around large boulders, and over glacial streams. Most challenging was that it was particularly crowded with trekkers, porters and yaks moving in both directions, making for a claustrophobic and unpleasant experience. But we arrived at our teahouse in Gorakshep before lunchtime. The weather looked perfect for a sunset view of Everest from Kala Patthar.

After lunch, we set out up the steep but easy trail with Mingma in the lead and Lhapka sweeping. We reached the peak after a couple of hours and settled in to watch the setting sun, take photos, congratulate and hug each other and eat Pringles chips and Snickers bars.

Nuptse creates an optical illusion from Kala Patthar as it looks to be a taller mountain than Everest. It’s just physically closer and when the sun has almost set, it shines on the top of Everest and only on the top of Everest, thereby proving – as if it was needed – that Everest is indeed the highest point on earth. I took one of my best photos ever of the orange-coloured sun on the peak of Everest a few minutes before it set. After sunset, we descended two thirds of the way then stopped to watch the full moon emerge from behind Everest.

Back at the teahouse in Gorakshep, we relaxed for a few minutes before learning that the next morning would be a very early one with a 5am departure to Everest Base Camp. As we absorbed that news, Mark regaled us with a poem in anapestic tetrameter (like “Twas the Night Before Christmas) where he cleverly incorporated a humorous reference about each of us in the group and even worked in a mention of the ghost of Outward Bound founder Kurt Hahn.

My room at Gorakshep was a very small single along a narrow hallway with three other rooms just behind the common room. As I was drifting off to sleep, trekkers piled into the other rooms, stomping around like elephants and talking loudly in Eastern European voices and laughing for about half an hour. I returned the favour at 4.45am after I dressed and packed for EBC. Closing and locking the padlock mechanism on my door made a noise which could wake the dead. And easily wake sleeping Eastern European trekkers.

We did the trek to EBC in darkness for the first 90 minutes in rocky, barren terrain. A cold wind picked up after day break. EBC, which sits at the base of the Khumbu ice-fall, is nothing more than a flat rocky area within what looks like a gravel quarry – except that it lies beside the world’s tallest mountains. There are strings of prayer flags and some simple inukshuk-like monuments from previous groups. We stayed maybe 20 minutes, took some photos and had another set of congratulatory hugs. It felt anti-climactic especially after experiencing the wonder of the sunset on Everest from Kala Patthar the previous day. But we had made it to the furthest point on the journey and that felt significant. Now the long trip home was about to begin. Tonight, we would sleep in Pheriche, again.

The Descent

Anyone who has read Into Thin Air knows that the descent from a climb can be more difficult, more dangerous and more emotionally draining than the climb itself. I realize that the parallel between the 1996 Everest disaster and our trek is far too dramatic but the fact is that, although everyone in our group made it to Kala Patthar, attrition began to set in immediately afterward. Three were not up to the 5am trek to EBC and chose to sleep-in that morning. Those same three would not finish the walk back to Lukla.

After breakfast in Gorakshep, we began to re-trace our steps. The rocky terrain leading to Lobousche which I found so claustrophobic the previous day was easier and faster (and less crowded) as our pace was greatly increased from that of the previous eight days. We descended past the area of the climber’s memorial to one of our previous lunch spots from the ascent. Ainslie, an insurance underwriter from Moncton (and Shelley’s younger sister) had suffered through the night at Gorakshep with a GI issue which precluded her from having lunch this day. Others were suffering from head and chest colds with persistent coughing. The entire group would make it to Pheriche later that day but for Ainslie, it would be the end of her trek. 

Lhapka addressed the group after dinner. At the urging of Connor and me, he talked about the economic and political issues facing Nepal that the three of us had discussed two nights earlier - and expanded on them with more historical context.

Being a university professor, Shelley became interested in one subject which Lhapka spoke about: the state of the public schools in Nepal which is, apparently, terrible. The next day, she explored this further with Lhakpa and learned that a child in the Khumbu could attend a good (or a much better) quality private school for the sum of about $1,200 USD annually. Seeing the opportunity, Lhapka mentioned his niece (the daughter of Tenzing, a Sherpa mountain guide who joined us in Pheriche as an assistant guide on our ascent) to Shelley as an example of a child who could benefit from better schooling. She is six years old and lives in a village three hours walk from Namche – where we would arrive the following day. Shelley offered to sponsor the girl and cover her school tuition through the next several years. Tenzing arranged for his wife and daughter to meet us in Namche.

It was decided the following morning (day 10) that Ainslie could not muster the energy she required to walk with us. A chopper was ordered. She, Judy (an OBC instructor from Vancouver) and Mingma stayed behind to wait for the chopper to Lukla. 

The descent from Pheriche was easy at first on another fine, clear day but led to some challenging ascents after we crossed the river. Before lunch, we lost another group member, Carmen, a lawyer from Toronto (and Mark’s wife) to fatigue brought on by her chest cold. She hit the wall and needed to complete the day’s trek on horseback. Miraculously, she arrived at the Ama Dablan View teahouse in Kyiangjuma at exactly the time the rest of the group arrived on foot. She reported that the ride was harrowing at all times and particularly terrifying on the steep descents. The teahouse rooms were spacious with en suite automatic flush toilets.

In the morning of day 11, it was decided that Carmen would chopper out to Lukla to join Ainslie, Mingma and Judy. Our group was now reduced to nine: six OBC course participants, OBC instructor Connor and Sherpas Lhakpa and Tenzing. We forged onward to Namche where we toured a traditional Sherpa house, a mountain climbing museum (which included a slide show) and paused to take in a statue of Tenzing Norgay before lunch at the teahouse where we had stayed two nights on the ascent.

It was here that we met Tenzing’s wife and six-year old daughter who had walked the three hours from their home to meet us and, in particular, to meet Shelley (and to briefly see her husband on his way to Lukla). I said to Mark “its like someone called central casting asking for a cute six-year old Sherpa girl with pigtails”. She was nicely dressed, shy and simply could not have been any more appealing. Mother and father expressed their gratitude to Shelley for her offer to cover their daughter’s school tuition. It was a touching moment.

Late afternoon brought us to a teahouse in the village of Monjo which had hot showers in each bathroom (without a stall or tub – just a shower head on the wall beside the toilet and a slow drain in the floor). As I remarked at the time, in the ordinary course of our regular lives at home where most of us bathe every day, the shower in the room in Monjo would have qualified as quite possibly the worst shower ever, with weak pressure and constantly varying water temperature. But when it was hot, it was really hot and since it was the first shower for any of us in eight days, it was among the very best showers I have ever had. We shared some popcorn before dinner – by hygeinically pouring small amounts into small cups so as not to spread our germs any further. After dinner, more cribbage before Connor, Evan and I reflected on the trip so far and discussed some possible changes to itineraries for future EBC expeditions.

Day 12 would be our last on the trekking trails. It would take us through a lush valley where we stopped to watch a farmer steering his two oxen with a single plough blade. Industrial farming it wasn’t. I had the most delicious large spring roll for lunch before crossing the last two suspended bridges with Mark continuing to count the stitching on my day pack. He knows exactly how many there are. We arrived in Lukla around 2pm – earlier than some of us expected due, I believe, to a successful strategy of expectation management on the part of Lhakpa who had prepared us for a longer and tougher day. Trek over. We had done it. Now to re-unite our team.

Lukla to Khatmandu

As we walked through Lukla on our way to the teahouse for our last night before returning to Khatmandu, I noticed a barber shop offering shaving for men. After lunch, Evan and I paid it a visit. It was a cold shave with a straight razor in a covered outdoor stall for 300 rupees. Without realizing what I was in for, I opted for a “face wash” for another 300 rupees which involved a somewhat unpleasant and rough rubbing of the dead skin from my face, followed by applications of various creams and ointments. Evan wisely declined the face wash.

Before dinner, we topped up the tip envelopes for our Sherpa guides. Connor read a quote from Mark Twain about the completion of a difficult task: “I’m glad I did it, partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.” Quotes were read most days – usually at meal times – and, although I generally indicated a positive reaction to them, the truth is that some of them seemed to me to be a bit too long, too clichéd and not always relevant. But not this one from Mark Twain, however. I will quite likely never trek to EBC again. Not because it wasn’t a worthwhile thing to do. It was entirely worthwhile. But because there are so many other adventures to pursue before I can imagine being ready to consider undertaking this particular one again.

Tuesday morning in Lukla and we were off to the airport which was less than 100 metres away. The chaos that is the Lukla airport early in the morning is something to behold: dim lighting, confusing check-in and luggage procedures, long security line-ups and overflowing crowds of would-be outgoing passengers clogging the terminal. Flights from Khatmandu arrive and depart early so as to minimize the possibility of cloud cover or mountain mist grounding them. The airport is strictly VFR (visual flight rules).  With our boarding passes in hand, we watched several flights arrive and depart as the terminal slowly thinned out. Finally, it was our turn. Pointed downhill on the east button of the 06/24 runway, the pilot throttled up while holding the brakes before finally letting them off. The plane accelerated down the hill (the runway has an almost 12 degree slope) along the 500m runway with the pilot rotating just as the plane was flung off the side of the cliff and into the air. We were in Khatmandu less than 30 minutes later.

Another journey through the traffic and we were back at the calm luxury of the Yak &Yeti hotel by mid-morning. As we waited for our rooms relaxing and napping by the pool, a gathering of high-ranking military personnel wandered outside to take photos. Most of them looked like Central American strong-men wearing full fatigues, tall black shiny boots, military baseball caps and aviator sunglasses.

Goodbye Nepal

After our rooms were ready, I had a sauna and then Ainslie and I navigated our way through the mayhem of the city streets to a pharmacy to get a supply of Sudafed for Shelley to cope with the flight the next day. By this point, she was in the depths of a miserable sounding cold. On the way back, we saw what looked like a lost but very cute puppy aimlessly wandering along the chaotically busy thoroughfare and looking up at passers-by as if to say “will you take me home?”

We had a group celebration dinner at the somewhat famous Rum Doodle restaurant, about a 20 minute walk from the hotel. It has long been a gathering place for Himalayan mountaineers and Everest climbers and bears the signatures and photographs of many of them, including Edmund Hillary. The margaritas were good but then Mark ordered a bottle of Australian Shiraz of which we only managed to drink two thirds – among the 12 of us. It was that bad. But the food was good and we had a fun night.

The next and last day in Khatmandu started with a team breakfast and a final group meeting which consisted of a thoughtful exercise where we sat together and passed around ten separate pieces of paper - one for each of us - where we each took a few minutes to write a personal note to each of our teammates. I have looked at mine, and its nine separate handwritten messages, a few times since returning from the trip. I predict that one of my nieces will throw it out, hopefully about 50 years from now. 

In the afternoon, we did some shopping in the Thamel district of Khatmandu where I confirmed just how poor a negotiator I am with the purchase of one of Nepal’s most expensive small yak bells. Then back to the Yak & Yeti, something to eat and some more waiting around. Just before we left for the airport, Mark recited another brilliant poem, this time a ballad, in the form of the Robert Service poem The Cremation of Sam McGee. He named it “Retreat From Kala Patthar”.

With a couple of hours to kill, we attracted considerable attention in the check-in area of the Khatmandu airport by playing cribbage on top of a pile of our duffle bags. Card playing is illegal for Nepalese citizens. Finishing the last game cost me about an hour in the check-in, immigration and security line-ups. We left on time and arrived in Hong Kong at daybreak. Those of us going to Toronto had 12 hours before our next and final flight. I spent the first couple of hours chatting with Janet before her flight to Vancouver departed and the remaining hours reading, having lunch at O’Leary’s and wandering the massive airport.      

Epilogue: in honour of the porters who haul freight on the trekking trails

The Things They Carried is a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories by Tim O’Brien about a platoon in the Vietnam War. The author was drawn to the small items – some sentimental, some eccentric and some bizarre – that American soldiers carried with them to remind them of home or to help transcend them from the hell of war as time allowed.

On our trek, the trails were quite busy at times as some 50,000 tourists come to the Khumbu valley every year. We learned to step aside (always to the uphill side) for yaks, donkeys and for the hard-working people known as porters.

As we encountered these porters who were carrying truly and, in some cases, literally staggering loads on their backs, I kept thinking that The Things They Carried should really be a story about Nepalese porters. The size and weight of some of the loads we saw on the backs of these poor souls defy proper description. Cardboard cases of dried chicken soup mix stacked eight feet high, massive loads of bottled water, cases of beer, chocolate bars, fuel cans – all destined to the teahouses where trekkers like us ate and slept - sheets of plywood, dimensional lumber, rolls of flooring and carpets, the duffle bags of countless trekkers; we even saw a porter carrying a full kitchen counter literally with the kitchen sink installed. Once at a rest stop we counted the amount of beer in one porter’s load as he was buying something in a shop. There were 12 cases of 12 beers each; that’s six cases of 24. I don’t buy cases of 24 anymore because I find them a bit heavy to carry the 25 feet from the trunk of my car to the back door of the cottage. But carrying six cases up steep and rocky trails, at altitude and for hours and/or days on end? This truly is grunt work of the most basic kind. Porters are paid by the kilogram so they’re motivated to carry as much as they can. Even so, most earn around 1,500 rupees (about $15 USD – which is a high wage compared to the national average) a day and then they have to eat – usually every day. We were not surprised to hear that many porters last only a few years before back problems force them off the trails.

I would like to thank these Nepalese porters for carrying the food and supplies we consumed at the teahouses. I hope that some improvement can be made to their remuneration formula – either in the form of higher wages or lower prices for the meals they need to sustain their bodies.

Patriots 13, Rams 3

When I read last week that Maroon 5 had cancelled its customary Superbowl week press conference which is afforded to the halftime musical act,  I wondered if we would ever see another one of them. After Justin Timberlake famously declared that his young son would never play football in response to a question at that same press conference a year ago, the league was probably relieved that Adam Levine and company would, according to an NFL press release "let their show do the talking as they prepare to take the stage this Sunday". Maybe the NFL could see if John Ashcroft is available next year to sing his "Let the Eagle Soar" song at the 2020 halftime show. His press conference would likely only offend the liberal non-football watching crowd anyway.

As for the halftime show itself, I thought that Maroon 5's performance was fine - pretty good actually. USA today called it a "white bread performance" which allowed them to avoid being the worst halftime show ever. I'm assuming that rapper - and Atlanta native son - Big Boi's coat was fake fur. Imagine the PR nightmare for the league if it turns out that it wasn't? As if the NFL doesn't have enough to worry about with race relations, spousal abuse, close ties to the Republican Party, a history of extorting public funds for new stadiums.....an animal rights problem might just land Roger Goodell on the Agenda with Steve Paikin where he would be pitted against lawyer Camille Labchuk from Animal Rights. If that happened, my money would be on Labchuk for a number of reasons.

The on-field backdrop for last night's 53rd version of the Superbowl wasn't ideal from the league's perspective. After a season which saw television ratings rebound amid a reduced focus on off-the-field matters, including a President who had more pressing concerns this past season than whether or not NFL players were standing during the singing of the national anthem, an on-the-field controversy engulfed the football world after the NFC Championship Game. An inexplicable and critical non-call on a clear pass interference foul late in the game sent the Rams to the big game instead of the Saints who surely would have won the NFC title had the right call - and the blatantly obvious call - been made. Equally inexplicably, the league was silent on the matter and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said very little about it at his annual press conference last Wednesday. At least the Rams didn't win the game.

And it looks very much like there will be no significant change to the replay/review rule. For those hoping that pass interference might be added to the list of reviewable plays (along with other judgment calls like holding), don't hold your breath. As Don Banks pointed out on Prime Time Sports last week, among the unintended consequences of such a move would be to draw attention to the fact that there is some degree of pass interference and/or holding on virtually every snap. The only thing I would suggest is that if the officials can pick up a flag - and reverse a called penalty - upon further discussion among themselves (not replay review - just a brief officials meeting), then surely they could also sometimes call a penalty and throw a flag after a play is over, provided that one of the on-field officials actually saw the infraction. It still seems unbelievable to me that no official saw the blatant pass interference two weeks ago in New Orleans. 

On to the game itself: I wondered if its 14 punts had set a Superbowl record but nope, Superbowl XXXV in January, 2001 (Giants v. Ravens) featured 21 of them. The Rams, however did set two Superbowl records - the first by punting on each of their first seven drives and the second by Johnny Hekker who recorded the longest punt in Superbowl history at 65 yards (with 27 of them coming on a very favourable bounce). Those who took the under were happy at least. I found the game to be less interesting than Superbowls in recent years but still much better than a blow-out would have been.

So, Brady and Belichick have their 6th rings now. Will their run end there? I'm certainly not counting on it.

Bills 42, Dolphins 17

I saw not a single snap of yesterday's game in Orchard Park. Not live anyway; I have seen a couple of the game's key plays online just this morning. As Kyle Williams was leaving the field for the last time, I was leading a group of cross-country skiers across three frozen lakes in Muskoka. There just isn't enough snow to ski on the trails, although that is forecast to change later today.

Kyle Williams was picked by the Bills in the 5th round of the 2006 draft from LSU. As he said on Friday when he announced his retirement from the NFL, Williams has only ever lived in two places: Louisiana and Buffalo, NY. His family, including five children, call Buffalo home. Williams is not only one of the best players ever to wear a Bills uniform but he has been the undisputed team leader and ambassador. When the team made a successful push to sign defensive end Mario Williams in 2012, Williams was front and centre in making the case for him to come to Buffalo. When the team watched the Cincinnati Bengals upset the Baltimore Ravens in week 17 last season to send the Bills to the playoffs, Williams jumped around in the locker room like a kid on Christmas morning. Through his 13 seasons with the team, it would be the only playoff game he would see.

Williams has seen some very lean times in Buffalo with the team's record through his entire tenure being only 76-120. The team never really bottomed out (although the 2010 season where they ended at 4-12 after starting 0-8 came close) and rebounded - it just kept plodding along through various head coaches - Dick Jauron, Chan Gailey, Doug Marrone, Rex Ryan and now Sean McDermott - piling up disappointing but not disastrous records year after year. Always the team player and always seeing the positive in a sea of negativity, Williams remained loyal and committed to the team. His name will rightly go on the Wall of Fame maybe as early as next season. I have never seen a player deliver a more consistent effort on each and every snap he ever played. In last season's final game, Williams ran for a touchdown and yesterday, he caught a pass for a nine yard gain. To me, on that play, he looked like a better receiver than Kelvin Benjamin ever did. Kyle Williams wins the Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award for week 17 but for all the right reasons.

Josh Allen had another strong game for the Bills under centre, going 17 for 26 for 224 yards, and 5 touchdowns - 3 passing and 2 running - for a quarterback rating of 114. His counterpart, Ryan Tannehill, whose future with the Dophins is uncertain at best, finished the game with a rating of 43. Allen made one bonehead throw which was intercepted and returned for a touchdown, allowing the Dolphins to tie the game late in the first half. He will need to eliminate these disastrous plays in the future but the Bills fan base should feel optimistic about Allen's prospects going into next season and beyond.

Around the league yesterday, the Patriots secured another first round bye which sets them up for a likely trip to the AFC Championship Game in Kansas City. In the NFC, the Saints will be tough to beat at home but the Eagles made it in to the tournament and will play at Chicago next weekend. Should be some interesting games in what has been an entertaining season for the league.

I will have a post after the Superbowl. My prediction is the Saints and Patriots will play in Atlanta on February 3rd. Happy New Year. 
   

Patriots 24, Bills 12

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - at least it is where I am now. It's early morning on Christmas Eve - a few minutes after 6am - here on Clear Lake in eastern Muskoka. It's still dark but about 5cm of fresh snow fell through the night, pretty much ensuring a white Christmas. I arrived early yesterday morning to find a thin layer of crusty frozen snow and ice on the ground from the rain which fell on Friday. But I also found good skating conditions on the lake. The ice is about six inches thick so I donned my life jacket and a length of rope, wished myself good luck and set out on the blades. I stayed close to shore and had no issues. There are few activities as satisfying as skating on a frozen lake and I'm happy to have had an early season chance at it. Today I will cross country ski. But not before I make another batch of my Christmas jam. This year, it is apple / pineapple. The first batch turned out ok but I need to extend the cooking a bit to get it to the proper set point.

After skating, I settled in to watch the Bills take on the Patriots in Foxborough with a chance to deny them their 10th consecutive AFC East division title. It wasn't to be. Throughout the week, I was following the evolving point spread for the game which started and ended at 13.5 points. Early in the week, money came in on the Bills (for some reason) which pushed the spread down to 12 but, when the so-called "sharp money" came in late in the week, the 13.5 point spread was restored. For those who took the points and the Bills, you made the right call as they covered the spread by losing by only 12. And that included a missed field goal and a botched extra point which would have reduced the margin to 8 points.

The Patriots usually come up with game plans which serve them well against particular opponents and yesterday was no exception as they decided that they would run the ball against the Bills highly rated pass defence. And run the ball they did, piling up 273 yards on the ground and dominating the line of scrimmage and the time of possession. The Bills managed only 72 yards rushing. LeSean McCoy had 6 carries for 9 yards and looked so slow that he earns his second Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award in 3 weeks. Tom Brady needed only 117 passing yards, compared to Josh Allen's respectable looking 289 yards. Both threw two interceptions and each team fumbled the ball away once. Though the score never got out of hand, the game never felt like one where the result was in question.

If a win wasn't in the cards yesterday, Bills fans were hoping to see more positive development from Josh Allen. I would characterize his progress as steady but slow. He was unable to run the way we have seen over the past few weeks (probably a good thing) but I was hoping to see more improvement in his passing and I'm not sure I saw that yesterday. His arm strength is obviously impressive and serves him very well on deep balls and on broken plays or instances where he escapes the pocket and has more time to throw down the field but he still lacks the requisite touch on some of the mid-range throws which NFL quarterbacks need to make. I can't tell whether it looks like he will be able to improve enough on those throws to be the 10 year franchise quarterback we all hope he will be. 

Around the league yesterday, the Saints locked up home field through the NFC playoffs with a big win over the Steelers who are likely out of the playoffs. In the AFC, things are more complicated but the Chiefs and Chargers could each still claim the number one seed.

The Bills face the Dolphins in Orchard Park on Sunday. Both teams have been eliminated and if the weather is foul, the stands will be sparsely occupied.

Hoping that everyone who wants to has a Merry Christmas and safe travels. The photo was taken above the village of Pheriche, Nepal (4,700 metres above sea level) which is about a day's walk from Mount Everest Base Camp.

Bills 14, Lions 13

Jerry Sullivan was the lead sports columnist for the Buffalo News for 16 years before he was unceremoniously punted by the newspaper in May because his "voice was becoming bad for business". That was the reason given to Sullivan, now an independent Buffalo-based journalist, by the paper. Were his columns, particularly about the Bills (and especially during the post-2000 playoff drought and before Ralph Wilson's death), often quite negative? Yes they were. But for good reason in my opinion. A cheerleader he was not. Sullivan was critical of Wilson's cheapskate management and coaching hiring practices after the departure of the triumvirate of GM Bill Polian, coach Marv Levy and quarterback Jim Kelly. It was my impression that Sullivan had a large following of readers among Buffalo sports fans - those who agreed with him and those who didn't. The Buffalo News obviously saw it differently. I always loved his description of how he approached his job with the paper in terms of not being a homer: "I column as I see 'em".

I have no idea how Sullivan earns a living theses days. I follow him on Twitter and I read his columns after every Bills game (which he posts to his Twitter account). Maybe there are advertisements for Tops Friendly Markets or Dunn Tire embedded somewhere in his column that I subconsciously see but I certainly don't pay to read what he posts. Not to say that I necessarily wouldn't pay if it came to that but, for me, either way, he is a go-to source after every Bills game. Yesterday, Sullivan referred to the Bills win over the Detroit Lions as a key part of the equation in their "epic race to 7-9". It reminded me of something he said about Dick Jauron who coached the Bills from 2006 through November of 2009. The Bills finished 7-9 in 2006, 2007 and 2008 under Jauron. In a sarcastic reference to his pursuit of mediocrity, Sullivan wrote that "Jauron strings up 7-9 seasons like Christmas lights on his house".

Yesterday, Sullivan described the Bills v. Lions game at Ralph Wilson Stadium as "having an August feel to it". I'm quite sure that he wasn't referring to the weather - rather to the fact that the game felt much like it was taking place in the pre-season with little for either team to play for in terms of the importance of a win or a loss. The Bills and Lions do play every year in week four of the pre-season - usually the least relevant of the NFL's four-game season ticket holder punishment program before the real games start.

Another thought that Sullivan had yesterday was about the emergence of Robert Foster as a legitimate NFL wide-receiver. Foster, who played his college football at Alabama, was signed by the Bills as an undrafted free agent in May. This reunited him with Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll who was Foster's coordinator in Tuscaloosa. At last winter's combine, Foster's 4.41 in the 40 yard dash ranked him fifth among receivers but was not quite enough for any team to draft him. He was called up to the Bills from the practice squad last month and yesterday, he recorded four catches for 108 yards - his third 100 yard receiving game this year. Yesterday;s effort included catching the game-winning 42 yard touchdown pass from Josh Allen in the fourth quarter. Presumably the Bills will have a fresh new cohort of receivers on the team in 2019 but Foster has shown enough to deserve a chance to compete for the number one receiver position in training camp.

As for the Bills epic race to 7-9, it may prove to be too tall an order as they travel to Foxborough next week to face the Patriots who have now lost two consecutive games. They still lead the AFC East but currently occupy the third seed which means a home playoff game but no first round bye and road games in the second and third rounds. They would obviously like to move up to the second seed which would earn them a week off followed by a home game. If Josh Allen and Robert Foster can lead the Bills to a win, it would be truly epic.

Oh, and the winner of this week's Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award is.......Bills running back Marcus Murphy who left the game in the second quarter with an apparent broken arm. He's done for the season and may be done withe the Bills altogether. I wish him well.

Jets 27, Bils 23

Last week, I did feel some measure of redemption for my latest Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award winner. After last week's game in Miami, I gave the award to Kelvin Benjamin, who had been posing in a Bills uniform as an NFL No. 1 wide receiver for over a year. Last Tuesday, the Bills released him, along with another receiver, Andre Holmes. In a puzzling move, the Chiefs then proceeded to sign Benjamin to a one-year deal. As injury back-up I presume. Benjamin was not active in yesterday's Chiefs overtime win over Baltimore.

As for this week's winner, I'm afraid that it's going to be LeSean McCoy who injured a hamstring in the first half yesterday and did not return. The sand has run out of the hour-glass for McCoy this season - his 10th in the league and his fourth with the Bills. Until this year, McCoy has been excellent for the most part with an instinct for finding seams when none appear to be open and a unique ability to evade tacklers in space. As with many backs who turn 30 (like he did this year), the half step of speed he has lost seems to have made the difference between success and being ready to retire. He is averaging 3.3 yards per carry this season - not good enough for a featured running back. I expect that McCoy will not be on the Bills roster next season but he may be a useful third down back for a contending team in the future. His days of getting 25 touches per game are probably over.

Yesterday's game in Orchard Park was billed as the battle of the two first-round quarterbacks in the AFC East. With the Bills coming into the game at 4-8 and the Jets stuck at 3-9, the game was really part two of the AFC East Consolation Bowl. The Bills easily won the first round of it four weeks ago in the Meadowlands and yesterday was the Jets chance to end a six game losing streak and even the season series with their division rivals. More than 59,000 fans turned out on a sunny but cool day to see which of the two rookie quarterbacks would step up.

The answer is that it was Sam Darnold who came through for his team when it counted, leading his team for the game-winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter. As for Josh Allen, he showed a few more signs of developing into the franchise quarterback that Bills fans hope he will be but, in the end, he did not throw the ball well enough to win the game or as well as Darnold did. Yes, he ran the ball very well again yesterday and did hit some passes but his issues with inaccuracy cost him two interceptions, including on the potential game-winning drive in the final minute. In fairness to Allen, despite his risking injury with continued scrambling, I am starting to feel ever-so-slightly more confident with him under centre. Could just be familiarity.

The geniuses who create the NFL schedule gave the Bills three December home games this season - all, as it turns out, against losing teams. Two of those remain, including next week's tilt against the Detroit Lions. The Lions won in Arizona yesterday to improve to 5-8 on the season but the game offers virtually no compelling reason to attend, other than to see Josh Allen continue his evolution.

As I pointed out after their week one loss at Baltimore, the Bills have plenty of cap space going into next year. I think that the 2019 roster will look quite different from the current one, particularly in the offensive skilled positions. As nice a job as former practice squad players Robert Foster and Isaiah McKenzie have done late this season, the Bills need more play-makers to help Josh Allen along.

   

Dolphins 21, Bills 17

This photo was taken about 10 days ago at the top of Kala Patthar, the highest point we reached on our recent Everest Base Camp trek in northeastern Nepal - elevation 5,545 metres or about 18,500 feet above sea level. The top of Everest is above my head (where it shall always remain). Our entire team made it to this point but as illness took its course (in the form of either GI issues or chest colds - or both), two were evacuated by helicopter on the descent. The team was fully re-united in Lukla. By dumb luck, I was the only one who suffered no illness on the trek.

We generally had spectacular weather throughout the 12 day trek with deep blue skies every day offering us clear views of the Himalayan alpine peaks and the valleys we ascended. My small digital camera recorded about 650 images and I am starting the process of vetting them to come up with about 25 of the best ones. There are many images of animals - yaks, donkeys, goats, dogs - and some irresistible images of Sherpa children to choose from as well as all of the breath-taking shots of the various snow-capped sets of incisors which are the Himalayas. John Krakauer used the term "incisors" to describe the mountains in Into Thin Air and when I first saw them on the flight from Khatmandu to Lukla, it was clear why.

Our journey not only took us up the Khumbu valley toward the world's highest mountain, but also through the rich history of the region with our Sherpa guides providing an ongoing and thorough context for us which connected the ancient world of subsistence farming and animal husbandry with the rapidly growing tourism industry which is now the backbone of the local economy. Nepal is a desperately poor country with an annual average per capita income of about $400 USD. Licensed trekking and mountain guides earn enough to place them in the top 1% of the Nepalese income scale. Porters, many of whom carry unimaginably heavy loads of supplies to the teahouses where trekkers eat and sleep (not to mention loads of lumber, building materials, rolls of flooring and carpets etc), earn less than guides do but still more than most others in Nepal.

In May of 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary became the first humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest. After his famous ascent of the mountain, Hillary made it his life's work, through his foundation which carries on today (some 10 years after his death), to help build infrastructure in the Khumbu, including schools, hospitals and bridges. He is rightfully a revered figure whose legacy will endure. Our lead Sherpa guide attended one of the schools which Hillary built in 1962 (and which we toured). He was the only one of his 12 siblings to attend a proper school - and this enabled him to learn sufficient English to become a trekking guide. He hopes to be able to move with his wife to either the US or Canada within the next couple of years.

I last named a winner of the Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award in my post on November 5th. The winner that week was Nathan Peterman who claimed his third such honour. For the period since then, which includes two Bills wins and a bye week, I have decided to claim the award myself since I obviously abandoned the team by leaving the country. As for this week, I've decided to give it to Bills wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin who has been pretending to be a No. 1 NFL receiver for a season and a half. He isn't and should have retired weeks ago.

Yesterday in South Florida, Josh Allen took another step in his evolution to a No. 1 quarterback. In fact, had the ball not slipped from his hands on the Bills final offensive play from scrimmage, Charles Clay would have easily caught the go-ahead touchdown and the Bills could have found themselves at 5-7 this morning. Allen has shown that he is an accomplished runner with impressive pocket awareness and deceptive speed. This is all fine except the team also still employs LeSean McCoy and Chris Ivory in the running back position and, as has happened to so many mobile quarterbacks in the NFL, Allen's running - however prolific - will eventually lead to injury.

The New York Jets travel to Orchard Park next Sunday for an irrelevant game but one which will offer Josh Allen another opportunity to work on his throwing accuracy. I hope he focuses on that and tries to leave the business of running to the running backs. If anyone wants to go to the game, my tickets are available and at this point, I'm a pretty motivated seller. The Jets are ranked 32nd - or dead last - in the most recent NFL Power Rankings. Let me know.