On May 24, Rajesh “Lama Dai” Lama, 35, became the first recorded person to walk from his village, Dudhgaon, in Kathmandu, to the summit of Mount Everest after completing a 57-day, 433-kilometer journey.
Lama began the journey from his village on April 1—April Fools’, which he notes was “not the best day to start,” because “no one believed that I was going to walk.”
He left the warm, humid climate of Kathmandu and slowly made his way to the tallest mountain in the world. As the distance between himself and Mount Everest narrowed, the reactions of his loved ones slowly started to change too—they realized he had indeed always been committed to completing this project.
Over the first eight days, Lama followed a series of roads toward Mount Everest. Then, he retraced Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay’s steps, a route that has since gained popularity for its views of terraced landscapes, traditional villages, and alpine forests. It was during this portion of the journey that Lama saw the mountain for the first time on the journey from Namche. On day 24, he made it to Everest Base Camp where he met the rest of his party.
The beginning of May came with high winds on the mountain. More than 40 tents were damaged at camp as a result. In no great hurry to climb Everest, Lama decided to climb Lobuche Peak (7,367m) before heading up to camp 2 and returning to base camp to acclimate. The first round of his climbing came and went without hurricane-force winds. Then Lama took a week off from climbing to work as a first responder at the high-altitude race “135 Miles.”
Lama and his party left Everest Base Camp on May 15. He felt strong until he reached camp three at 7,100 meters. Suddenly, it seemed, the 368 kilometers and 3,580 meters of elevation gain he’d logged since April 1 hit him all at once. He decided to rest, while his team pushed forward for their own summit bid.
On May 20 Lama decided to make a summit push with a different guide. The weather was not ideal but Lama felt obligated to at least try. The guide agreed that an attempt could be made, but that they’d have to turn back if conditions changed. They reached the summit at 7 a.m.
At the start of his journey, Lama had hoped to walk all the way back to his village from Everest, but frostnip on his toes urged him to change plans. “I think I [made a good decision] because my nails are turning blue right now,” he said. “The Everest Kiss, you know.”
But the journey wasn’t all type-two fun. “This sounds romantic, but since this was the biggest walk of my life so far, I tried to enjoy every second no matter what I was doing. Seeing how my country has changed—its color, its people, the flat ground to the hills—it was a beautiful thing to see.”
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