I’ve got a goal and started to really like the idea (or most of it). Now what? I actually don’t have a clue where to begin. That sounds strange with all the information out there. There may be just too much information available.
Googling “Everest” gave me 20,700,000 results. How about Everest Base Camp? A bit better, 377,000 results. Time for an advanced search, the exact phrase “Everest Base Camp trek.” That came back with 54,500.
Maybe it was better that I look at some inspiring videos on YouTube. Or at least see what EBC looks like. Here we go again. Everest returned 14,800 videos. Everest Base Camp delivered 1,480 and finally, the exact phrase, “Everest Base Camp trek” delivered 203.
After 3 hours randomly bouncing from site to site, I decided it was time to get out from behind the keyboard and headed to the local bookstore. There I bought every book they had about Everest from their ”mountaineering” section. (Mountaineering section…really?) Stopped at Starbucks for a coffee and zipped home to get reading. I read the first book in one sitting. There were only a few pages in the whole book about EBC. That’s okay, it was fun to begin to learn the names of the various places I’ll be visiting and the names of famous mountaineers. (I don’t think I’ve used the word “mountaineer” twice in one day, let alone one paragraph, before.)
By the end of the weekend, I had devoured three books about Everest. Some of these books were pretty scary. Cold, altitude sickness, high altitude edema, frostbite, headaches, snow blindness, and worse. And, there wasn’t much about Base Camp at all…an occasional photo or mention was about it. For those heading for the top, Base Camp was just a weigh station. But, I’m not summiting. I just want to climb up Pike’s Peak and then nearly 3 Empire State Buildings. That’s all.
Time to hit the blogs and Twitter…