I am told that grass will bloom here, and that the Sherpas will take their animals up the hills for summer pasture. But in early April, above 4500m, the landscape of the Khumbu is as barren as the surface of the moon. The snow-capped mountains are no longer around you but right beside you. No photograph or IMAX movie can simulate the experience of standing at the foot of Tawache or Pumo Ri.
From Kala Patthar I had an excellent view of Everest. It was important to me to see Everest, that’s the part people will inevitably ask me about, but I think it is misguided to view two weeks in the Khumbu as an expedition to any particular place. There are hundreds of mountains here. Each has its own shape, each is a distinct pattern of light and dark. As snow falls and melts, as the sun and clouds pass, even the same mountain can be transformed in the course of a day. There are blue-streaked ice floes and jagged black rocks. There is a sky a deeper blue than anything I’ve seen.