Not gonna lie to you, this one was tough.
Half the weather—a winter storm came out of nowhere, leaving us truly looking like an expedition.
Half having this fella—alone 96% of the time—organizing a group of strong personalities… of which you have to have to get up to Base Camp.
But it’s always a razor’s edge, describing the journey.
Yeah, it’s work.
It’s tough and it’s cold and five days in, most can be found asking themselves “Why am I doing this? To get my pictures next to a rock?”
Definitely not for the faint of heart.
Definitely not for everyone.
But I also see the triple-the-amount of work put in by Avi, our guide, and our army of porters and sherpas.
Carrying our stuff.
Sleeping in cold common rooms.
I’ve mentioned all of this in an Instagram post.
So how do you talk about it?
A team effort?
Kindof, I suppose.
And once you get to that rock, it’s all such a blur and no one really spends much time there.
(You’ll find more folks peering down at the glacier below, or—if they’re lucky—peaking at Everest herself, scowling down.)
It really is all about the journey.
What you see.
Who you meet.
What you find out about yourself.
And touching the heavens.
Maybe that’s it?
Maybe it’s climbing as close to whatever god you believe in as you can nearly get?
Or maybe it’s just the walking in general.
“My favorite was the hiking” said Rhea, the reason I came back to do it again.
It’s all the cliches and so I’ll try not to nauseate you with them all.
And as soon as I get everyone's footage, I'll produce daily highlights of the trek/trip/climb.
But—to use an overused adjective here—epic. Awesome. Incredible.
So high were we, pointed out Rhea, that where we're standing would be considered too high for skydiving planes to be. That's how high.
It's a trip I’ll be doing one more time.
I bit off more than I could chew—trying to organize, film the Snickers for Sherpas (of which I’m trying to turn into a real documentary), photograph it all and… well, you know, get back up to Base Camp myself.
So next year, I’ll be bringing Mui—my favorite DP and a dear friend—as we need a lot of footage to make this film work.
Want to hear the plan?
Ok.
Head back up in 2025, letting Mui get good video
Edit that into a rough doc, then show to Jamling Norway—son of Tenzing—and now a friend of mine, in hopes he’ll let us interview him for it.
Take that interview + rough footage and find an editor. Maybe my pal Peter, if I can afford him and if he’s not too busy (long shot, as it was his trailer that Christopher Nolan picked for Oppenheimer).
And then submit it to every film festival possible… although that’s not as important, as it is getting it into the hands of
As for Snickers the company (Mars or whatever). We don’t want free candy bars (we’ll keep buying them from folks here in Nepal) or money. What we do want is for them to put every porter and sherpa we work with’s kids through school.
That’s the basic plan, anyway.
Will keep you posted.
And while I still need to draw up the details and official invitation, consider this your nudge to come with us.
Next year, we have 9 positions left.
Come join, would’ya?
