CHAPTER 1

PTSD

I turned forty in 1993 and began manifesting symptoms of a midlife crisis. Iwhined about the responsibilities of marriage, two kids, a law business, and amortgage. All the responsibilities and obligations were sucking the life out ofme. Buying a Harley didn't cure it.

One evening my wife slapped a brochure down on the coffee table in front of meand said in a steely tone, "Why don't you do this? Go climb a mountain." Thebrochure advertised a Himalayan trekking expedition. I'd lived at sea level inIndiana most of my life and had no trekking or climbing experience. But I haddone a lot of rugged outdoor activities, so I was intrigued. Alicia may laterhave regretted her "go take a hike" therapy, because I fell in love—with themountains.

My friend and chiropractor, Long John, and I went trekking along the EverestBase Camp trail in Sagarmatha Park, Nepal, in the spring of 1995 in a five-membergroup through an American expedition company called Snow Lion. The grouphad an American guide but was really led by a sirdar (chief trekking guide)named Ang Nima Sherpa, and it was staffed by Nepalese mountain dwellers. I hadnever met anyone as strong, kind, and admirable as Nima, and the spectacularbeauty of the Himalayas turned me on like no other place in the more than thirtycountries I had visited in my travels.

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Adventure travel was part of my life before travel companies packaged it inbrochures. As a teenager I hitchhiked across the United States and traveledaround Europe on buses and trains. In my twenties and thirties, I motorcycledaround Mexico, scuba dived throughout the Caribbean, went horseback riding andfour-wheeling in Belize, and kayaked around islands in the South Pacific and theIonian Sea. From each of these experiences, I was enriched through encounterswith different lands, cultures, and people. But my encounter with the Himalayanmountains and Nepalese-Tibetan culture on that introductory trek in 1995 touchedme so deeply I could hardly wait to return.

During the next two summers, I took introductory and intermediate climbingcourses at Seneca Rock, West Virginia. I joined my first mountaineeringexpedition to Ladakh, India, in 1996, led by the renowned American climber andwriter John Roskelley. I went back to Nepal on increasingly challengingexpeditions in 1998 and 1999. I didn't climb 8,000-meter (25,000 foot) peaks orattempt extreme climbs requiring oxygen tanks and hanging off sheer walls inbivy bags. As a father, husband, and attorney with staff and family to support,I knew becoming a climber bum wasn't in the cards; and I'm far too cheap tospend $65,000 and six weeks to attempt Mount Everest. Trekking for a couple ofweeks and climbing 20,000-foot peaks was sufficiently challenging and wonderfulfor me.

For a middle-aged Hoosier flatlander, Himalayan mountaineering and trekking isdifficult in terms of the conditioning required and the physical and emotionalstress of a long trek followed by twelve to twenty-four hours of climbing. It'sgrueling, and when weather conditions are bad, it's dangerous. But I loved it.The Himalayas pulled me back each year. That is, until the disastrous expeditionto Mera. The experience of advanced acute mountain sickness, barely escaping anavalanche, and seeing three porters disappear broke the mountains' grip on me.

Off the Mountaintop

Six months after my return from the Mera Peak expedition, I was driving homefrom my office in downtown Indianapolis. Without warning, tears startedstreaming down my face, and I had to pull over to the side of the street. I satin the car and cried. I could no longer hold in the feelings of guilt and shame.The picture of the three porters just before they were enveloped in the tsunamiof white snow was seared in my mind. I had done nothing to try to help. I coulddo nothing to help. But the memory wouldn't release me.

The author of Ecclesiastes (1.14–15) wrote, "All is futile and a striving afterwind. What is crooked cannot be made straight." I found myself overwhelmed withexistential despair, feeling the unfairness of life and the futility of tryingto do anything about it. It was unfair and awful that the lives of those threehardworking men could be snuffed out in an instant. I had no more thirst foradventures in the Himalayas; my throat was dry.

I had participated in four Himalayan expeditions in five years. But after theavalanche, I did not return to Nepal for four years. It was no longer safe tovisit anyway. SARS had broken out in Asia, and Nepal was undergoing a violentMaoist revolution against the king. The army was shooting demonstrators in thestreets of Katmandu, and Maoists were blowing up buildings and bombing buses. Ina shocking incident in June 2001, Crown Prince Dipendra shot and killed hisparents and siblings as they sat down to dinner, and then shot himself.Political instability followed, because many Nepalese distrusted the new king,Gyanendra, brother to the murdered Birendra. Some even suspected that Gyanendrawas involved in the murders. Nepal was put on the U.S. State Department's travelwarning list. Then came 9/11.

The allure of Nepal as a magical kingdom for Western adventurers was lost. In1999, more than 500,000 tourists visited Nepal. By 2002, less than half thatnumber entered the kingdom.

Religious people equate a "mountaintop experience" with a spiritual awakening ora transcendent connection with God. Why equate being on top of a mountain withexperiencing God? Because feeling the awesomeness of the natural world on top ofa mountain is such a glorious feeling that the limitations of language force usto call it "God." Every day of a mountaineering expedition or high-altitudetrek, that feeling is available.

John Muir described "the ecstasy of the surrender to nature." He meant that byopening oneself to natural beauty, the soul is magnified to a point oftranscendence beyond the ordinary consciousness of task-oriented living. Duringeach of my Himalayan expeditions, I surrendered to the ecstasy of nature. Ilearned and...