Special Feature Jeffrey Wasserman's Climb To Mt. Everest Base Camp Fairview Forest resident Jeffrey Wasserman set his sights on a lofty goal-climbing to the base camp of Mt. Everest. He reached his objective, which was nestled on a glacier at a breathtaking elevation of 17,600 feet. But it sure wasn't easy. He had to push himself to the limit while enduring bitter cold, lashing winds, oxygen-poor altitude and a severe lung infection. "It was more difficult than I had anticipated," said Wasserman, of White Oak Forest Road. "What I wasn't prepared for was the cold. I had the proper clothing. But I had no idea of the depth of the cold over a long period of time and how uncomfortable and miserable it makes you feel. The discomfort was so intense that I almost wanted to cry, and it hurt to keep going. But I always knew I had a little bit more [resolve] in me. I knew I would make it." After retiring in 2002 as a high school math teacher and dean of students on Long Island, he climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, a height of 19,340 feet in Tanzania in 2003. Then he chose his next goal-Mt. Everest, the world's tallest mountain at 29,029 feet. "My family was dead set against it, so I conceded," he said. "But it kept lingering in my mind and I didn't want to have any regrets. I spoke with my family about my desire again and again. [His wife] Barbara realized how important it was to me and one day out of the blue she said, 'Why don't you do it.'" There was a compromise. Rather than try to summit Everest where more than 200 climbers have died (2,700 have succeeded), he would attempt the grueling month-long trek to the base camp. If he accomplished that, then he could decide whether or not to aim for the top of Everest. Training Started Right Here On This Mountain After he and Barbara moved to Fairview Forest, Wasserman trained for six months for the trip. Carrying a 25-pound backpack, he hiked up and down the Mountain several times a week. Starting from his house, he walked to the end of Fairview Forest Drive, then down to the mailboxes, up to the top of the mountain and then back to his house — a six-mile hike. "I got down in 35 to 40 minutes and up in under an hour," he said. "I increased my pace each time to build up my lung capacity. I also jogged up and down mountains in the area that were 6,000 feet or higher. And I was in the gym four to five days a week, running on a treadmill at a 15 percent incline for up to 90 minutes. It got to the point that I was burning up to 1,500 calories a day working out." He eventually became as ready as he could be. In November 2008, Wasserman, who had turned 60, flew to Katmandu, Nepal, four days before the Everest trek to get accustomed to the locale, explore the area and buy souvenirs. "I also wanted time to prepare myself physically and mentally," he said. He was the second oldest in a group of a dozen Americans who began their adventure by flying into the mountain village of Lukla, the closest airport to Everest. "The airstrip was extremely short and on a slope, so when a plane lands, it loses its speed quickly while taxiing up the slope," he said. "When it takes off, it gains speed going down the slope. The airstrip is on the edge of a mountain so when the plane flies off the airstrip, it drops out of sight until it gets enough speed to start climbing." Anxious to Get Packed and Get On the Trail Although Lukla was at an elevation of 9,000 feet, the altitude didn't bother him. "I was anxious to get on the trail," he admitted. "I would pack and re-pack to make sure I knew where everything was. Because of the conditions, you need to know where everything is so you can retrieve whatever you need immediately. Your ability to think and to reason gets impaired by the high altitude. "In Lukla, I was filled with excitement and anticipation. I told myself, 'This is it: I feel good, I feel strong.' Everyone who ever attempted to climb Everest came to this same place and stepped on the same ground and shuffled their feet in the same sand and went through the same gate and walked into the same town. That was a great feeling." Each member of the group carried a 25-pound day pack, consisting of water, change of clothing, rainwear, first aid equipment, cameras and other gear. Their other possessions were hauled by dzopkyo (a cross between a yak and a cow). The dzopkyos were used as pack animals below 15,000 feet while the more hardy yaks took over the load above that altitude. Accompanying the hikers were about 25 Sherpas, including cooks and support staff that set up camp each day. Sherpas are members of a traditionally Buddhist people of Tibetan descent living on the southern side of the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal. Famous for their mountaineering skills, they have for decades carried equipment and guided people up Mt. Everest. After each day's trek, which typically lasted from seven to eight hours on a trail that went up and down, each hiker would relax for awhile in his or her tent that an advance team of Sherpas had set up earlier. "Then everybody would meet to discuss the next day's hike," Wasserman said. "Next, we had dinner with a table and chairs in a big tent. We had plenty of food, like flatbread and momo, a ravioli-like dumpling stuffed with cabbage and sometimes meat like water buffalo and goat. You don't eat yak because they are too valuable as pack animals. "Afterwards, we hung around a little bit. Sometimes the Sherpas would bring out their instruments and play them and dance. We would join in before going to bed about 8:30." Fortunately the weather was picture perfect-relatively speaking. "We had bright blue sky during the day, but the temperatures would drop quickly at night." They started out in 70-degree weather. "Everything below the tree line, they call the tropics." Above 12,000 Feet: Cold and Windy The higher the climb, the colder the temperatures. "Once we got past 12,000 feet, the temperatures were really low. Someone had a thermometer and it recorded five degrees — and that was inside his tent. The most wind we got was 40 to 45 miles per hour. There were nights when the wind was rattling the tent so much it would wake you up and keep you awake. "The tough part was at night when it was cold. I went to sleep wearing a fleece liner, two sub-zero sleeping bags, one inside the other. Besides that, I slept with almost all the clothes that I brought. If you had to pee, there was no way you could go out there at night. We each took a water bottle and cut off half of it and used the bottom half to pee in. "Before going to bed, the Sherpas would boil water, pour it into empty water bottles and give each of us two of them to put in the sleeping bag by our feet to help keep us warm. That was a luxury. You looked forward to it every night. Then in the morning you would use the water to wash with. Uncomfortable Nights Along with Eye-Popping Beauty "During the night, the moisture from your breathing would condense and form icicles inside the lining of the tent. If the wind blows or if you hit the inside lining of the tent, it would rain down icicles. It got uncomfortable." And that goes for sounds too-like the roar of an avalanche. "Several times during the night you would hear avalanches across the river. You're waiting for the noise to stop. And you're wondering, 'Is this one going to bury me?'" But the night also brought its own special eye-popping beauty. "When you wake up at night, you first ask yourself, 'Where am I?' Then you are forced to look outside. Some of those nights, the moon was full and I saw reflections off the mountain that were in the most magnificent colors. When there was no moon, the sky was a planetarium." Getting up in the morning had its good and bad points. "The Sherpas woke you up a half hour before breakfast and offered coffee, hot chocolate or tea. That was wonderful. Getting ready for the day, especially with personal hygiene, was tough. You took your gloves off to wash yourself with wet naps. Things froze real quickly. Toothpaste crystallized and so did chapstick. You washed with wet naps that you used on your whole body. That's basically how you showered. When you washed your hands, you needed to dry them very quickly so that the moisture didn't freeze. If that happens, you can't put your gloves on because then the ice on your hands will melt and you will be wet." During the first few days, the group made several side trips to mountain villages. "We met incredible people and saw amazing sights. Everywhere we went, we were welcomed. I brought trinkets and things for children, including blow-up beach-ball-size globes. I would point out where Katmandu was and where I came from. Some had no idea that there was a world out there. "The scenery was just magnificent. Everywhere you turned, it was beautiful. I would figuratively pinch myself and tell myself, 'Look at where I am and look at what's around me.' I kept thinking about the famous adventurers I had read about, like Sir Edmund Hillary, who had been at that very spot where I was now." Battling the Effects of High Altitude A week into the trek, at the 12,000-foot mark-and the next ten days above that elevation, Wasserman and the others were battling the effects of the high altitude. "I'd get up at night and have shortness of breath. There was less oxygen in the air and I'd wake up gagging. It was scary. Everyone experienced it. It got better as you got acclimated to the altitude. But we were always going higher. "Sometimes you hike close together and there is a little conversation going on, but not much because it's hard to breathe. The air is cold and the trail is fairly dry and dusty. Along the way, you have the yaks and naks [female yaks] defecating on the trail and stomping on the dung, which breaks up and mixes with the sand before becoming airborne. That's a problem because you need to breathe as deeply as you can. So you wear a thin mask, like a neck warmer that goes over your nose and mouth to filter out stuff. But sucking the air through that membrane restricts the air from getting into your lungs so most of the time you pull it down so you can breathe better. You do a lot of inhaling of dust and dung. You don't have the same immunity as those who live there and that contributed to upset stomachs and coughs for most people. Everyone was ill to some extent. "Sometimes while you're hiking, you are far apart from each other, and you might not even see the person who is in front of you. And that's when you do a lot of introspection and thinking. "But you need to concentrate on the trail because very often you are on a ledge that's no more than 10 to 14 inches wide and if you fall, you're either dead or wish you were. It could be awhile before anyone would even know you're missing." Memorials to Those Who Didn't Make It He said he passed several memorials along the way of people who died while trying to summit Everest. The typical tribute was an inscription carved in a rock by a family member or fellow climber of the name, country and date the person died. "It was humbling to know what these people endured-and it had to be much greater than what I endured-and that they didn't make it. They are now part of the landscape." Occasionally Wasserman would see a helicopter on its way to rescue a climber who was suffering from a severe case of high altitude pulmonary edema or from a fall. Because of the side trips, it took the hikers about 17 days to finally reach their objective — the base camp on Khumbu Glacier. "That was a tough day. We hiked five miles in, going from 15,000 feet to 17,600 feet and then we hiked back out, all in ten hours. Everybody was feeling the altitude, and it was difficult walking. We were wearing crampons on the bottoms of our boots to give us traction as we crossed the ice field. It was hard walking and people fell. It hurt even more because we were fatigued and cold." Surprisingly, reaching his goal didn't give Wasserman the rush he had expected. "There were no bells and whistles. No sign that said, 'Welcome to the Mt. Everest Base Camp.' All you saw were some prayer flags left behind. You had to be told, 'You're here.' "It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. But maybe that's because every day was exciting and this wasn't any more outstanding than what I had already been experiencing. Another reason is that at that altitude, you're not thinking quickly or clearly. It's difficult to think of more than one thing at a time. And what I was thinking was if I had the strength to get back." Difficulties Worsen, Discomfort Intensifies To make matters worse, Wasserman was sick. "When I left New York, I had a cough that kept getting worse. As we hit higher altitude and the cold, the fatigue made me feel worse. I was having difficulty breathing and could barely talk because when I tried, I would cough immediately. My chest hurt. I took antibiotics, Tylenol and throat lozenges, but the discomfort was always there. There were times when I thought about giving up. But I kept going. I still had more [willpower]. I didn't exhaust myself completely. "On the way back from base camp, I had to use every ounce of strength I had. It was very difficult for me. But we'd take a break and I'd look around and think, 'Wow.' And then I'd get up and keep going. "When we got back to Lukla, most of us were sick. I lost ten to 15 pounds and I was ready to go home. When I returned to New York, Barbara said, 'You don't look so good.' I didn't feel good either." The next day Wasserman was admitted to the hospital where he was treated for bronchial pneumonia, conjunctivitis in both eyes, and several other ailments. When he was released, he suffered a relapse. As they were driving home to Fairview he was having trouble breathing, so Barbara drove him straight to Pardee Hospital where he spent three days. "It took me six to eight months to fully recover." Was it worth the $10,000 it cost him, the months he trained, the toll it took on his body, the agony he suffered? "Absolutely," he declared. "I accomplished something that very few people would even attempt let alone achieve. I feel good about that. I'm proud of myself and proud that I didn't turn back." The achievement now is part of his legacy with his three grandchildren. "The message I want my grandchildren to know from this adventure is that when you determine you can accomplish something with your mind, body and soul, then whatever stands in your way is just an obstacle that can be overcome no matter how difficult. But you must be prepared. You must determine that you are strong enough to succeed. And however strong you have to be, you become." ...and the Next Great Quest? As for his next great quest, it won't be to Mt. Everest. "There's a saying that goes, 'The man who does it once is an adventurer; the man who does it twice is a fool.' I know I can't summit Everest. I know when I've reached my limit." So Wasserman is turning his attention elsewhere. "I want to learn rock climbing. I hear there's a great trip up Mt. Blanc in France that involves a technical climb." Whatever he attempts next, he wants it to be a challenge. Quoting mountaineer and author Jon Krakauer, he said, "To accomplish anything extraordinary, you have to endure extraordinary conditions." Fairview Forest Homeowners' Association   •   101 Fairview Forest Drive   •   Fairview, NC 28730