Why Base Camp? Because it’s there!!!


Travel has changed massively in the past 20 years.  

Sadly, the act of going somewhere has become more about creating consumable 'content' than actual discovery.  When you go visit Santorini and take a photo, you will most likely be recreating a photo made and posted by millions of 'influencers' and other wankers. The joys of technology, I suppose!

In October of this year, I went to the Mount Everest Base Camp. Before I left, when telling others of my plan, the reaction I received was…interesting. The question I kept getting was “Why on earth would you want to do that?”.  They had a point...

The English climber George Mallory, before famously disappeared trying to ascend Everest in 1924, was asked by a reporter why he wished to climb it.  His answer, of course, was "Because it's there".  Perhaps a silly reason to freeze to death on a mountain, but I think for the real traveler, the non-influencer; this is the motivation for adventure.  

I can say with all certainty that I need to travel.  When I am home I often feel as if there is a black cloud following me around, but when I get on an airplane that cloud disappears.  I don't think it's about running away from my problems, I think it is about living in the moment which puts those problems into perspective.

Trekking to the Mount Everest Basecamp is not the same as going to an all-inclusive beach resort.  Even though there are loads of fellow Westerners all around you hiking the same damn trail, you are still a 'stranger in a strange land'.  Being at altitude and waking up gasping for air in the middle of the night is quite a change from "Oh, that Uber driver was sooooo rude to me!!!!".



It's pain.  Not just physical, not just financial, but emotional as well.  I remember being in Gorakshep, the last stop before basecamp at 16,942 ft. It was -15c outside and I was thinking to myself, "Why couldn't I have had a dream that involved a God-damned beach?!".  

I consider travel my "real life".  When I am home, moving money around on a computer screen for a living, I don't feel alive. Perhaps I should say I become my real self when I travel.

Risk, danger, something new, shows us who we really are. Most people run away from these things, but I try to run towards them (within reason).  That's what adventure is, and I desire to live an adventurous life at any cost.

So, in the end, why take a month off work and hike to Everest Basecamp?  Because it's fucking there!!!!    

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