54 Candles Expedition

Count Me In

By Allen Sherpa

Ten men – most from the White Mountains of Arizona – will launch an assault on the summit of Mount Hood, Oregon’s highest mountain, in the early morning hours of Friday the 13^th of April, 2001. Allen Sherpa was invited to participate, but declined. With this letter, he’s staying in close contact with the climbing party.

It’s becoming obvious that none of you are coming to your senses. You’re barely three weeks away from Friday the 13^th and your lust for danger and adventure is far greater than your common sense.

OK. Color me stupid, but you can count me in too. We’ve known each other far too long for me to let you go up there and fall on your head alone.

Keep in mind I wouldn’t do this if you hadn’t promised to hire two professional mountain climbing guides to lead the pack. That gives me some confidence we at least stand a chance of getting back in one piece. But, I had to ask the question, “Just what do we get from a guide?” To get my answer, I went back to your buddy that climbed one of the highest mountains around. He said there were professional guides in his party and they made a big difference.

I had this image of the guide walking out in front of the climbing party, looking into the sunrise and pointing the way. In my mind, they were tall, square-jawed, handsome guys that look a lot like John Wayne did in his prime. If nothing else, you’d want to hire these guys just to pose in the pictures with you.

When your pal showed me pictures of his guides, my bubble burst with a bang. One of these guys looked like he was forty going on sixty, scruffy, ill-kempt - a poorly dressed escapee from Woodstock. He clearly didn’t know how to stand close enough to his razor, yet his beard (if you could call it that) looked like he’d been trying to grow it since he was twelve and he was just now approaching his thirteenth birthday. If charm and charisma were going to get him to the summit, he certainly didn’t have to worry about altitude sickness. He’d be lucky to get out of camp.

Nonetheless, your compadre told me the guides were strong, knowledgeable, experienced, highly trained, work-horses that made all the difference in the world. He also said they’re highly paid nags. That’s right – nags!

Somehow, sitting in the comfort of my home, it’s difficult to imagine what it’s like on a “real” mountain climb. After looking at pictures and listening to the stories, I feel like I’m starting to get a feel for it. Here are some of the things the “real guides”, the pros, the mountain-meisters themselves do to earn their fees.

Nag point one – clothes. Before leaving for Camp I, the guides make each climber empty the entire contents of his pack onto the floor. They go over each and every item – all the while nagging about whether or it’s too much or too little, too hot or too cold, too heavy or too big. They insist on making you throw something out as being unfit for such a climb.

Nag point two – food. Apparently, this is big event where all food for the trip is laid out in full view of everyone. They go over the nutritional value of everything, the weight of everything, the schedule for eating everything, and then amazingly enough, they go over the issue of how tasty everything’s going to be. Heelllooooo . . . I’m looking around for Alan Funt and the Candid Camera crew. They laid out twelve days worth of food and if it wasn’t either pasta, instant oatmeal or a synthetic candy bar, it was nowhere to be seen. They nag about food, but they don’t show any hint of anything edible.

Nag point three – health. How are you feeling? How are you going to feel? How did you feel? How did you feel three minutes ago when compared to how you felt seven minutes ago? For crying out loud, they nag so much about making sure you “feel good”, your climbing partner said he was getting a headache worrying about it.

Nag point four – drinking water. You’ve got to acclimatize to tolerate the extreme altitudes. One of the major keys is to drink lots of fluids. The guides are constantly nagging about how much water you’ve drunk in the last 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, six hours, since graduation from high school and so on. I can see where someone would get so sick of being asked about water consumption that he might swear off fluids for the remainder of the year.

I understand they’ve got a seemingly endless list of other nag points, but the real prize was (I’ll whisper here) going to the bathroom. (Of course, on a major mountain, there are no bathrooms, but that certainly doesn’t stop them from nagging about it). I guess being a “regular” sort of guy is an indication your body’s getting use to the altitude. When all systems are “go”, so is the climber. I’ve got a cat at home that won’t use the litter box when someone is watching, but these guys are running around assaulting everyone’s private world by constantly asking questions like, “Have you gone? When? How much? How often? What was it like?”

This is no joke. They truly ask questions about things I don’t even think about unless I turn the lights out. This sort of altered my perception of the noble sport of mountain climbing. It made it sound like you had been confined to a straight-jacket, strapped into a wheel chair and were being pushed around sixteen hours a day by your ex-wife. What a joy!

Regardless, knowing that you’ve hired a pair of top-notch mountaineering professionals to guide this 54 Candles Expedition sets my mind at ease. They may be of great value if something does go seriously wrong – you know – like the volcano erupts. So count Alan Sherpa in. I’ll be there on the summit with you. As far as the incessant nagging is concerned, I’ll just pretend I’m out for a walk with my first wife. But, I guess that’s another story.