Map 8, Our three-day, 600-km Race to Kathmandu: At night from Camp 9 to Saga. On the second day we drove past Pelko Tso and across two more high passes and a landslide to reach Zhangmu at midnight. By several conveyances we reached Kathmandu at night on the third day.... ( Click to enlarge )

In Camp 9 a groaning and vomiting Katrina woke around one o'clock at night. Barbara crept into her tent and soon called for help, Katrina was passing out. I creep into her tent too and try to revive her. She only mumbles "ok! ok!" Cornelius arrived with his larger sleeping bag, and we stuffed Barbara and Katrina into the bag together, without being able to change her condition. I sat down in the moonlight to meditate on the situation. My conclusion was that she was suffering from high altitude cerebral edema (HACE) a most dangerous conditions. I was well informed on HACE and its treatment and had obliged Bart to buy Dexamethasone in Kathmandu, the only medication for this conditions. Together we review her symptoms and then decide to feed her an initial dose of the tablets of the size of a pin head. HACE was the one condition I did not want to have to treat without a physician. There was only one other remedy to get her down to below 3000 m! I wake Pujung and Padru. They offer to pack at once and leave. It would take three days to get that low — 600 kilometers to the Nepalese border.... They immediately set out to collect all our belongings. It was bitter cold, but the wind had died, the moon was bright and full. We left at two. Barbara and Cornelius in Katrina's car. Cornelius scraping the frozen windshield of the unheatable car, Barbara cradling her precious godchild in her lap — for hours. —I had persuaded the reluctant Katrina to join us, and now the fierce Gods of the realm had caught up with us, and turned my dream into a nightmare....

 We passed the lakes and swamps in the moonlight. The drivers made only one wrong turn in this confusing terrain. We reached Paryang at sunrise.

 After Paryang the road got better. Padru, concentrated on this narrow view and drove as fast as he could. We made only a half-hour break for lunch.... after 15 hours driving we reached Saga and settled for the guesthouse. Barbara and I took turns to watched over Katrina who slept quietly now. Every three hours we would wake her to feed her pills.  

Next morning we turned south as planned. At the Saga Tsangpo ferry we met a group of geologists from MIT and Oxford. I begged a bag of oxygen from them, there were another four or five passes above 5000 m to cross. Katrina now sipped a little Oxygen from the bag when she was awake. It helped. View from the ascent to the first 5400-m pass between the Saga ferry and Lake Pelko Tso.  

Pelko Tso around noon, our last lake. 

 On a meadow near the lake we had some lunch and a farewell party for our crew.

 Barbara, the experienced tour escort, had prepared a gift and an envelope with money for every crew member. Each of us had contributed something of value. Barbara made a short speech with each present. Here Bakhi gets his present.  

 The final group picture.

 The last stretch to reach the Friendship — Arniko Highway to Nepal led once more cross-country.

 Cornelius placing a white scarf on the marker of the Everest Reservation Park along the Arniko Highway (a 40-km per hour road...). 

Peter's portrait of Cornelius

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On the next pass everyone came to talk to Katrina, who put on her disarming smile. 

 Our touching Khampa paying her a visit....

 ... and Agha giving her a hug...

 ...and my deeply worried sympathy was accepted.

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Peter's portrait of Barbara with a cigarette!

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 Yarle Chung La (5200 m) the last pass in the Himalayan chain before we dove into the Nyalam valley which would take us to Zhangmu and lower altitude.  

 The high mountains east of Yarle Chung La...

...and the western chain. 

 The upper Nyalam valley near Thulung

. The few buildings of Thulung.  

 The last Tibetan hills.

 Mountains east of Tashigang. Here Cornelius and Peter wanted to jump our tour and clandestinely go on a trek into the Lapchi (see Map 8 for their intended route). All along the way they had tried in vain to get a visa extension and a permit for their trip. Now our circumstances had wiped out their last hope. — In Nyalam we learned that the road to Zhangmu was blocked. Pardu suggested to spend the night in Nyalam, but we were still well over 3000 m. I pressed on. By the time we reached the truly impassible slide - I had had a vague hope - it was completely dark. In a complete pandemonium a group of children carried our belongings across the alive slide to a truck waiting for a last party downhill. Cornelius and Peter went with them.... 

 and Barbara and I stayed with Katrina waiting for Peter and Cornelius to return and help her down. These was one of the most trying half-hour on our trek as I counted the rocks which were cascading down the slide area. You can see the lights of the truck waiting for us. Cornelius and Peter took Katrina between them and very carefully guided her down. Only I fell into a muddy hole, lost my hat and sprained a thumb. The moon had come across the hills, and the one-hour truck ride to Zhangmu became a scaring, romantic journey.  

 Pujung and Bakhi, who had accompanied us found us an emergency quarter in the bar of the over-booked Zhangmu hotel.

 Katrina was saved. It was past midnight. I had no need for anything to eat and stayed with her while the others went hunting for a restaurant. Sleeping on her oxygen cushion, her night was peaceful. But next day on the adventurous trip to Kathmandu by private minibus organized by Bart she collapsed one more time.. She suffered no further blackouts during our week-long stay in Kathmandu. Somehow we got her home on the same flight we had booked...

Peter's portrait of Katrina with a marigold necklace in Kathmandu

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 ...and after another two weeks in Pacific Palisades she seemed her old self again.... No subsequently consulted doctor believed her story. "Oh," said Dr. Shlim in Kathmandu, "if it had been HACE she would not be sitting here," and added soberly, "She would be dead...."

On my next visit to Kathmandu I had this thangka painted to propitiate the fierce Gods of Western Tibet. It is dedicated to Heruka Buddha and his five emanations, Demchok of the Hevajra in Tsaparang. It shows Mt. Kailas on the upper right, the Addhi-Buddha in conjunction with Prajnaparamita on the top, four dancing Dakinis. The image is a very careful copy of a classical Tibetan thangka. The painter lives outside of Kathamandu.