Majestic Everest & the High Himalaya
Excerpt from Chapter 55 of The Journey Across Forever by Wayne Saalman
THE STARS ABOVE DARJEELING, SIKKIM in the 3:00 a.m. darkness were mesmerizing as we made our way out onto the street and into the waiting car, but what was soon to come would prove just as sublimely mesmerizing: the sight of Mount Everest amid countless snowy Himalayan peaks in the chill scarlet dawn.
Within minutes we were gone. The driver had us bound for Tiger Hill and the sunrise to come. He had us ripping up one nameless road after the next as we made our way past many a rural home, then alongside the unfathomably vast Kanchenjunga, third highest mountain on the planet. He had us utterly wide-eyed as we wound our way up one sharp switchback after another, had us warily peering out over deep ravines and many a precipitous abyss, over silhouetted forestland wrapped in mist, over a landscape like no other on this, our beloved Earth.
We arrived on Tiger Hill just as the first luminous patches of effulgence began slowly gaining in intensity on the distant horizon.
Clambering from the Jeep, we made our way to a viewing platform and stood shivering among the scores of curious souls who had likewise come to gaze out over the pristine peaks of the mighty Himalaya. We had come for one shared purpose: to await the sovereign ascent of the Sun as it cast its magnificent golden light on Mount Everest, K2 and all of the neighboring peaks of these the most famous of mountains.
Shrouded in powdery, snowy whiteness, the colossal beauty of the peaks, even in the dimness of the pre-dawn light, hinted at the incredible splendor soon to be seen. We were literally on top of the world and the scene was pure magic.
As the minutes slowly ticked by, every eye present could do little but concentrate on the boundless Milky Way above us. The sprawling, starry magnificence of it was as unfathomable as eternity itself in my mind as I stood watching it wheel its way across the sky exactly as it had done for billions of years before my existence and will continue to do for billions of years more.
Only then, at long last, the first bold rays of sunlight came piercing upward through the darkness like beckoning beacons, climbing ever higher, stealing skyward with an intensity that was soon to leave me breathless.
The moment we were all waiting for had finally arrived.
Then there she was! The tallest mountain on Earth! Colossal, crystalline, beautiful.
Tibetans call her Chomolungma; to the Nepalese she is Sagarmatha. We westerners call her Everest, call her the Great One, call her the ultimate challenge, call her the Supreme Pinnacle of the planet.
For my part, I felt no regret that I was not climbing her, for I have never felt a need to “conquer” her steep and sacred face. For me, it was more than sufficient just to see her nestled in amid the scores of other snowy Himalayan peaks, and just that once — yes, even from a distance. Everest was radiant in her golden grandeur. She was stunning in her pristine perfection.
I was left staggered, left stupefied by the sight and high in my own right.
Then there was a further surprise: applause! Everyone present quite simply applauded in spontaneous unity! I was stunned. People were applauding the sunrise! This I had not expected, had never once anticipated. It was as if, inexplicably, we were all, quite suddenly, witnesses to the very glory of the gods! For the Himalayas are known as the “abode of the gods” and this was a form of confirmation. To see Mount Everest as a clear and present emanation of the gods was to seal the reality of it. Like the golden starry cosmos itself, here was an irrefutable, sublime manifestation of divine proportions and one could only revel in the wonder of it.
How perfect, I thought as I stood gazing. How utterly magnificent.
Afterwards, as the Jeep carried us swiftly back down Tiger Hill and alongside Kanchenjunga once more, as it returned us to the beautiful mountain village of Darjeeling, none of us in the vehicle spoke. We all felt as if we had been to the end of the road, to the ends of the earth itself and had witnessed the ultimate natural wonder of our enthralling, enchanted planet.
Along the way, I thought how “the road less traveled” may sound more exotic or more romantically enticing to those among us who wish an escape from the busy beaten path, desirous of excitement and adventure far from the proverbial maddening crowds, but the road long traveled is the one which results in wisdom.
Wisdom is what comes from the accumulation of insights into life based on personal experience.
Standing on the roof of the world and looking out over the mighty Himalaya was an unforgettable and magical experience beyond measure. In and of itself, however, such an experience cannot bring wisdom in its wake. It is not what we see in this world that makes us a greater person than we were; it is what we do. What really counts is how we treat others. I knew in that moment, that the secret knowledge is always hiding in plain sight. Karma is our direct link to ultimate reality and the Rock of Ages is the sage within.
