Excerpt from A Kaleidoscope of Life: The Story of the 218 by Marie Driscoll

For most people, the dream of climbing Everest begins in childhood. For me, it began three weeks before I reached Everest Base Camp, in a dingy hostel in Hungary.

After graduating high school, I had no real set plan to head off to college. All my friends were scattering throughout the United States; some to the east coast, some to the west. They were entering college to study political science or chemistry or economics or…whatever. But I didn’t want that. To me, escaping the prison of high school meant I had earned a modicum of freedom. It would have been foolish to trade that away for the shackles of college.

I wanted to travel.

Life was short. There were too many places in the world I wanted to see. I didn’t want my entire life to be lived within 25 miles of the place I had been born. I wanted to be able to watch a movie, point to the screen and say, ‘hey, I’ve been there.’

During my last half year of high school, I spent countless hours in the library, poring over Lonely Planet travel guides and books about exotic locations, jotting down a list of destinations I wanted to visit.

I’d had a job since sophomore year and never spent much money on unnecessary things, so my bank account was decent by the time I graduated. When I told my parents I was planning on skipping out of college and traveling the world for a few years, they weren’t exactly thrilled. My dad worried about my safety, concerned it was too dangerous for a single woman to wander the world alone. My mom wanted me to jump straight into college, fearing for my future and where I’d be when I reached my mid-twenties.

It took a while, but I was finally able to convince them I had planned it all out and everything was going to be fine. And everything was fine, until I got to Hungary. I was having my adventures, wandering the world, enjoying life without a concrete plan. I’d wake up in one country, pick up my backpack, head to a train or bus station, and get the first ticket to elsewhere. Eventually, I ended up in a hostel in Hungary.

It was a corporate place, part of a chain profiting off backpackers and young gap-year travelers. There was a bar on the ground floor of the hostel where I parked myself and started chatting with the people around me. That’s where I met Adam. He must have been in his mid-forties, working at a hostel bar, with a big bald head that made him look like a tanned egg. But despite his appearance, he was one of the coolest people I’d ever met.

We talked for hours. He regaled me of tales of his life in the circus, and I regaled him with stories of my life as a retail employee. He told me about how he’d been a clown traveling throughout Europe, a club DJ on the Amalfi Coast, and a volunteer in Madagascar working with turtles. Seemingly everywhere I wanted to visit, he’d already been there and done that and got the commemorative t-shirt. His life was a tapestry of wild and wonderful experiences, making my little jaunt through Europe seem tame in comparison.

As we talked long into the night, occasionally bringing in other backpackers to our corner of the bar to regale us with their own tales of adventure and travel, I decided to take on a challenge I’d never considered before: climbing Everest. Adam had mentioned it in passing. A friend of his had done it, and something about the idea had stuck with me. I wanted to do something grand, something that would push my limits.

When I voiced my idea aloud, Adam instantly threw some cold water on it. Did I know how expensive it was to climb Everest? That was something only the uber rich got to do. They’d helicopter up there, pay a couple sherpas to haul their gear, and then start climbing. It was nearly impossible for a young girl, just out of high school, to have the money to try and climb the tallest mountain in the world.

Adam wasn’t just a Debbie downer though. He gave me some advice. He claimed that while summiting Everest would cost me multiple thousands of dollars, reaching Everest Base Camp was relatively affordable. All I needed was to fly into Kathmandu, book a flight into Lukla, and start walking. I mean, there was a bit more to it, but that was the basic plan.

Before heading to Nepal, I devoured every book on Everest I could find, including Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer and Dark Summit by Nick Heil. I meticulously planned my journey, jotting down every single detail in a small notebook. As I slowly crawled through Europe and then North African and then the Middle East – which is not at all inviting to a young single woman – I hyped myself up for my eventual trek up Everest.

Three weeks later, I arrived in Kathmandu and immediately started regretting my decision. The bus ride into the city was a nightmare. The bench was an abandoned milk crate the driver bolted into the vehicle and covered with a ragged blanket. Every time we hit a pothole, which was whenever we were moving, I was launched into the air and came down hard on the “seat.”

As we approached the city, we crossed a river choked with trash. People had turned the stream into a dumping ground, and old buildings that lined the road served as makeshift garbage heaps. When we stopped at an intersection, waiting for our turn to zoom forward a couple dozen feet, I legit saw a kid, no older than ten, drop trou and poop in the middle of the street.

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When I finally reached my hotel, I began questioning every decision that brought me here. I had always wanted to prove my toughness, to show that I could do whatever I set my mind to. It was probably why I so often walked down dark streets at night, oblivious to the danger. But lying on top of the covers of that dingy hotel room bed, too afraid to pull back the sheets to see what lurked underneath, I started to reconsider what I was doing with my life.

Thankfully, I didn’t focus too much on my bad decisions. I booked a flight the next day to Lukla, often dubbed the most dangerous airport in the world. It was named that for a very good reason. The airport is a tiny landing strip carved into the side of a mountain. If your plane overshoots the runway…you die. So, tiny plane, tiny runway, terrifying descent that promises death if the pilot screws up.

From Lukla, my trek to Everest Base Camp began. The first steps reminded me why I was doing this: adventure. The air was crisp and thin, the landscape was breathtaking and daunting. I joined a small group of trekkers, and we headed off through the Khumbu region.

The trail wound through several villages like Phakding and Namche Bazaar, each step taking us higher into the mountains. The first few days were relatively easy, with the path gradually ascending through the forest and crossing suspension bridges that swayed over rivers that weren’t packed with garbage.

Over the next several days the landscape transformed. We had to pick our way over rocky terrain, and the air grew colder and thinner. The altitude made every step a struggle and the cold started to get to me, forcing me to bundle up even more and try and suck my body into itself to defend against the harsh climate.

Despite the physical toll that left me drained every night, I was ecstatic. I had fallen into an easy camaraderie with the other trekkers, and at night we shared stories about our lives and marveled at the sights we had seen.

When I finally reached Everest Base Camp, I definitely didn’t tear up a little. Nothing like that at all.

But standing at the foot of the world’s highest mountain, surrounded by trekkers from all corners of the globe, I felt like I had finally accomplished something real. Suck it Adam. I reached Everest Base Camp. The trek to the camp had sucked horribly and was one of the most gruelingly difficult things I’d ever done, but every step had been worth it.

The Sherpas called it Ām̐dhī. It hit us the next day.

I was sitting in a cramped tent, my breath visible in the frigid air. Outside, The Storm raged. Unlike in the rest of the world, The Storm didn’t bring rain. Instead, it brought sound and wind, filling the camp and settling into every fiber of our being.

Beside me, a fellow trekker named Jacob was huddled under his sleeping bag, shivering uncontrollably. He hadn’t fully acclimated to the altitude and was suffering from acute mountain sickness. His face was pale, his lips tinged with blue, and he clutched his head in pain. Plans to move him down the mountain to get him acclimated to a lower altitude had been thwarted by The Storm’s sudden appearance, and we had no choice but to bunker down.

The Storm trapped us all in our tents for hours. The wind battered against tent walls and the temperature plummeted. But the most striking thing about The Storm was the sound it made as it ripped through the camp. It was almost…musical. I can still remember the tones of it, even though I can’t entirely describe it. It was like a song you can’t quite remember. You know it’s beautiful, but every time you sing it, it comes out wrong.

The only word that comes to mind when I try to describe The Storm is: ephemeral. It was an ephemeral sound. But even that doesn’t do it justice. It sounds…too high brow. Too pretentious, as if I were putting on airs.

Ineffable. That’s what it was. I can’t describe the song I heard, and every time I try, I recoil at how much I’m butchering the description.

The next morning, we all slowly emerged from our tents to find that The Storm had finally subsided. I left my tent as soon as some trekkers arrived to help Jacob and bring him down the mountain. As the camp started to wake up, we all wandered about, eager to tally the damage The Storm had wrought. There was a hesitancy about everything though, especially among the Sherpas who had been on the mountain much longer than the rest of us. They had never experienced a storm like the one from the previous night, and they were all huddled in conversation, trying to decipher its meaning.

I remember standing at the edge of the camp, staring up at the towering peaks of Everest. I knew that I’d be leaving soon, unable to afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to hire a team to take me to the summit. As I sat there, lost in thought about all that had led me to Base Camp, something caught my eye. Far up on the mountain, where the path from Camp Four wound its way down towards Base Camp, a group of figures were descending.

People gathered around me, pointing and murmuring in confusion. Were these climbers pushed off the mountain by The Storm? Were they retreating, fearing they couldn’t ascend in peace? There were way too many of them though.

The descending hikers were a kaleidoscope of colors, their gear bright and varied, reflecting the sun like a moving rainbow. They walked in a slow, steady procession, their steps deliberate and almost synchronized. There were dozens of them. Dozens of dozens of them, filling the trail leading to Base Camp.

As they neared the camp, the murmurs grew into gasps of astonishment. “Look at their clothes,” someone whispered. “I haven’t seen gear like that in years.”

When the first hikers reached the camp, there was a collective intake of breath. Their faces were pale, but their eyes were clear and alive. An understanding rippled through everyone at camp, even though none of us wanted to give it words. Taking in the older gear, the shocked faces, and the fact that there shouldn’t be nearly this many hikers descending the mountain, we all realized the truth that none of us wanted to voice: these were the bodies of the climbers who had been left on the mountain for years. And they were all alive.

One of the climbers, a man with a thick beard and weathered features, stepped forward. He looked around, his expression a mix of confusion and relief. “Where are we?” he asked, his voice hoarse but strong.

“Everest Base Camp,” I replied, stepping forward to meet him. “What…what happened?”

The man shook his head, a bewildered look on his face. “I don’t know. One moment, we were trapped in a storm, certain we were going to die. The next, we woke up and decided to head back down.”

The camp buzzed with activity. People rushed to help the returning climbers, offering them food, water, and warm clothing. The climbers shared their stories, themselves confused about what was happening. They spoke of the moments before their deaths, the harsh conditions that had claimed them, and the strange, dream-like state they had experienced during The Storm.

I watched as the camp came alive, the returning climbers mingling with those who had come to conquer the mountain. It was a reunion of sorts, bridging the gap between generations of hikers. I moved among the returning climbers, offering a shoulder and an ear, talking to them about the years they had missed while they were stuck on the mountain.

As I moved through the camp, listening to the stories and marveling at the miracle that had occurred, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Everest wasn’t done doling out the mysteries. The mountain had always been a place of challenge and discovery, but now it seemed to possess and almost mystical power.