Three years to the day that Erik Weihenmayer (the first and only blind person to stand on the top of the world and complete the Seven Summits) and his team summited Mount Everest (May 24, 2001), they—and a few new recruits—arrived in Lhasa, Tibet. “The goal of this first trip was to prepare the kids to climb a big mountain,” said Weihenmayer of the two-part Climbing Blind project, which will teach six blind Tibetan teenagers (ages fourteen through seventeen, boys and girls) rock climbing and mountaineering skills, then take them on a week-long trek into the Himalayas. The project will conclude this fall, by leading the kids on a three-week ascent of Lhapka Ri, (elevation: 23,100 feet) on the north side of Everest.
I’d met Erik a year earlier at an adventure race in South Lake Tahoe, and he asked me to join the team, leading Kyla, then a seventeen-year-old recent graduate from Braille Without Borders, a Lhasa-based training center for the blind. In addition to guiding Kyla, I did a first-person report for NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday.”
Before setting off into the mountains, Kyla and the other teens (who are all students at the center) received gear and education—about layering, loading packs, securely tying boots, and donning crampons … and trekking training. They also learned to rock climb, on a knobby granite face just outside of Lhasa.
Our expedition began on May 29th at 10:15 a.m., our starting point being the prominent Tsurphu monastery (14,700 feet). As is the practice, the kids and members of Climbing Blind paired up. We traipsed along narrow rocky paths, crossing small gurgling streams and grassy knolls, discovering the best method of travel. I rang a bear bell while giving verbal instruction to Kyla from the front—using commands like “step high,” “narrow rocks,” “steep drop-off left.” Other guides and teens preferred to hold a common trekking pole. The five-hour day ended in the tiny yak-herding village of Leten (16,700 feet). “I was really blown away by the strength and resilience of the teens,” noted Weihenmayer. “But it’s not surprising, considering the tough lives they’ve lived.”
Following a day of mellow hiking (and snowball fights) just to acclimate, we took off on the third morning with full bellies, full packs, and full-on fervor for what would become eight hours of gnarly rutted paths winding past yak farms—and over countless snow-covered hummocks—topping out at Lasa La (17,500 feet). The six inches of overnight snow melted in the beaming morning sun, turning deep, yak-packed muddy grooves into ankle-sucking divots. Boots slipped and slid, and bodies stumbled. “I was a little bit tired and it was a little difficult to breathe,” admitted Kyla, a multilingual massage therapist. “But this is so much fun—and it’s a chance to show others that blind people can do anything—so I don’t mind.” Later, the bright morning became an afternoon of hammer-the-face snow squalls and zero visibility.
Hiking through the stunning Nyechen Thanglhas on the fourth day went smoothly. But upon arriving at the base of Mt. Chitze—the destination for three days of glacier travel training—on day five, the team was surprised by a super-high snow line. “To reach it would have taken at least two days of technical side-hilling over loose scree, and zig-zagging around gendarme rocks,” observed Weihenmayer, “with the prospect of finding only dirty, marginal snow.”
The trek was scrapped, and rescheduled as a three-day glacier clinic for the fall. In the meantime, to give them the feel of glacier travel, the kids—clad in full mountaineering fashion with plastic boots, crampons, and harnesses, and toting ice axes—shuffled up and down steep, scrub-brush-peppered slopes, connected by a rope.
“We went into this with the question, do the kids have what it takes to get to the top of a 7,000-meter peak?” said Erik. “I now know that all six have a real chance of standing on top when we attempt to climb Lhakpa Ri in October.
Our team returned to Tibet that October for the Lhakpa Ri expedition, which was made into a documentary, BlindSight. The flick has swept awards as it travels the international film festival circuit. More to come about the fall expedition in a follow-up story.
Photo: Stefani Jackenthal guiding Kyla
