Mera Peak: Trek Life

Every night as we finished off our last mugs of tea and prepared to head to our tents, our sirdar, Domi, would cheerfully call out the schedule for the next day. "6, 7, 8!" he'd chirp. Sometimes it was 7, 8, 9! Oh happy day!

Wake up tea at 6am, breakfast at 7 and on the trail by 8. I am not a morning person even at the best of times. Least of all when my sleeping bag is nice and toasty and it's cold outside. But sadly, there was no sleeping in for me on this trek. Not only did the schedule not allow it, but my bladder didn't either.

Morning sun in Chalem Kharka

They recommend that you drink lots of water when you're at elevation -- between 2 and 3L a day. But I found myself struggling to down 1 or 1.5L. I also didn't take any altitude medication that would make you pee a lot (like Diamox). Yet I still found myself having to wake up 5 times a night to use the bathroom!

There is nothing quite so frustrating as finally getting warm and cozy in your sleeping bag only to discover that even though you had used the bathroom less than an hour ago, you have to go again and you simply cannot sleep until you do. I wish someone had told me that not only would you get the high-altitude version of a urinary tract infection, but that this would be considered a good thing!

Frequent urination is a sign that your body is adapting to the altitude. So I guess I was glad to have this problem. But man is it a pain in the butt! Going to the toilet can be quite the business in the mountains.

It involves,

One of the more draughty toilets.
Nice view, though

1. Groping around the top of your tent for your headlamp and putting it on
2. Unzipping your sleeping bag
3. Rooting around the bottom of your sleeping bag for your down jacket and putting it on
4. Untangling yourself from your liner and getting out of the sleeping bag
5. Making sure you have some toilet paper tucked away in a pocket (after a certain elevation, I stopped using water to wash myself as it was ice cold)
6. Unzipping the inner tent
7. Stuffing your feet into ice-cold hiking boots (brrr!)
8. Tucking the laces away so they don't get icky (too much trouble to actually lace 'em up)
9. Unzipping the outer flap of the tent
10. Zipping up the inner tent so Nick isn't blasted by cold air
11. Walking to the toilets without tripping over any rocks or tent pegs
12. Fighting with the lock (or zipper) of a draughty toilet shed (or tent)
13. Pulling down your various base layers to pee (not always easy at elevation, let me tell you!)
14. Pulling up your various base layers afterwards (even harder at elevation)
15. Making your way back to the (correct!) tent
16. Unzipping the inner tent and sitting inside
17. Zipping up the outer flap
18. Removing your boots
19. Zipping up the inner tent
20. Removing the down jacket and stuffing it back in the bottom of your sleeping bag to keep it warm(ish)
21. Getting back into the liner and sleeping bag
22. Zipping up the sleeping bag
23. Rubbing your hands and feet together to try and warm them up so you can actually fall asleep again

Now, this may not sound too bad since this is normal bathroom procedure when you go camping anywhere in the world. But repeat this process 4 or 5 times each night, keeping in mind that each step becomes more and more difficult the higher we get, and it's a totally different story. By the time we got to High Camp, I had to take a breather after simply sitting up!

You have no idea how envious I was of the guys on our trek who could pee into bottles and not have to leave the warm comfort of their tents. The only other woman on our trip, Kris, shared my pain. Biology has not been fair to us, eh? But as our trip leader Dom was fond of saying to anyone inclined to complain, man and woman alike...

"Suck it up, Princess!"