The recent tragic events in Nepal reminded me of my own little connection with Mount Everest. Those of you who know me can't even imagine any association between that mountain and me, but one actually exists. Remote, but true.
Two summers ago, my daughter and I went to France to follow the Tour de France for a week in the French Alps stages of the race. She and the rest of my family gave me this holiday to celebrate my 60th birthday, and she had arranged everything so that all I needed to do was enjoy. We stayed in Grenoble for a week, using it as our headquarters.
This was our first experience using AirBnB, and our host proved to be interesting beyond our wildest imaginings. His name was Jack (pronounced as though it was Jacques) and he worked in HR for a well-known computer firm in Grenoble. We listened to his stories with amazement. (He had lots and lots of stories!)
The most amazing stories concerned his preparation for and climb to the top of Mount Everest the year before. Yes, one day he apparently just up and decided that the next challenging adventure of his life was going to be the ascent of Everest. And by golly, he did it. (He said the whole experience cost him $50,000. Wow!) We saw his photos and heard the nearly step-by-step description of the trek and climb. Who could have imagined that we would ever meet someone who had stood at the top of the world?
But that's not the connection I wanted to tell you about. The day after our arrival was not a race stage, so my daughter and I planned to spend the day exploring Grenoble and its environs. I wanted to try using walking poles, thinking they would be handy when we were hiking around the alpine roads, so we asked Jack if he had any I could borrow. He was delighted to lend me a set, and as he handed me the poles he casually remarked that these were the poles he had used on Everest. Really. I was going to hike around using poles that had been used on Everest. That qualified as pretty cool.
Off we went, as I clutched the poles tightly. We headed for the center of Grenoble (we had a rental car and I was having a very intense practical immersion experience in driving in France), parked, and took the cable car up to the fortress (La Bastille) which had protected Grenoble for many previous centuries. We toured around and had a little snack, and then it was time to descend. Instead of returning via the cable car, we decided to walk down, because there seemed to be several good routes and it was a beautiful day.
Thank goodness I had those poles! The descent nearly ended my plans to hike all over the route of the bicycle race. The vertical distance was roughly 250 meters (750 feet), and the paths zig-zagged down the face of the mountain. My daughter and I think we might even have made a couple of wrong turns! At any rate, my poor old knees would never, ever have survived the hike without my Everest poles.
We finally reached the bottom and restored our energy with a tasty lunch along the banks of the Isere. As we sat at our outside table, I looked back up at the fortress. I just couldn't believe that I had hiked down from that height! Must have been some 'Everest magic' in the poles, because I didn't experience any problems the rest of our time in the French Alps.
Considering how ill-prepared I was for the physical demands of this particular outing, I think my successful descent from La Bastille in Grenoble qualifies as my hiking/climbing achievement of the decade. Not an Everest ascent, but as close as I'm going to get!
I took those poles with me every day as we followed the bike race.
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