Happy retrospecting

Denny and me
Summit of Kalapatar
Near Everest base camp (1995) 

To reiterate my much reiterated whining, Covid-19 has made a very big mess of my beautiful 2020 travel plans.  There!  Got that off my chest.  Again.

What caused this latest flare-up of discontent?  Well, yesterday I received the July issue of National Geographic magazine.  An issue devoted almost entirely to the Himalayas, including an account of a recent search for the frozen body of one of the two leaders of the tragic 1924 Mallory climb of Mount Everest.

It's a wonderful issue, with beautiful photos (and additional photos on-line for subscribers).  I was about to lift at least one of the photos for use with this posting, but ran into some stern copyright infringement warnings.

While I've never had an interest in climbing Everest, or ever possessed the training or physical capability necessary to even attempt it, National Geographic's photos remind me of places I have been in the Himalayas, and of places I'd love to visit in the future.

Even before this year, however, I already began to realize that my ability to hike at extreme altitudes was not what it had been even five years earlier.  I'm sure I can still handle 12,000 or even 14,000 feet, especially if reaching that elevation is not attempted all in one day, but the most exciting hikes in the Himalayas are at higher altitudes.

But the sorrows of old age aside, the Covid-19 pandemic rules out any foreign travel (or even domestic travel) this year.  And, worse, I'm not sure when it will be possible to do "adventure travel" in the future.  Probably not until an effective vaccine has been developed, at the earliest.  If I were 35, I'd roll my eyes and say, "Fine, I'll find other amusements until then."  I'm at the age, however, at which a wait of two or three years may well rule out certain kinds of hiking that I'm still capable of today.

The pathos of these mullings may explain why I've been posting so many photos of past hikes and climbs on my Facebook page.  Not so much showing off (although that, too), as to remind myself how lucky I am to have now those memories.  How clever I was in earlier years to spend my two or three week vacations out on the trails, rather than hanging out on the beach (although I have some good beach memories, as well).  How lucky I've been to have been in better than average shape for my age, at each stage of my life.

And how fortunate I've been to have two nephews -- Doug and Denny -- and the son of family friends -- Pascal -- join me, year after year, during their teens, twenties, and even thirties.  What great travel companions they were -- funny, adventurous, tireless, non-complaining, and willing to treat me as though we were all the same age. (And good losers at gin rummy, played on the ground outside our tents!)

The Alps (the Haute Route, the Mont Blanc loop), the Andes (the Cordillera Blanca, Choquequirao), the Himalayas (Everest base camp, Renjo La, Annapurna, Ladakh), Kilimanjaro, the Chinese Pamirs, Gabon swamps, Morocco desert tracks with camels -- and those were just some of the more spectacular hikes on which I was accompanied by one of the "kids."  Great memories!

Memories of travel aren't the same as the real thing.  But during the icy chill of a pandemic lock-down, happy travel memories are the warm, cozy fire by which one can sit and dream and warm his travel-deprived body.  (And dream up odd metaphors.)

And this pandemic, too, will end.  I have to believe!  Next year in Jerusalem!  Or maybe even Timbuktu.