Page 17 - Palm Beach Vol 6 No 3
P. 17

A er landing safely, we met our Sherpa and set o  on a week-long trek to EBC. Starting our ascent, not only were the vistas breathtaking, with Everest in the distance. So were the Buddhist monasteries with their intricate prayer wheels, as were the streamers of multicolored prayer  ags  ap- ping in the wind above spires, bridges and peaks.
From Sherpas, like our own, straining under the enormous weight of provisions carried from village to village up unimag- inably steep inclines. To yaks, mountain goats, eagles and people in their colorful clothes eking out a subsistence living by selling goods in roadside stalls, or by farm- ing on terraced mountains.  is was a jour- ney into the heart of the mystical Himalya, the birthplace of Buddha.
Each step was an excruciating exercise in exquisite pain and su ering.  e physical anguish of the climb stripping me to my very core.
 e beauty of rhythmic breathing, how- ever, and the “one-step, one-step” mantra running through my head as I climbed ever higher, placed me in a zone of contem- plation and awareness that seemed to ease the pain and reconnect me with a unique spiritual voice de ning my very existence. A voice drowned out long ago by the noise, intrusions and demands of modern living, but rediscovered once again in the silence and solitude of the mountains.
Trekking through a Buddhist and Hindu country like Nepal also provides a lesson in how to achieve serenity amidst subsistence.
A year earlier, I resolved to reach the foot of mighty Mt. Everest, Chomolungma as the Nepalese call her, Goddess Mother of the World.”
Our capitalist, consumer oriented society is based on the idea that more is better. Buddhist and Hindu societies take the opposite approach, that less is better. In this setting, I came to appreciate the Bud- dhist and Hindu philosophies of love, de- votion, surrender, humility and simple living as pathways to spiritual happiness, not merely the accumulation of things.
Some have said the pain of climbing is like the agony of childbirth. Once the journey is over, however, the mind for- gets the suffering and celebrates a life- affirming accomplishment. Because trek- king through thin air also provides sus- tenance for the soul, the need to return
to the mountains beckons like the call of the wild.
Having gotten hooked on climbing in the high Himalya, in August 2016, I set o  to Mongolia where I trekked 100 miles across the steppes and made a summit attempt of Khüiten Peak in the Altai Mountain Range, bordering Mongolia, China and Siberia. At 4,374 meters, or 14,350 feet, Khüiten Peak is Mongolia’s highest mountain.
As my guide and I made our way up the Potanin Glacier to base camp at 12,000 feet, I fell through waist-deep snow into a deadly crevasse, a deep crack in glacial ice known to swallow up climbers who are of- ten never seen again. Luckily, when falling, I wrenched my right leg backward, jam- ming my body against the walls of the cre- vasse, which probably saved me.
Even my guide, who had summitted Everest twice for Team Mongolia and knew the route up Khüiten Peak by heart, was surprised to see the depth of the snow, which, even in August, hid fatal crevasses along the way.
Spending that night bivouacked at base camp in a sleet-driven, 70-knot, gale force wind, we made our way safely down the mountain the following day. Having sur- vived a near-death experience in a place so remote no one would have found me had I died, I was le  exhilarated, yet humbled and grateful to be alive.
Nevertheless, the call of the mountains beckons. Once again, I’m planning my next adventure. To summit either Aconcagua in the Argentine Andes or Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
A er practicing law in Miami for over 30 years, J.B. Harris relocated to Fort Lauder- dale to work with Howard & Associates P.A. practicing plainti  tobacco law.
Vol. 6 No. 3 Attorney at Law Magazine® South Florida | 17


































































































   15   16   17   18   19