Exploring Everest With Mr. Lange

Assistant Head of Middle School Jason Lange adjusts his pack and admires the bustling life of the streets in Kathmandu, Nepal.
On the steps of a century-old temple, a tourist scrolls on his phone. Beside him, a young boy plays among a flock of pigeons, laughing as he chases them down. Above them both, prayer flags billow in the crisp air, seemingly bursting into a fiery blaze as the golden sunlight radiates onto them.
And sitting in the background, towering over Lange and domineering the landscape, lies Mount Everest.
Everest, to many, means little more than a name. But to Lange in 2010, Everest is more than that: it’s a challenge, a chance to see the world and the opportunity of a lifetime.
Fascinated by exploration at a young age, Lange has always sought out his next adventure, and his 2010 venture to Everest’s Base Camp was the culmination of years of prior experience and travel.
Even getting to the mountain in the first place proved to be a challenge, but once Lange navigated the painful paperwork, he finally began his two-week excursion from Beijing to Everest Base Camp.
Lange took a 49-hour bus ride to Lhasa, Tibet, where he would spend three days getting his body used to the 10,000-foot altitude. After getting to know his guide and the 12 other tourists with whom he would spend the next two weeks, Lange piled into a small van with his group and set off on another road trip, this time exploring the 800-kilometer Friendship Highway between China and Nepal.
During his travels, Lange slowly approached Kathmandu, his excitement steadily peaking as Everest’s massive figure slowly grew in size and detail.
Stepping out of that cramped van into the thin air of Everest’s North Face, every fresh breath filled him with an energy of life and a deep appreciation for his situation, a feeling of gratitude that would only deepen as he and his tour group were welcomed into the Rongbuk Monastery, where they would spend a few nights living among the monks and taking in the scenery between sips of yak butter tea.
And after a few relaxed days in the monastery, on July 31, the group made their first five-kilometer trek toward Base Camp, staying at roughly 18,000 feet for five days while making the hike between Rongbuk and Base Camp. Although the weather was uncooperative for three days, Lange’s group eventually experienced the full beauty of Everest during their last two days, and it certainly didn’t disappoint.
The feelings of awe, accomplishment and pure adrenaline inundated him—there was just something primordially stunning about the immense stature and beauty of the mountain. For Lange, this trip meant something special.
Everything, from the people he would spend two weeks enjoying the beautiful scenery of Nepal and Tibet with to the final view of the mountain’s sky-scraping size, gave him new perspectives on his life, eventually forming him into the man he is today.
For some, seeing pictures or reading stories about the world’s wonders is enough, but for people like Lange, exploring foreign locations simply for the sake of exploration is synonymous with breathing. Because, for people like Lange, life is only as good as it is lived.