The Fear Bubble: Harness Fear and Live Without Limits

Dawa was holding a garland of marigold flowers and I bent down so he could put it around my neck. I could instantly tell that getting on with him wasn’t going to be a problem. He radiated a kind of natural, easy-going warmth.

‘Welcome to Nepal,’ he said, shaking my hand.

I pulled him up into a bear hug. As I did, the sky above us blasted into a fantastic rip of thunder.

‘That’s what I love to hear, mate. That gets me excited,’ I said. ‘Are you ready, Dawa?’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Are you sure, brother?’

‘Yeah.’

This was my opportunity to signal to Ed that it was me who’d be calling the shots.

‘Are you ready, Ed?’

‘I’m ready.’

‘Are you sure?’

He didn’t reply. He just laughed. That, I figured, was him signalling back.

As we walked towards our transport, I said to him, half-joking, ‘I hope you’re going to keep up with me. Anywhere I go, just make sure you capture it.’

‘Oh, I will,’ he said. ‘You know it can be pretty hard going up there. Are you sure you’ve done enough preparation?’

There it was again.

‘Don’t worry about me, mate,’ I said. But in the depths of my mind I had a sudden, panicked flash of a bowl of chicken wings glistening with Buffalo sauce.

The transport to the hotel turned out to be a tiny white banger with holes in the floor and just enough room for the three of us. We rattled off into the thick of the city, a grinding metropolis of traffic, noise, brightly painted concrete apartments, temple roofs glimpsed down tangled alleyways, fluttering prayer flags and potholed roads, all set in a haze of filthy, smoggy air. Despite my background concerns about Ed, I found myself high on the spirit of adventure, which is the greatest buzz I know. The giddy mood had become infectious and we were all grinning widely. I decided to use it to help us bond as a team as quickly as we could. Right now that meant indicating to Dawa that he wasn’t going to be treated as an employee but as one of us. Even though I was determined that I would make all the key decisions, it was Dawa who’d be in charge of the route we’d be taking. His role in my expedition couldn’t be more crucial.

‘How many times have you summited?’ I asked him.

‘I’ve summited six times on the top, and eleven times expeditions,’ he said. ‘First time was when I was nineteen. With my father.’

‘Was he a Sherpa too?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And he is still working on the mountain today.’

I looked down at the flowers he’d strung around my neck.

‘What are these for?’

‘For good luck.’

‘Good luck? Listen,’ I said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘That’s for the unprepared.’ I thought for a moment. Those chicken wings again. ‘But hey. We’ll see. We might need it.’

‘Tonight you and Ed are coming to eat at my house,’ he said proudly. ‘It’s all arranged. I have booked a car for 7 p.m. It will pick you up at the Yak and Yeti Hotel where you’re staying. My wife is cooking a welcome meal that is special.’

‘That would be an honour,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Dawa.’

Not only would it be an honour; it would also provide the perfect opportunity to strengthen our relationship. He didn’t yet know it, but it wasn’t only the route up to the summit that Dawa would be finding. He’d also be essential in getting me to that edge of fear I was going to be secretly hunting. One of the reasons I didn’t want a Western guide was because, as you’d expect, they tend to be ultra-cautious. They wouldn’t want the negative publicity of having any of their clients lose a nose, a couple of toes – or their life. But a Sherpa, I expected, would be willing to push that little bit harder. If I said to a Western guide, ‘Let’s go up through that storm,’ they’d most likely refuse and maybe even turn us around. You’d hope a Sherpa would be more game. After all, they live close by the mountain. It wasn’t ‘Mount Everest’ to them, it was ‘Chomolungma’, a living god. They’d known that mysterious lump of ice and rock, and its shifting, deadly moods, for thousands of years. It was in their blood.

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