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Setting the bar high

Retired Grand Falls-Windsor teacher tackles 21,000 feet of Himalayan mountain pass

STEPHEN ROBERTS stephen.roberts @saltwire.com

Byron Hiscock first scaled some of the highest mountain passes in the world in 2015.

After retiring as a school teacher earlier that year, he was eager to embrace a new challenge.

“After 31 years teaching, I said, ‘I’m gonna try to do something for myself,’” he tells Central Wire.

That November, the Grand Falls-Windsor man trekked and climbed the Himalayas, reaching a summit of about 18,000 feet.

But his sherpa told him he could go a lot higher, and he figured, “well, I’ll come back and try it.”

After a trip was postponed because of the pandemic, Hiscock, now 58, was finally able to return to Nepal last month, reaching even greater heights and conquering the Mera

Peak, which is more than 21,000 feet above sea level.

It was an arduous trek and climb that took 17 days to complete. At the summit of the Mera Peak, just as the sun was rising, he could see Mount Everest just in front him.

Just beneath the summit he planted the Newfoundland and Labrador flag and a banner his wife made featuring the names of their five grandchildren.

‘A REAL EYE OPENER’

However, this sojourn to Nepal was about more than scaling a mountain pass.

When Hiscock arrived, he brought with him nearly 200 pounds of school supplies to deliver to four Nepalese schools.

The supplies were collected by seven schools in Grand Falls-Windsor (Sprucewood

Academy, Woodland Primary, Forest Park Primary, Exploits Valley Intermediate and Exploits Valley High), Buchans (Lakeside Academy) and Twillingate (J.M. Olds Collegiate).

Many people also donated supplies, dropping them off at Hiscock’s home in Grand Falls-Windsor. The supplies were shipped to Nepal in four 50-pound containers.

“It was a major undertaking to ship that all way to Kathmandu,” says Hiscock.

Aboard a rickshaw, he delivered about 100 pounds of supplies to two public schools in Kathmandu.

When he encountered the second school, he says “you would never think there would be a school in the building” as it had very little supplies.

The other 80 to 90 pounds had to be flown in by chopper from Kathmandu into Lukla.

Hiscock wanted to deliver some of the supplies to a school attended by the daughter of his porter Bhim.

“I said this is a school I want to go to because this is a guy that I know personally from before,” says Hiscock.

Only five students attend the school he says. The students knew the supplies were coming so, even though they didn’t have school that day, they dressed in their uniforms to greet Hiscock.

After finishing the summit, he visited the fourth and final school, attended by 22 students with a monk as headmaster.

He says the students remain at the school from Sunday morning through to Friday afternoon.

“… going to those four schools was a real eye opener,” says Hiscock. “And one of the nicest things I’ve ever done in my life.”

He expressed gratitude to the local N.L. schools who collected the supplies and to everyone who donated and helped get the supplies to the schools.

ASCENDING THE MERA PEAK

Hiscock completed both of his treks with Himalayan Wonders Trekking & Day Tours, a travel agency in Nepal.

He decided to go with them again given the rapports he developed with his sherpa Lakpa and his porter Bhim during his first trip.

Both accompanied him on this trip as well.

Teahouses, a place where food and a room to sleep are provided, are interspersed throughout the ascent.

“The worst part of teahouses is that they are extremely cold,” says Hiscock. “Most nights when I got in bed, I’d get in bed with everything I had on that day except for my boots.”

He adds the only thing between you and the elements is a quarter inch panel board – no insulation.

The fourth or fifth day into his ascent, Hiscock summitted his first high pass, getting him to about 16,000 feet.

“For anybody, that’s a serious climb,” Hiscock explains. “Most people do a longer route that takes an extra five days but it’s a much more gentle route.

“This will take you over a high pass where you if you slip you’re seriously gonna have some pain. You’re probably going to slide for about 2,000 feet before you either drop off the edge or bring up solid.”

About 10 minutes after completing that pass, they encountered a vicious snowstorm with thunder and lightning.

The following day was probably the second hardest day of the trip up to that point, Hiscock says, due to walking up and down along the side of a mountain.

“A few places there’s just enough space for the width of your foot,” he says.

Then they descended to about 12,000 feet, entering the Hinku Valley. They trekked through that for another three days, before reaching Khare, the last teahouse before you get to high camp, which is at about 19,000 feet.

There, he was joined by his climbing sherpa, Tinji, who owns the teahouse with his wife. Lakpa, his trekking sherpa, left at that point.

In the next 10 hours, they climbed another 3,000 feet. That was the second highest elevation change in one day. Then they entered the Mera Pass, where they had to climb more than 5,000 feet in the next two days.

“That’s where people get in trouble,” says Hiscock.

The first day was very difficult.

“He’s basically leading you up through this very steep climb up the glacier,” he explains. “After about two hours of steep climbing, it’s a steady climb then to high camp.”

But what should have been an hour to high camp, took him another two hours.

“I was beat,” he recalls. “I would take 40 or 50 steps and stop. My breathing was really heavy, my heart rate was up. It was the hardest two hours of my whole trip.”

When they got to high camp at about 4 p.m., he says he passed out in the tent. After taking some Tylenol and getting some sleep, he recovered for the morning. They got up at 1 a.m. and there was no issue from there to the summit.

“You go straight up for about five hours,” says Hiscock.

Given his struggles the previous day, there was concern he wouldn’t make it. But it ended up one of the easiest parts of the trip.

He completed the summit on April 14, his wife’s birthday, at about 6 a.m. Nepalese time.

On the way back down, his left knee, which he hurt playing hockey years ago, gave out. Otherwise, physically he suffered no major issues, although he lost 24 pounds during the expedition.

After all that, Hiscock remains ambitious and doesn’t expect that to be his final journey in the mountain ranges.

“I figure I can go a few thousand more,” he says.

He feels he needs to do at least one more high peak, with more vertical climbs, in preparation before he can consider the big one: Mount Everest.

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