Author: Antoan

So I spent my first night in Gorak Shep in the very last room available, located in the basement of a tea-house, filled with dozens of folks prepping for the Base Camp to Namche marathon. I was to the left of what smelled like a gas-can storage room and beneath the communal dining hall. I heard the fools above me pushing tables about, drinking whiskey and singing songs until about 3:30AM. I wanted to go upstairs and show those kids how it’s done, but I had work to do today. Lucky for them!

I also had brave aspirations to make the 2 hr hike up Kala Patar, at 5AM, and see the peaks. But the thunderstorm that kept creeping up the valley all night, had left a cloud obscuring everything from the dry lake bed on up. I slept in till 7:30 and once breakfast was done, I went outside to feel snowflakes lightly pelting my face. To see this happening when it’s almost June, really drove home the severity of the heat loss problem this biogas project must overcome. The snow continued all day, but as it hit the warmish May ground, it instantly sublimed into a vapor phase.  This left the whole area in a mysterious blanket of snow falling through fog. What a crazy place.

Mingma spent his day in a string of interviews with the blue barrel porters and tea-house owners. I tried not to spend too much time by the stove, drinking tea, looking out the window. I was of course contemplating various aspects of the project while doing so. But once this critical portion of my mental preparation was concluded, I went outside to scout the materials we will need for the project.

My mental list ran something like: water, Carbon rich waste, stone, solar panels and other building materials. Right now there is a line of HDPE & plastic pipe running from a lake behind Kala Patar down to the dry lake bed. The water is constantly draining into the lake bed unless someone is filling up. This is because the lines would freeze and burst the first night the water in them was left still. I also scouted literally every roof’s edge in the place. One had a gutter that was clearly just to keep the low room beneath it from flooding. But I did find one building with a gutter being used to harvest water. Since we are to dilute the waste 1:3, we’ll need about 36m3 of water to deal with 12,000kg of filth. One idea is to install gutters on the porters’ shelter. This way we could harvest a good volume during the summer monsoon. And probably top off the difference, with the flow lost into the dry lake.

I peaked around and saw something our team already knew, the yak dung is a fuel source that no one is about to handover to the project.

Next, I spied a lot of kitchen waste abandoned in greywater and also being fed to yaks. From the looks of it, there is a fair amount of starchy stuff the marathon runners with wobbly guts didn’t manage to finish. Again, since the tea-houses seem to use their kitchen waste for animals, it may be hard to ask for it. Of course the yakherds had also brought up hay with them, so it’s not like we’d be starving Yaks if we digested the old spaghetti.

To the North of the tea-houses I could see signs of granite harvest going on. But for all of that, the same stones types can be found next to our digester site. There was also a stack of wooden beams and so many foam boards beneath some tarps. These seem to be awaiting the day they become a new tea-house addition. We are not about to try and haggle for these construction supplies. But it was interesting to see what materials are available and chosen for use up here.

There were a lot of solar arrays around the place, but they were put in by companies not present to be questioned. And just so you know, don’t try to ask a tea-house owner for any sort of DC power harvested record. This is not the sort of thing they waste their time writing down. I also tried to get some meta-data, in the form of, number of batteries charged etc. But they don’t store these hard records once their guest notebooks get filled, I’m guessing that lights the stove at night. However, I did learn that in addition to Gham Power, a Kathmandu company we have been courting, they also have panels from Lotus power up here. Now I have another Nepali solar company to visit when I’m back in the capital.

I saw Mingma at dinner and he read me his notes from interviewing ¬¬¬ Tobkay Lama. This man has worked as a waste porter for 18 yrs, one of the original two. There are now 23 blue barrel porters and they have to go farther down to reach the current pit. He also said the pits are further off trail now, since yaks had been tripping in the unconsolidated pits covered by a shallow cap of soil.

Tobkay used to be paid 20 rupees per kilo in the beginning, but now his compensation is 150 rupees a kilo.  That’s around $2 US, not a great deal. Mingma asked him what he thought of our project and his thoughts on being the eventual operator. He was for it on both accounts. I hope we get this thing up and running in the next few years. These people never complain, and deserve better than what is going on right now.

When Mingma and I return to Kathmandu, we will create a full document of his interviews with the blue barrel porters. This will be placed on the web to help the international community see the human face of the chronic waste issue at Mt. Everest. Thanks for your support everyone.

Today we finally reached Gorak Shep! I ate a lunch of hashbrowns with cheese and an egg in under two minutes. Anyway, sitting at 5,140m drinking tea with my guides in the sunshine, I was all smiles.

Once we had our things settled, we set out to view the two digester sites Mingma had previously considered. The first was to the North East of Gorak Shep, at the end of the dry lake bed. This spot is a good choice because it is off the beaten path, has good solar exposure and is near a shelter used by waste porters. However, since the wind blows from the South along the lake bed, any solar panels there would get dusty. When dust accumulates on PV panels their efficiency decreases, since the dust film reflects the sunlight before it can enter the cells.  Also this site is to the South of the mighty hill Kala Patar. This scenic hill, that trekkers climb to photograph the surrounding mountains, would block the sun some of the time. Plus one never knows when a randomly bumped rock, will find a chaotic path down to your solar array.

On our way to seeing the second site, we stopped to chat with two porters carrying down the human waste from base camp. It seems that now, the pit that receives the waste is another two hours walk below Gorak Shep.  The waste issue here will only get worse, along with the ground water quality in these habitations and along the glaciers.

We walked up to the main porters’ shelter, and Mingma showed me the second site he had scouted. The solar potential there is great, away from the shadow of Kala Patar and upwind of the dry lake. It is also close to the porters’ kitchen, which would allow us to directly tie the gas-line from the digester into their stove. Best of all, the site is a wash that never has streamflow through it.  It is filled with some boulders, in dry sand! Sand is very stable to build upon, once it has been consolidated. But more importantly, the voids between the sand grains create small air spaces that hold heat. Such air voids are the same reason that fiberglass rolls or straw-bales make for good insulation. This is great news and I actually did a little squiggle dance of joy. So far, the technical design team has been using the heat capacity and conduction coefficients of wet soil in our calculations. This was a conservative estimate, but now that this survey has found our actual site location, we are sitting pretty on dry sand!  Great news.

I have only been working on this design for about two years, but the Mt. Everest Biogas Project has been in process for more than three now. Our technical design team has already investigated the feasibility of biogas production at Gorak Shep. This entails operation at lower than normal temperatures, when only human waste is the substrate.  Humans shed a lot of broken down protein, so our waste tends to have a higher amount of Nitrogen relative to Carbon. Methane is Carbon based, so you can make a lot more of it, from say, a grass eating animal’s manure. Then again, since Gorak Shep receives ~12,000 kg of human filth annually, we are going to use that. Anyway, the numbers we came up with showed you need at least ~20°C inside the digester to make methane and get through all the waste. If you can pull off keeping the digester at 30°C, then all the waste still gets destroyed, and you get a little more biogas.

The next thing we had to figure out was, how hard it is to keep a digester warm in basically 0°C ground. This is not an easy task and we investigated different possibilities of how to operate the digester. The conclusion was that, for the amount of heat loss you need to overcome, the best deal is to operate only in the warm bit of the year with the goal of 30°C. Heat loss in the winter makes year-round operation a losing proposition. Also, the smallish increase in heat loss at 30°C compared to 20°C is worth it to make more biogas. Using the goal of 30°C also means our process will be stable. Even if the digester’s internal temp dips to 20°C, we know we can still process all the waste and make biogas.

With all the givens for this problem penciled out, we could finally address the crux of the issue. What exactly is the solution that can maintain a 30°C digester at Gorak Shep, from spring into fall? If anyone is still reading, I will spare you the alternatives analysis… The technical design team has devised a system that shows such an extreme project is possible. This design, which I am in Nepal to present to our affiliate NGOs, is a feasibility design. It is not the final edit! And it will continue to mutate & evolve, based on the data and available materials discovered in this trip.

I hope that was enough caveats for any engineers reading this… Anyway, the essence of this design is to give the digester a burly coating of insulation (R-50) and then put a shed on top of it. The stabilized waste will be a liquid that can be poured into a septic tank style drain field. The shed will have a window to collect solar heat passively, and this will be shuttered at night to retain the warmth. This room will also keep the stored water & waste from becoming frozen, before it is mixed and fed to the digester. We first looked at a passive solar solution to this problem, and that will definitely not work. So additionally, we will insulate the water storage tank and put a DC electric heater in it. This means, we need solar panels to make the system work. But fortunately, Gorak Shep is no stranger to PV panels, which is how I come to be e-mailing this off to the readers at home.  The heated water insures we won’t shock the digester by feeding it cold slurry. But more critically, we can keep the digester warm by pumping the hot water through a pipe network placed inside the digester’s floor. This sort of design is done in the floors of Hippie mansions and bears the name, radiant heating.

If the radiant heating system’s pump is controlled by a thermostat, we will only heat the digester when necessary. It would be a shame to cook all those happy little gas producing bacteria. What really makes this design concept robust though, is that whenever the sun is shining, we will store energy as heat inside a reservoir of water.

Water is great for this task and non-toxic! By storing heat, we can dampen the effect of sunless days.  When the sun is out, the ground is warmer and the digester won’t be so troubled by heat loss. But at night or during a string of cloudy days, a system that used direct electrical heating would be useless.

So there you have it. The basic concept we will use to solve the massive human waste problem at the shoulder of the highest mountain in the world. For all you engineers out there, please trust I have left this description to a minimum. We have considered antibiotic toxicity, rate of waste delivery from base camp and all the other things you would have been cutting me off to interject if this had been a conversation. Much love, and best wishes.

Today has been a wonderful day. I have finally reached Luboche, at 4910m above sea level. My breakfast of porridge was uneventful and we completed our trek in under 4 hours, even with a 45min break for lunch!

The walk from DIngboche to the river crossing at Dughla was the most beautiful walk I have had while in Nepal. The forested basin of the Dudh Koshi was lovely. But the high mountains have been my favorite place since I was a child in Washington. Walking through this house of the mountains; seeing all the peaks, glaciers and frozen waterfalls, my heart was lifted and I felt at home. Also, the ford at Dughla definitely wins my, “sketchiest bridge yet” award.  It started with a stout, welded-steel bridge. Then transitioned to gabions, with their frayed metal threatening to snag shoelaces, and finished with pieces of boards, nailed in no particular fashion, to three beams.

Despite appearances though, this bridge has been putting in work for a long time. And I would not have tried to ford that icy torrent without it.

Lunch was followed by a steep climb and a mellow plateau into Luboche. We took enough time to drop things off and headed to the Italian research pyramid, EVK2. This is the site where raw data on climate, glacial movement/shrinking, particulate ppm, [CO2]etc are measured and sent to Italy via satellite. Mingma had previously been a lead technician there for 7 years and was able to get me a tour. I asked them a number of questions about their solar arrays, batteries, windows and solar water heaters that use glass vacuum tubes.

Amazingly, the entire multistory complex has been built from pieces brought to the location on the backs of porters!  The more time I spend around the Sherpas, the more I realize they are superhuman. I think this is mostly due to training and mild hearts that never utter complaint.

The Nepali technicians were most hospitable, feeding us many rounds of hot chocolate and then giant bowls of cheese tortellini soup, delicious. They were also very interested in the biogas project and didn’t mind answering all my questions. I learned more by talking with my guide for ten minutes then I have in months of research in the states. The most helpful, was hearing about the issues they have had with equipment failing, apparently vacuum tubes don’t deal well with seasonal temperature cycling up here. If I remember correctly, there is some sort of saying about this, “people in glass houses, need exceptionally robust hot water infrastructure’, or something like that…

This morning the light of dawn woke me up and I went outside to see the mountains unhidden by clouds. I took some quick photos and by the time I had, the peaks up the valley could not be seen in the intense sunshine breaking above their ridges. Thirty seconds of difference and I would not have seen the sun rising behind the mountains. I basked in the morning heat for a moment and crawled back into bed.

By the time I started my day, the clouds were already coming in. I ate porridge and tea and went off to Sherpa Internet DIngboche to finally send off all the dispatches I’ve been writing and not sending. Solar powered internet, cleverly wired together with car batteries at 4410m is not very fast, so this took a little while.

I had spaghetti for lunch and went for a walk up the hill to get some exercise on my off day. The clouds would obscure the Tea House I’m staying at one moment and fly up the valley the next. As soon as a rain drop fell on me, I started to walk down. By the time I was back in my room I could hear rain on the roof. Thank goodness for shelter, I am in an extreme place right now.

I hope to use the rest of this leisure day to finish up my school work. I still need to send a rough draft of my design write up to my advisor. He is probably wondering if that is even still on my agenda these days. It is and I am close to done (if Dr. Korshin is reading this…).

All things considered I am in reasonable shape and good spirits. Tomorrow I trek to Luboche and the next, Gorak Shep.

I ate two bowls of oatmeal for breakfast and Mingma led the way to Dingboche at 10AM. It was a very relaxed start to the day. I was able to see the peak of Chomolungma peaking through the clouds just before we left, but the conditions became cloudy as we continued to walk up the basin of the Dudh Koshi. When we stopped for lunch I talked with the other trekkers. They were all here for a marathon run that proceeds from Everest base camp, at 5364m, down to Namche Bazar, at 3440m. No thank you! Mingma pointed out to me a local who has won this race the last three years in a row. His last time, the best time ever, was 2 hrs & 27 minutes. This man is in his mid thirties and is super-human in my belief. Mad respect.

Anyway, we took our sweet time in getting up to Dingboche, at 4410m and arrived before 2PM in mist. The plan is, that we will stay here another day to acclimatize before we head to Lobuche and then Gorak Shep. Three days until Gorak Shep. Things are becoming real. I will spend probably 3 days there, or more if there is additional information to gather. During those days I will most likely proceed up to Everest base camp, but won’t be running back down.

I am very excited to help bring the Mt. Everest Biogas Project forward. The most important thing, which will decide wether or not this actually happens, is the choice of the local porters who stand to operate and benefit from the project. They have already agreed to receiving free biogas, but this was before there was any sort of concept as to how such a thing would happen. I am to present to them our team’s design, with the help of Mingma as interpreter. If they are willing to feed the digester, dump a bucket of digested effluent and open & close a window shutter daily, then the project can move forward. The initial design will change a great deal based on the information collected during this trip, but I am hopeful that in the next couple years we can make biogas at Gorak Shep.

I got myself together by around 8AM and found the team already at work back at the Gompa. I returned to sketching the main building of the monastery ate some pancakes. Mingma was there and he and I discussed the schedule of the next few days while the others kept working before their breakfast.

The survey team was behind their own schedule, but they were tasked with recording the location of all trees, boulders, walls, foot bridges and most other things. They were doing a fine job at this, but hoped to be done in time to return to Namche for dinner. I finished the East face of the Gompa in my sketches and went to go take lunch with the others who had finished their work.

By 12:30 my companions were back on the trail to Namche. I completed my sketches and returned to the tea house.

I woke early with the rest of the team where we took tea and walked about 50 meters down the Khumbu trail to the Nun’s Monastary. We chiseled in Bench Mark 1 for our traverse and walked though the grounds painting in the other Bench Marks and Turing Points for the Survey. By around 7:30AM we returned to the Tea House for breakfast.

The group’s engineer Rajendra told me I could help by making a sketch of the Monastery’s main hall, including the inset of the windows or protrusions of the eves etc. I like to draw and it was great to be of benefit to the survey of the Gompa.

The nuns I met were interested in my sketching. I had a limited conversation with one who spoke Tibetan while I tried to see how far 5 words in Nepali and the phrase, America-USA, could get me. Lovely people, I hope that this survey is the start of restoring their historic monastery.

Our local guide Mingma Sherpa convinced the group it was better to leave at 6:30AM, after breakfast, rather than 5AM after just a cup of tea. I was okay with this plan, and enjoyed some tea and noodle soup before we left.  The early morning was glorious and we caught views of Kongde Mountain across the gorge from Namche. As we continued up the Khumbu valley, the mountains were in full splendor, and I learned that the peak I reported earlier as Mt. Everest was actually Thamserku. I’m guessing this is not the last time I will display some measure of foolishness.

Any way, we came to a Chorten (or Stupa) where the bright cloudless morning allowed visibility far up the Kumbu valley. Half a dozen peaks (the names of which I don’t wish to butcher) were arrayed before us, and tucked away between the furthest, was Chomolungma. She did not seem to be the tallest from our point of view, but it was striking to think that I was observing the top of the planet’s surface. Most likely several teams were able to summit this morning. I hope our intrepid Dan Mazur’s group was amoung them.

The further in we hiked the more prevalent the rhododendrons became. These trees, in Nepali the Laligurasn, are the National flower of Nepal. And my teammate, the astrologer Sumeet, sang to me a song of the Laligurasn, who’s, “heart is the jungle”. Things of this nature work for me, and I like this character even more now.

We descended a few hundred meters to a tributary of the Dudh Kosi and crossed another suspension bridge, which the path wanders underneath. After keeping pace with a merchant couple herding yaks up hill I got to see a hillside that was half laligurasn. At this point the clouds were coming up the valley and we hastened to Tengboche.

We rested just long enough in Tengboche for a cup of tea and took a short 20 minute walk down hill to Deboche. This valley seems like a fairy realm, especially in the thickening mist of the afternoon. When we got to the Paradise Lodge & Restaurant, Mingma was miraculously ahead of us, already waiting there. He knows just about everyone in the mountains and gets to hitchhike in helicopters. Not a bad trick.

The new height we have stopped at is only 3710m, but we walked in a good 20 kilometers with a substantial drop and climb in the river valley. I am wiped out. Tomorrow we go to the Oldest Nun Monastery in Nepal to begin a site survey before breakfast. This is the purpose of my Pumori Engineering teammates travel, and I get to tag along and help. I am interested to see the monastery and explore more of this enchanting valley.

I woke this morning because the sun had been up for a while. I came to realize it was just after 6AM, but my team was up and drinking coffee. I opened my window curtains and freaked out. I was looking at Chomolungma, mother goddess of the world, looming above all the other mountains in her court. I hastily took some bad photos through the window’s glare and threw on enough clothing to make myself decent enough to take photos in the street.

Once breakfast and tea were taken care of, the team left to visit the famous Namche Bazar Saturday market.  Ordinary things become quite expensive, once someone has brought them up to 3440m.  I didn’t get anything there, but enjoyed the sites. Most striking of which was probably the massive quadriceps of unknown ungulates hanging by hooks in the meat market.  I noticed the butchers were using Kukri, the famous blade of the Gurka, to carve up flesh to order.

We passed through the market and traversed the town’s rim, stopping by the Buddhist monastery. Inside the colorful courtyard we saw the Chinese immortal of Longevity with his friend the stag. While the next panel over had the four harmonious friends from the Hindu fables. This sort of religious & cultural syncretism is just one part of the friendly & relaxed nature I have been met with here in Nepal. We walked further up the hill and stopped to catch our breath. I returned to the hotel to work on my school writing while the others trekked to the hill’s top.  By noon the clouds had obscured the mountain and I was content to work until lunch.

After yet another plate of dahl bot, Murrari took me to visit the SPCC (Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee). It is no simple task to have an unannounced meeting on a Saturday in rural Nepal, especially when the office you seek is not really open on weekends.

But after a good bit of waiting, the office head arrived and I was introduced in Nepali. I spoke English with the director who gave me a copy of the SPCC Annual Progress Report 2011. I know now that my decision to become a wastewater engineer was not just a fad to fit in with the cool kids. The fact that I was seriously excited to be given a document of human waste in Kg, by climbing group and season, probably means I won’t fit in most places outside waste management.

The day has been fruitful and a good rest.  But I have much to do before we leave for Deboche at 4:45 AM.  We want to travel in the morning sun to enjoy the view of the mountains before the afternoon clouds return.

After a pleasant sleep with the sound of the nearby river, we had eaten breakfast and were walking up the Khumbu valley by 8AM. The day’s trek started out with a relaxed pace. Small elevation gains were followed by essentially flat sections of trail, as we walked next to the Dudh Koshi. This translates to “Milk River”, an apt name given the mass of glacial particulates suspended in it. Suspension bridges aflight with prayer flags brought us from one bank to another through misty pine forest.

After reaching the border of Sagarmatha National Park we stopped for lunch in Tawa (or Thog). We were hungry, but mostly this was our last chance to eat before Namche Bazar. The beauty of the place was embellished by prayers carved into boulders like tattoos, banners & strings of prayer flags, and prayer wheels painted with vibrant colors. Another meal of dahl bot (soupy lentils over rice with curry spiced chicken on the side) and we were on our way again.

The initial walk was deceptively laid back. But once we climbed the stone steps to the last bridge, it was nothing but switch-backs through dusty pine forest. After looking at a map, it seems we gained 635m between our lunch spot and Namche. Most of this was after the bridge. Oh my golly, I have never been to 3440m above sea level before, but the air is certainly thinner here. Our pace slowed down, but we made it to the Yak Hotel in Namche around 3:30, just before the clouds began to drizzle.  Being from the Pacific Northwest, it would seem odd to me if I didn’t get a little wet while hiking. The Hinku Himal region has not disappointed me yet, but fortunately there has not been any real rain.

We will have two sleeps and a full day here in Namche, working to acclimatize our bodies. Although I am the only non-Nepali in our team, Murrai is the only member who has ever been up this high. My, half pill of Diamox a day regime, seems to be working so I will keep it up. Diamox can prevent altitude sickness. But eating pills once you show symptoms, is like shutting the barn door once your cows are in the neighbor’s garden. Nothing but paperwork, and who needs more of that?

I will spend my day in Namche tomorrow, trying not to buy awesome trinkets, writing and also visiting SPCC.  The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee has their office here and they have all the latest data on the solid waste issue on this holy mountain. I look forward to my visit with them and exploring this scenic town that clings to the cliff side it has been cut into.