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By Leif Whittaker

Growing up on a sailboat, I’ve been ingrained with many superstitions, but if there is one group of people more superstitious than oceangoing sailors, it’s Mount Everest climbers. We all realize how much luck is involved with reaching the summit safely and we’re willing to do anything to dispel bad energies, even smear each other’s faces with tsampa—a heavy barley flour—and dance in a line like cheerleaders doing the cancan, trying to keep up with the hot-footed Sherpa who sing their special song.

What I’m talking about, of course, is a puja ceremony. Before we, and more importantly the Sherpa, can begin climbing through the Icefall and into the Western Cwm, it’s important to ask the mountain for safe passage and good blessings. This is what the puja is all about.

We pile essential climbing gear—ice axes, crampons, helmets, boots—next to the altar-like chorten that is heaped with food and bedecked with prayer flags at the center of our camp. The juniper smoke, thrown rice, and chanted prayers that swirl over our gear will help manifest sure footing, warm toes and whole noggins for the duration of our climb. The tsampa is handed out and I go from person to person rubbing their cheeks with flour, wishing them good luck while they do the same for me.

“May you grow as old and happy as this flour makes you look,” say the Sherpa.

The brand-new teal Igniter Jackets that all the Sherpa wear are covered with white dust. In fact, everything is covered, but no one seems to care. We put our arms over each other’s shoulders, creating a semicircle that surrounds the chorten, and follow the Sherpa in a foot-stomping dance that lasts until we are all breathing hard. This is one excellent way to bring good luck.

There are other ways too. A group of six “Icefall Doctors” build the route through the popcorn jumble of seracs and crevasses every season, an extremely dangerous job that every Western climber and Sherpa deeply respects. One afternoon our team visits their camp with a bag full of brand-new clothing. We distribute the Igniter Jackets and T-shirts among the doctors and tell them to be warm and safe. We stop by the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA) next, and do the same favor for the medical doctors there. These small contributions are a way to say thanks to the folks who make this mountain run. It’s the least we can do, but it’s more than most teams offer, and I can see from the smiles on their faces that they truly appreciate the gifts.

Falling back onto my pad at night, I can still smell the juniper smoke in my clothes, feel the tsampa on my skin, and as the frozen evening surrounds our camp, I can hear the music of the Icefall in my head. All of a sudden, I feel the relentless urge to start dancing.

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