written and photographed by Carl Duncan
Apr 2004, Vol. 8 No. 6
Namche Bazaar, Nepal — It looked as if Mount Everest had claimed another victim.
I was hiking a narrow ridge between the Sherpa capital of Namche Bazaar and Tengboche Monastery, at about 11,000 feet, when I passed a wiry Nepalese porter carrying a woman on his back. She was riding in a wide bamboo basket padded by pillows. Was she suffering from altitude sickness, I wondered, or frostbite?