Follow G. Love and Brett Dennen as they climb Mt. Everest
BY CHRIS COPLAN ON NOVEMBER 29TH, 2012 IN COS PREMIERES, EXCLUSIVE, NEWS
From November 24th to December 13th, G. Love (of Special Sauce fame) and folk-pop singer Brett Dennen will be hiking Mt. Everest in support of the music-centric cancer charity Love Hope Strength. Along the way, Dennen will offer dispatches of their journey, chronicling every steep peak, breathtaking view, and anything and everything they encounter up and back down the world’s highest mountain. Below, read Dennen’s first entry, where he discusses adjusting to the altitude and time zone, meeting the residents of Kathmandu, and visiting a cancer center in Bhaktapur.
LHS was founded in 2007 by leukemia survivors Mike Peters (of the Welsh band The Alarm) and James Chippendale (president of Doodson Insurance Brokerage). Over the years, they’ve spearheaded bone marrow drives at concerts and festivals the world over, including Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits. To date, they’ve added 28,000 people to the international bone marrow database. For more info or to pledge, head to their official website.
November 26th, 2012
The Yak and Yeti Hotel, Kathmandu, Nepal
I thought I was adjusted to the time change last night when I went to sleep, but I woke up at 4am and couldn’t fall back asleep. This is now my 3rd day in Kathmandu. Tomorrow morning we wake up before the crack of dawn and fly to Lukla and begin our trek. I’m desperate to get on that mountain. I’ve been walking circles around this town bartering and haggling buying things I don’t need for dirt cheap, which I will probably give to people who don’t need them either, but why not? Who wants a yak bell for Christmas?
Yesterday I woke up thinking I was going to find an open space to go for a run, but I spent the day trying not to get run over. As busy as this place is, with all the horns and the hustling, and the crowding, I have yet to see anyone get stressed out or angry. People argue with a miles on there faces, and don’t seem to be upset about all of us tourists barging into there temples and stealing photographs of them while they go about there lives doing doing ordinary a very day things that to us seem so foreign and exotic. Shooing away monkeys. Cutting up raw meat and weaving yak wool on the sidewalk.
Every time I walk past a school, I hear singing and laughter. It sounds like so much fun. When I have kids I want them to go to a school with singing dancing, playing, art, nature and very little time spent sitting in a desk. I also want to take the kids traveling. Especially when they’re young so they can see what’s out there. Learn from experience and be humbled by how big this world is and understand how connected we all are.
Today we drove through the heart of town and across to the region of Bhaktapur, where we visited a cancer center-the beneficiary of the money we raise from this expedition. Meeting the patients, doctors and administrators gave me so much inspiration. I know that there will be times on the hike when I will be exhausted and now I know who I am doing this for. Now I have the inspiration. This isn’t just about me and this once in a lifetime opportunity to hike in the Himalayas, there is a reason that I am doing this. I’m hiking for all those who deserve to be up on that mountain, but can’t because cancer really sucks, but it can be beaten, and that’s why we are here, to inspire and help those who need it, and to honor all the others who have been touched by cancer in one form or another.
Now, back in the room I am packing and getting ready to head out early in the morning. The next time I write, it will be from the mountain, which i’m blown away by the fact that there will be wi-fi in some spots.
So check www.lovehopestrength.org for some video blogs, and news from the hike, as well as Consequence of Sound to hear from me personally.
Much love…Brett