Man. I just spent almost the entire day driving to and from Mt. Hood in a very vain attempt to go skiing. Fate is against me. It was raining the whole way... which I thought would turn into snow at some point but never did. Maybe I need to do a snow dance before I attempt again.

But the cool part of the day was that Ryan U, Cami and I decided to console ourselves by watching the IMAX movie "Everest." It was intense. I could feel the freezing wind numbing my face and the smell the fresh, snowy air. I could feel my breath burning in my throat as I gasped for air in the altitude. The mountain looked feirce, the face of nature at its harshest; beautiful but so dangerous.

It reminded my of my own little encounter with Mt. Everest almost nine years ago. The first and most stunning view I had of the mountain was flying into Tibet from Kathmandu on a commercial jet. We were cruising at 35,000 ft and everyone on China Air was seated on the left side of the plane. "For the view," I was told. Sure enough, out of the misty clouds below, several rugged snow capped peaks emerged, reaching up toward the plane like giant teeth. The tallest was Mt. Everest, just 6,000 ft below us... and we were at cruising altitude. I gaped out my window. I couldn't believe that I was seeing the world's tallest mountains with my own eyes.

Two weeks later, after a crazy adventure driving across Tibet, I was again looking at Mt. Everest but this time from below it, across a broad valley. The clouds obscured the peaks most of the day, but I got a few glimpses. And what I saw was actually pretty unremarkable.



It was a bunch of mountains. Snow capped and beautiful, sure, but just a bunch of mountains. I realized that I was expecting amazing grandeur of massive proportions. The highest mountain in the world should look like the the highest mountain in the world... but it didn't.

Mt. Everest and the peaks the surround it rise up out of land that is already incredibly high. Lhasa, the capitol city of Tibet for instance, is in a large flat valley 12,000 ft high. In a valley, the city is already higher than Mt. Hood. The highest spot I traveled to in Tibet was an 18,000 ft pass. From that height, Mt. Everest is only 11,000 ft higher.

So basically, in height, Mt. Everest looks like Mt. Hood... or maybe more like Mt. Rainier, since I saw it from a valley and not a mountain pass. Only Everest is a lot cooler since it's actually crazy high, much more massive, extremely challenging to climb and completely surrounded by a whole mountain range equally intimidating jagged snowy peaks.