I had arrived in Darchen on the day before the full moon. More than a month before in Lhasa, I had met a Swiss German woman name Evon who was also headed to Mt. Kailash. She had told me that she would arrive there on the full moon of June. To make a kora on the 32-mile path around Mt. Kailash during the full moon has the same merit as walking the circuit three times on normal days. Evon had traveled to Kailash before and returned again this year to walk the kora on the full moon along with making pilgrimages to other sites in Western Tibet.
True to her word, Evon and a truckload of lively Westerners showed up. Once again, it pleased me to have a few other people to speak English with and exchange stories with. Some of the differences in our trips quickly because obvious. It seemed that almost all the problems on their journey had to do with getting their truck driver to go where they wanted to go and having all the members of their group get along with one another. On the other hand, my problems seemed to center around getting enough food to eat, staying alive and avoiding the police.
I first came to Mt. Kailash in the fall of 1992, after the summer pilgrim season. During 1992 the only foreigners permitted in Western Tibet traveled as part of US$15,000 tour groups. Since I traveled on my own with just a backpack, going into Darchen created too much of a risk for me. With a heavy pack that had to contain supplies and food for more than a week, I took four days to travel the 32-mile path around the mountain. Most of the Tibetans who walk the kora make the trip in under 24 hours. In Tibetan, walking this 32-mile trail in less than 24 hours is referred to as a “dog kora.” Evon told me how just a week before she also walked the kora in a single day.
After a day of rest in Darchen, Lauren, a woman from San Francisco, and I woke up at the ridiculous hour of five in the morning. We both bundled ourselves in heavy hats and gloves. Even in June, the nighttime temperatures at 15,500 feet [4725 meters] drop below freezing. We made our way out of the hotel gate, on to the beginning of the path. The illuminated disk of the full moon shown out over the plain to the southwest. A couple of other foolhardy pilgrims stood silhouetted in the moonlight up ahead of us on the trail. With our small flashlights and the brilliant light of the full moon we worked our way down the stone covered pathway.
Like many times before on this trip I became part of something ancient, something that transcended my lifetime and the lifetimes of everyone whom I had ever known. I walked the same path that Milarepa, the great Tibetan saint who helped firmly establish Buddhism in Tibet in the eleventh century, had walked. The same path that Sven Hedin walked in 1907 to became the first Westerner to make the kora around Mt. Kailash. I myself traveled this identical path two years before, as a solitary pilgrim in the beginning of winter in Western Tibet.
As we walked on the west side of Kailash, steep canyon walls came up around us, shielding us from a view of the peak and the great valley to the south. As I walked past the large boulder that I had slept behind two years before. I recalled images of myself huddled under a thin sheet of plastic, while snow fell during the night, not knowing if I would suffer the same fate as a British traveler who froze to death while walking the kora a few years before.
Ever since my return from my first trip to Mt. Kailash, I would occasionally pose a question to my friends back in the USA, “What are the places of pilgrimage in this country?” Over and over it seems the most common answers I received were Disney Land, Disney World, and Graceland. Somehow these do not seem like appropriate answers. Infrequently a friend answer with, Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon or the great wilderness areas of Montana and Alaska. In large part the USA is not a land of journeys of the spirit, but rather a land of immense material wealth.
As the trail starts to turn to the east, the valley opens up exposing the rich deep blue sky. At this point the trail starts the ascent up the 18,600-foot [5670 meter] Drolma La Pass on the north side of Mt. Kailash. Just after the trail turned to the east, we stopped in a small yak wool tent where a Tibetan man sold hot tea and noodles to passing pilgrims. When I walked the kora two years before, I found no such luxuries. Arriving at the beginning of winter, I only saw a couple of other pilgrims during the entire four days that I walked the kora. Half a dozen other hungry and thirsty pilgrims crowded in to the tent. All the noodles and fuel for the fire had to be carried in on the back of a person or a yak, so even a cup of boiled water cost a few cents but both Lauren and I happily paid for this luxury.
A quarter mile farther on you can start to see the sheer rock wall of the north face of Mt. Kailash. When snow hangs on the edges of this face, you can see the lines that make up Lord Shiva’s dreadlocks. At the base of the north face lies a small stone pilgrim hut where I slept before with two old Tibetan men. I felt like I moved in fast-forward. In just half a day I had already traveled what consumed two long days of walking previously.
Midway up the climb to the Drolma La Pass lies Shiwa Tsal. For a few hundred feet [50 meters] in every direction clothing covers all the rocks and boulders. The Tibetans who pass this place will leave a piece of clothing or hair from a sick friend, a family member or themselves. When these physical objects are left at this special site, it will create good merit or good karma for the owner of the object. A subtle link is established with the mountain. So, when you look out over the surrounding rock pile, there are shirts, pants, pieces of fabric, and hair covering almost every rock. I pulled out a few strands of my own hair and placed it down between two of the rocks. I knew that I could use all of the help and good merit that I could get.
During the last part of the climb up the Drolma La Pass, the trail turns into a staircase-like path that climbs steeply. Since I had cycled at high altitude for the last few months and I did not carry a backpack, climbing up the Drolmala seemed pretty straightforward for me. A large rock covered with prayer flags and offerings marks the top of the Drolmala Pass. When I spotted the prayer flags, once again I felt happy to be alive for yet one more day, I stopped in front of the rock and like thousands of pilgrims before me, I did three prostrations to the mountain that connects this physical world to the spirit world. Before I left the USA a friend had given me a small yellow seashell to remind me of California and to protect me during my travels. I placed the shell on the rock alongside hundreds of other offerings from the pilgrims who had come before me. I took a few moments to think about Jay and his 15-year-long wish to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash, I was thankful for the aid that he had provided me with and grateful that he helped enable me to complete my pilgrimage to this mountain. Lauren arrived a few minutes later, we both needed a break and some food to give us strength for the next 15 miles of walking.
Just down from the Drolma La lies the frozen Lake of Compassion. At 18,400 feet [5609 meters] it is one of the highest lakes in the world. This small lake, which remains frozen for most of the year, marks a sacred place where some pilgrims will immerse their bodies three times in order to become more compassionate or merciful. I am such a wimp, when it comes to cold water, that I have never succeeded in convincing myself to actually break a hole through the thin ice, take my clothes off and plunge my body under the water.