THIS is why we couldn’t spot a goddamn snow leopard in Tibet. After a week, I was willing to testify that snow leopards were made up by the locals to extract money from tourists. https://twitter.com/koustubh_sharma/status/1321115241304985601

(Sure, you can spot it because you know there’s one here. Pretend you’re scanning fifty miles of mile-high mountains, through scopes. Also you are on altitude sickness meds that give you pins and needles in your feet and all you’ve eaten for six days is dried yak penis and rice.)

(I would not have traded this experience for the world, mind you, but I also want people to know that if they want to do it, they will be deeply physically miserable.)

One of the things about getting to take these amazing trips is that I really want people to know how amazing they are, and I am totally not a heroic traveler! If I can do it, most of the world could do it!

But the corollary is that if any of my readers decide to try it, I want you to know what you’re getting into. I feel like not talking about the pit toilets and the burning plastic in stoves and what happens to your period at extreme altitude would be setting people up to fail.

Okay, since everyone’s asking...three of us got our periods above 14000 feet, and it was dark brown and slimy for all of us. At a guess, since red blood is caused by hemoglobin, the ol’ uterine lining had very low blood oxygen levels.

At sea level, where I live, O2 is a smidge under 21% of the air. Where we stayed in Tibet, it was less than 12%. That maybe doesn’t sound like a big difference, I realize, but they sold O2 canisters at the 7-11 there.

Anyway, the guides are always written by men, I swear, so they never record the critical bits like “HOLY CRAP WHAT JUST CAME OUT OF ME AND WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE BAD MOLE SAUCE?!”

Or maybe really dark teriyaki sauce. Anyway. Interestingly enough, there’s an altitude point where you’re not in the Death Zone but where human settlement is impossible. Nobody ever explains exactly why, but I’ll bet you a nickel it’s that you can’t carry a pregnancy to term.

Also, whew, the altitude meds are no joke. Diamox is one of those meds that you know it’s keeping you alive but you also hate it so very much.

At one point, we overnighted at Rongbuk Monastary. Rongbuk is 16,434 feet up, barely 11% 02. How thin is that air? Well, the weight of my own boobs on my chest was enough to nearly suffocate me if I didn’t sleep in the exact right position. It was harsh.