Great heights: Ellwood City woman journeys to Mount Everest base camp; 17,000-feet elevation

ELLWOOD CITY ― When it comes to travel photos, Sarah Beatrice might have us all beat.

The Ellwood City resident's photo of herself grinning and gripping a rosary at the Mount Everest base camp is quite a conversation starter.

The photo doesn't show the tears of emotion she wept or suggest the hospital visit required amidst her 11-day Himalayan hike to an elevation of 17,598 feet.

Her triumphant trek came intertwined with peril.

"There's a path, but there are some steep ledges, and yaks are going up and down it all day long, so you have to hug the mountain because yaks can − and have − pushed people over the cliff and killed them," Beatrice said.

Here's the story of an amazing journey.

Challenge, celebration & commemoration

Beatrice, 38, loves to travel.

The 2004 Lincoln High School graduate purposely chooses a jack-of-all-trades occupational path − like driving seasonally for UPS and working security at Pittsburgh Steelers games − to retain the flexibility to embark on worldwide adventures.

She annually tries to take one autumn trip that celebrates and honors the life of her father, Jim Beatrice, who died in 2016 and would have turned 80 this year.

Beatrice and traveling companion, Ashley Kinley, a friend she met when living and working in Jackson, Wyo., initially kicked around the idea of journeying to Greece and Turkey, or Spain and Morocco, before arriving on the Mount Everest base camp as their destination.

"It was collaborative, tossing around ideas. It wasn't a lifelong dream," Beatrice said.

They never planned to try to reach the summit of Mount Everest, an extraordinarily dangerous climb of 29,032 feet, appropriate only for the world's premier, highly trained mountain climbers.

But the hike to base camp, and an elevation of well over 3 miles, would require stamina and fortitude, so Beatrice did some training.

"I ran a lot," she said. "I ran up hills a lot."

She'd average three miles a day at Rock Point Park in Wayne Township, near Ellwood City.

"I got my lungs healthy. But other than that, we didn't do a lot of training," Beatrice said.

Packing the necessities of a sleeping bag, fleece puffer, underwear, socks, warm clothes and a water bladder (soft-sided, flexible plastic containers for water), their quest to Mount Everest base camp in Nepal started in October, during warm enough weather for the women to still wear T-shirts.

Though the higher they hiked, the bigger and more perilous came the challenges.

No warm water or heat, with thin air

"When we got to 14,000 feet, 15,000 feet, 16,000, I put on my fleece and down jacket," Beatrice said.

Along the way, they slept in tea houses, which like in many parts of Asia included a common area for food and drink, with separate rooms for lodging, similar to a hostel, and shared restrooms.

Common rooms typically drew heat from burning yak dung, "though the sleeping spaces were not heated. We slept in sleeping bags."

Beatrice kept her feet warmer by pressing them up against a Nalgene water bottle filled with boiling water from the teahouses.

"There's no hot water above 14,000 feet. No showering. No soap," Beatrice said. "Toilets are flush to the ground."

Vehicles can't travel that narrow, elevated path. Yaks and sherpas, highly skilled Tibetan mountaineers who assist foreign trekkers and mountain climbers, carry supplies to that height.

"I saw one of the sherpas hauling a refrigerator-sized container on his back," Beatrice said.

Be it four-footed or two-footed transportation, that supply chain journey takes multiple days, so Beatrice and Kinley heeded advice not to eat meat, which could have spoiled without refrigeration.

"Basically, we were vegetarians most of the trip."

Onward and upward they tread.

The higher they climbed, the heavier their sleeping bags and supplies felt, so they hired a Sherpa porter ($12 a day for them both) to carry those items.

"Around 14,000 feet I started to get sick," Beatrice. "I had a headache, coughing. My nose wouldn't stop running."

So, she visited the hospital in the town of Dingboche, heeding the advice of a doctor to stay at that altitude for three nights to build up her strength and immunity.

She rested there for three days before the hike continued upward.

At 16,000 feet came gnarly headaches.

"I kept checking my oxygen level on my oximeter, thinking 'I'm going to die.'"

While nearing the end of their Everest hike, a 30-year-old woman on a similar hike died in her sleep from altitude sickness at Gorek Shep, elevation 16,942 feet, the final village before base camp, "making it all seem so real," Beatrice said. "We walked past the wrecked helicopter, heard the news of her dying and heard constant rescue helicopters."

But Beatrice and Kinley powered on and reached their base camp destination.

When Beatrice spotted the marked boulder designating base camp, she climbed up it, laid on her back and felt awash in feelings.

I laid on that rock and cried and cried and cried because it was a very emotional journey," Beatrice said.

She thought about her dog, Bailey, a chocolate lab-mix who had died at age 15 not long before her trip.

Beatrice had brought along a few of Bailey's hairs and ceremoniously left them at base camo.

And Beatrice thought about her late dad, imagining the conversation they would have had:

"He'd have said, 'Oh, Sarah, why? I want you to do it because you want to. But Everest? That's so dangerous.' I'd say, 'Dad, it's fine.' He'd say, 'iIt's not, but I want you to do what makes you happy.'"

She posed for a photo at base camp with the rosary given to her by one of her father's friends, Pudue, who had checked in on her frequently.

What a view

It took 11 days to hike up to base camp and two more days down to the Nepali town of Namche Bazaar, the Sherpa capital, where Beatrice and Kinley took a helicopter out.

When hiking the Himalayas, "every day you're in awe," Beatrice said.

"On a clear day, you can see everything, and we had clear skies every day."

"You can look and see Mount Everest peeking through at the top, behind other mountains."

Past base camp lies glacial ice and dangerous crevices where the hardcore, life-risking climbers use ladders.

"We saw some avalanches," Beatrice said. "I heard a loud noise, and said, 'What was that, a thunderstorm? ... Oh god, it's an avalanche.'"

She'll never forget the noise made by glacier-like ice falling thousands of feet into the lake below.

"It makes the coolest sound."

Reaction & hopeful response

For some of her previous trips, Beatrice didn't share photos on social media until her journey had finished, but she posted pictures during her Himalayan hike, so friends followed along and gave her encouragement.

"People were very blown away by it," Beatrice said. "A lot of people were asking questions. Everyone was super interested and had really positive things to say. Though some said I'm crazy or asked, 'Why did you keep going?'

"I had a goal," she said. "I had to."

Beatrice hopes to use the opportunity to educate people, beginning with the kindness of the Nepalis.

"People there are amazing," she said. "So nice, and they don't want a thing. Some places you visit, everyone's real nice though then you realize they just want a tip. But people there helped and genuinely didn't want anything in return."

Beatrice enjoyed dining on chow mein, and found it interesting that the noodle dish was served with ketchup every time.

"I don't know if it was because we're Americans and they assume every time we order something we expect ketchup," she said,

Tea houses also served tasty fry bread, eggs and fried rice.

Beatrice heeded the advice of locals and regularly ate garlic soup.

"Supposedly that thins your blood which helps with altitude," she said.

Garlic soup is a taste she doesn't miss.

Hiking to base camp physically drained her.

"I lost 12 pounds. It's great when you accidentally do that," Beatrice said. "My goal is to keep it off."

Her longer-term goal is to uplift others.

"I want to inspire people to travel and do what they want to do," Beatrice said. "Often the only limits you have are the ones you put on yourself.

"I do whatever I can to make money to go on my next sustainable adventure."

She might visit Jamaica next, to soak in the sun.

Or maybe Patagonia, the Camino de Santigo, the Inca Trail. or a Spain and Morocco twofer.

"I could go on and on," Beatrice said with a laugh. "People think the world is dangerous and that mostly comes from people who do not travel. I've only felt in danger one time in the 23 countries and 49 states I've been to.

"I'd like to start a travel company; host hikes, do pickups at the airport. But I don't know how to pull the trigger on that."

Well, she already can draw from experience and an inspiring story.

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@timesonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Ellwood City woman hikes to Mount Everest base camp; 17,000-feet up