Look Down Not Up: Life & Renewal in the Himalayas

Because you have to kind of think Why mushrooms?

Why are these you know, kind of geeky people so interested in this organism?

This organism plays a role in every life of every tree We're running around with three of the greatest experts in the field in the world They are critical for the entire ecosystem.

You know, they sort of control the ecosystems.

Every tree in your garden is connected to a mushroom, and those mushrooms connect other trees.

The Himalayas are unlike any other place on earth.

There is something unknowably strange about these mountains, and yet I feel a sense of peace among these soaring peaks.

This is especially true at night I remember standing outside after dusk at Gorak Shep, the last village before Everest Base Camp.

Looking around in the surreal early evening light, I saw the moon rising through clouds which had come up and over the mountains.

These clouds brought a soft blanket of several inches of June snow which would slow my friend's climb of Lobuche Peak and around me, Pumori, Everest's daughter the dark ridge of Kala Patthar and turning towards Lhotse half sensed and half seen, as clouds blew across its immense and jagged ridge, rising to nearly 28,000 feet.

We traveled to these extraordinary mountains in search of new mushrooms.

But on this trek, each of us discovered something new and important about ourselves.

It's hard to put into words what's essentially ineffable, the spiritual experience that you see or can sense.

But it's really quite a thing of beauty Most people going to the Everest region fly into Lukla, but miss seeing the lush and mushroom rich Solukhumbu.

We went into the Himalayas by the traditional route using four wheel drive Land Crui Our only delay was a small lands which covered the highway.

After a couple of hours, our excellent and hard-working drivers got us through.

And we were on our way to an exciting river crossing.

Which has delayed but not dimmed our purpose nor the enthusiasm and the good sense of humor, throughout.

Climate change wreaking similar, similar havoc and a lot of different ways in a lot of different places and the challenges of climate change and the loss of glacier cover and the loss of water supplies, and infrastructural problems that come with that I think, it did feel like we are in a very unique place.

Certainly the trials of the drive from Kathmandu, that we all experienced together Swerving our way through the landslide on a steep slope.

I don't even know, 70 degrees, maybe 60 degrees, looking down a thousand feet to the river.

Reaching out to jump on this trek as a journalist was, for me, really exciting as so last minute and thinking, oh it's never going to happen.

And not being able to sleep for two nights because I was so excited and so wanted this opportunity So to be here in this beautiful, beautiful valley, it's truly to me always going to changing opportunity and something I'll value for the rest of my life The adventure was pretty hard at this age and stage The wealth of this country in terms of its culture, and the natural beauty, that, it just abounds.

A lot of the trek was was extremely challenging.

Physically and mentally.

For me because I'm extremely afraid of heights There was a lot of mental challenge, and I mean, you can see tremendous distances.

The fulfillment.

Every day getting to, the destination.

And everyone was like tired but amped up because we saw more amazing things.

Let's see, oh this is Otidea.

Oh, wait a minute.

Are they?

You know, this looks like... I can't tell whether it has overlapping sides.

I think maybe it's a Otidea I think it's a Peziza The most challenging was probably just the act of trekking because it takes a lot of work to hike up especially if you're not used to the altitude of the Himalayas which coming from the East Coast of the U.S.

A lot of people worry about trekking to over 17,000 feet We make sure to take the time necessary to properly acclimate to high altitude hiking.

In addition, during the trek, Sonam brought everyone together each morning for a little yoga, stretching and fun exercise All over the world, scientists are trying to catalog life, you know, before things go away.

Our goal is to take this resource that's here as an opportunity to train and employ indigenous communities in these remote areas, because they are the primary stakeholder.

Kind of contribute, to the science of acknowledge of, of this area and the mushrooms that are found her It's kind of a slow discovery process where first you find something that looks interesting in the field, which is always exciting.

Aleuria Aurantia which we call the Orange Peel Fungus.

Ok, next.

No, no, it's spored out already.

Another exciting step is when you realize you've found something cool.

And what, what, type do you think that is?

A lot of the fungi we were collecting are organisms that, have obligate symbioses with the and other plants, so they're critical for the entire ecosystem.

You know, they sort of control the ecosystems.

Okay, You know, Westerners maybe don't know what grows here So there may be might be some that are new to us, but maybe not new to people who live here.

Oh, yeah!

This one we just found out from our sherpas that is their favorite mushroom to eat in this region.

Oh, okay.

You see it coming from the soil.

But it's actually coming from the root tips of the trees.

We're excited to learn from the people who live here and to learn more about the mushroom of the Khumbu region.

We learned about this trek from our local mushroom club, the Sacramento Area Mushroomers.

And I think for a lot of mushroomers this would be a dream come trueto travel to such a beautiful place so far away from where we live.

Dr.

Devkota and I have been work for about four or five years now which is to introduce the world of mushrooms, of macrofungi to citizen scientists who would come to Nepal, be taken to those remote areas, these beautiful areas, to not only experience the mountains, the people, to use this as an opportunity of exploring an organism that has not been fully explored.

Shiva, do you know what these are?

The Himalayan region has not been particularly well studied by Mycologists, so I'm happy to be out here and looking around at things that locals probably have been seeing for millennia, but that have just not been recorded by science.

It's a very harsh environment.

The plants that can make it up there rely much more heavily, we believe, on mycorrhizal fungi plants, say in the temperate area which still rely very heavily on fungi to be able to survive in these pretty tough environments It's really exciting to find new species because we get one more piece of the puzzle about what it takes to make an system hold together.

Yeah, this will be a fun one to identify.

Milk mushroom of some kind.

Hopefully has a nice, easy common name like Himalayan Orange Milk mushroom but, no idea.

We're still kind of going through and identifying some of the mushrooms But my three favorite ones so far are two Amanitas and a Tremella.

Amanita that's your typical Mario mushroom with a cap and stalk and usually dots on the top.

We found two that had only been recorded in the literature once before.

So that's a Helvella.

This is not like any Helvella I've ever seen.

That's crazy.

You know, it's really great to see species I'd never seen before.

Some that haven't been documente in Nepal ever before.

Some that have barely been documented ever.

This is really special.

Because again, I don't think it quite a perfect match for Laccar Yeah, for Laccaria is quite big size, yes, large size It can be.

Do you know Laccaria vinaceoavellanoa?

It used to be over there.

Let me tell you about my friend Shiva.

He grew up in Lumle, a beautiful village in the foothills of the Annapurna region.

He has joint master's degrees in botany and social science and went on to earn his Ph.D.

in ecology and evolution from Bern University in Switzerland.

Shiva has been working for decades studying the mushrooms and lichens of Nepal and South Asia and without any doubt, he is Nepal's leading mushroom expert.

In talking to the locals that eat this, they say they don't eat many wild mushrooms because it's not so easy to know one from the other They know this group because of these scabers.

None of the other dangerous mushrooms will have them so they know for sure this is safe.

During the trek, Shiva took time to explain to some of the local people we met about their use of mushrooms for food.

He also provided critically important information to them about how to distinguish between edible mushrooms and those that can make you sick This reflects Shiva's scientific and personal commitment to doing whatever is possible to prevent people from accidentally hurting themselves if they eat the wrong mushroom.

It was pretty amazing to be with Shiva to visit his childhood school outside of Lumle and so cool to watch Shiva speak to a class of teenag about his scientific career.

Today I had some personal bad news My father died this morning.

He was 98 years old and I kind of thought this might before I left for Nepal and I had the chance to say goodbye to him before I left.

My father was born in 1925 in Baltimore, two of the youngest of of eight children and went to medical school at the University of Maryland and practiced psychiatry in Washington, DC.

But I didn't want to just hold this in my heart.

I wanted to share it with you all.

But I also want to just say that today when I shared this news with Shiva with Sonam, they were both so generous and wrapped me up with big hugs I did want to ask you to help me with something.

When someone dies, I have an obligation to say something called Kaddish or the mourners prayer, but I need to say it within a community of people.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

well, not having been here and having no background whatsoever with the country.

I came in with kind of a blank slate, mind set.

And found the scenery, the the landscapes and the just the visual beauty beyond description.

Beautiful.

I think that one of the, you know, highest measures of humanity is how well the children, the elderly, and animals are taken care of.

And in Nepal, I saw so many acts of care towards those three groups in particular.

There's just a really gentle spirit to the people in Nepal, and that has made it really, really worthwhile for me.

Just everywhere we were trekking occasionally found praying, and the devotion that they show is immense.

It has been very much that as well so it's been, you know, a spiritual connection in the monastery and learning so much about Buddhism that I thought I knew a little bit I knew next to nothing.

The things I have been asking myself that's why my first impression of the country is like this is a beautiful country.

Spiritual one.

And I would love to know more about the culture.

Look at that mist coming down.

Isn't that cool?

As soon as we walked in, they just erupted with the sound of the horns and the cymbals and everything.

It was just so much stuff going.

Oh mama look at these.

Shall we go out into the light?

Yeah, yeah, take them out into the light.

So pretty.

This is Marasmiellus.

Oh!

It looks like cornflakes.

Okay, now we can take a picture.

So again, this one looks pretty similar you know gray with patches But if you saw the base of the stems it's totally different in every possible way.

Two Amanita species we found on this trek one was in the sort of sub group called Lepidella that's the most ancient of all the groups of Amanitas.

The names of species we were using that we were very familiar with You know, we recognize them from Europe as well as from North America.

The names we're using probably aren't even accurate names.

It's very possible.

Everything we found is a new species.

There certainly were some that we put names on them that are known from India or China and those are probably good names for here but actually the majority of things we found but actually once people get a better handle on the morphological characters and even the DNA sequence analys of them will probably be new species to science.

But there certainly were ones we had no idea what they were.

This one's really cool.

This Calocera, this bright yello they look like little horns sticking out of the tree.

For me, one of the most valuable parts of this trip was in my capacity as a journalist and that was going with Shiva and talking to locals in the villages that we went through and finding their perspective.

These are the kind of changes that mushrooms.

that's why I think I mentioned to someone that mushrooms actually changed my life.

I was getting to know like different kinds of mushrooms and eating them and then and then I saw this change in my you know, health.

So that's how it really started.

And since then I've been trying new things, eating different sorts of mushrooms, but also getting to know more about the other benefits they have like medicinal properties, which I find amazing.

Then, you know, some mushrooms may kill you.

Well, there are magic mushrooms that a lot of people are very curious about that.

And I decided to go back to Mexico and I went to this tour and I didn't know what to expect but it was a tour for having magic mushrooms so then I went to San Jos del Pacifico in Oaxaca I had my my dose the Mexican way and, well, to keep it short because I could stay like hours telling you details about my trip It's really long because for me it lasted like, I think I'm still on those mushrooms but that day was like, uh I... I stayed in the forest on my own and I, I got lost.

So it was like eight solid hours of being lost in the woods.

And... For me, that experience was very intense and it was the sort of experience of dying and then being reborn.

So for me that was fantastic.

After that, after having the the mushrooms, a lot of things have been happen in my life, a lot of changes.

So when I had these mushrooms, I think that they kind of opened something in me to remind me that I have to be that I don't have to blame myself, you know?

like love myself more and have more confidence in myself.

That's why this year I was like, okay, I think I'm going to take new challenges in life.

This trek is one of them.

Laccaria.

Oh, Laccaria!

Oh I don't know this mushroom.

Yeah Laccaria Laccata.

Oh I like it.

We have three or four varieties.

Let's put it in our box.

With blue shade.

That is Laccaria amethystina.

With the amethystina.

Yeah.

I made lots of new memories, lots of new friends, and learned a lot about animals in different parts of the world I'm meeting a lot of new friends many of whom have a great deal of knowledge.

Because of the group we're with and the people we've met.

It's been so supportive and everyone here is so kind.

To be here myself and to be walking alongside people but also see how people are reacting to this environment and see what they love and see, you know, how it kind of brings out the best in people.

The walking on top of that little ledge I can really feel the entire world living and breathing and how each of us is participating in that world.

That's probably the most spiritual experience.

Not only did everyone get along really well, I mean everyone, I think, to the person added to the trip too because of things they were interested in, or things that they were seeing that wanted to share their perspective of it.

A mushroom, but I don't know what kind of mushroom.

it looks like a Burning Candle mushroom.

It's been a really nice chance to get away from everything and just be in the woods, really using our eyes to see what's growing here and hopefully making some sort of contribution to the area.

Everyone here on the trek, including our porters and guides and our fellow tourists, we're all participating in making the world, a better place.

We did it!

So, on the last day of the trek we arrive in Phortse village.

And I knew you were engaged to Pushpa.

Oh, yeah.

But somebody said, you know, Sonam's getting married this afternoon Suddenly, you guy were surrounding me with this beautiful Sherpa outfit and a wonderful hat and really including me into this beautiful ceremony, which I felt so honored.

It was a beautiful ceremony outside of your mother's house with Phu chanting.

You offering this beautiful cup with Chang?

Yeah, with the chang in it.

And it had yak butter on the edges and you were lifting this wine and I just imagined that this wine was being offered into the universe.

And it represented the joy that I think that you bring to one another.

My heart is full and I'm feeling so happy that we're all here doing this together and especially with all these people that have come here from all over the world to be together at this time.

It's really special.

Our really wonderful, special community is here to offer its love and best wishes to Sonam and Pushpa and I couldn't be more happy and proud and honored that we are all here together in Sonam's house to do this.

It's been such a treasure to get to know both of you from all of us over the last ten days.

And we wish you so much love and success and happiness in your future together.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers.