Sieve and blender techniques gave way to fine moulds and a Hollander beater, and the thought of working with fibers other than cotton, linen, and abaca became an anathema. Not only that, but I purchased a couple of letterpresses and a ton of type, and soon was in business printing business cards, invitations, and posters. Thus it was when one day a customer, Liz Nichol, appeared needing posters promoting her upcoming attempt to climb Mt. Everest.(1) Thrilled and delighted to help out, I traded the printing for an expedition T-shirt, certain in the knowledge that this would be as close to Mt. Everest as I would ever get. When Liz and her climbing partner, Bob McConnell, returned from their adventure, they brought back an impression of Mt. Everest quite different than the one most of us have. Instead of a pristine, white wilderness at the end of the earth, they found just another place where man had encroached, leaving piles of trash, burned puddles of melted plastic mixed with bottles and cans, batteries, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, tea bags, toothpaste tubes, cardboard, and paper.... Cardboard and paper?! In an instant the idea was part of me. The Clarion Trumpet had sounded. The Call had come! As Liz and Bob told of their idea to go to Everest to carry off what they could of this shameful booty, I imagined myself working the garbage into works of art, recycling with vengeance, saving the planet! By early 1989 their simple idea had become the Everest Environmental Expedition (that name won out over "the Tibetan Trash Trek"), and I had been invited to be a member of the team, signing on as a graphics designer, fund-raiser, and coordinator of recycling and human waste. In addition to Bob and Liz, the team included Dr. Pierre Brunschwig from Denver, whose bag of karmic charms warded off disaster; energetic Louisa Willcox, a "Don't Mess with Mother Nature or Else" environmentalist with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition; Steve Kin, peaceful Peace Corps volunteer and attorney for Dow Chemical; and Tui DeRoy and Mark Jones, two world-class nature photographers from the Galapagos Islands. A non-traveling team member was Norbu Tensing, son of Tensing Norgay, who, with Sir Edmund Hillary, first reached the summit of Everest in 1953. Sir Edmund himself sent us a hearty letter of endorsement. Once committed to the project I began to work out the logistics of recycling paper on Mt. Everest. I knew it would not be easy, and admitted as much in a letter to Elaine Koretsky some months before we left. After reading her article in the premier issue of Hand Papermaking (Volume 1 Number 1, Spring 1986) about the essentially non-existent state of papermaking in present-day Tibet, I contacted her to see what other advice or information she could give. Elaine pointed out that she could find nothing but a few individuals with a vague memory of the time when paper was a thriving craft, and some plants that had great potential as papermaking fiber. But that did not stop her from offering her best wishes.(2) Some readers may question just what kind of paper I was trying to make, and to wonder about the reasoning behind introducing what would be an essentially Western technique of papermaking into a traditional Eastern culture. One conclusion I draw from the writings of Dard Hunter is that there is no single "right" way to make paper. He showed that paper is a result of any number of factors, such as available fiber, water, climate, work force, demand, tools, traditions, and training. The process will evolve and adapt to a level of proficiency commensurate to need. We would travel into an area that had been cut off from many of its traditions, papermaking included. Since the invasions of Tibet by China in 1950 and 1959, and its constant occupation since then, traditional Tibetan culture has been undermined, suppressed, and even willfully exterminated. Figures often repeated, of 6,000 active monasteries before the invasion and fewer than 100 today, give a bleak picture of the amount of devastation. More tragic is the loss of human life, the break-up of families, the extinction or near extinction of certain animal populations, and the despoilation of the land itself. Amid this turmoil the loss through death or exile of traditional craftsmen is easily understood. Many Tibetan papermakers fled to Nepal, in part helping the growth of the craft in that country. This parallels the persecution and subsequent emigrations of Huguenot papermakers in the 17th century. Many times I had to return to the original vision of "simply" going to Mt. Everest to recycle paper. It would have to be done on a very basic level, limited by how much and what kind of waste paper we would find, how much equipment I would be able to take or find along the way, water, weather, and, of course, a proven technique adapted to these conditions. Since we were an environmental expedition, besides the obvious attraction of recycling anything, it was equally important that we do no harm to the environment. I could not allow myself to consider using indigenous plants for the process, no matter how good the fiber. One of the most serious and immediate threats to Tibet is erosion brought on by deforestation, over-grazing, and the natural uplift of the Himalaya itself. I did not want floods in Bangladesh on my conscience! Furthermore, working with native plant material would require cooking the fibers which, in turn, would require some sort of fuel; either expensive, imported kerosene or another tree, bush, or shrub. At that altitude it takes a long time to cook anything, not to mention the incredibly long time it takes something to grow. Cooking anything other than food seems quite frivolous. Besides, there are strictures against harming any living thing in the Rongbuk Valley, plants included. So recycled paper it was to be. But how to make pulp? Recalling my earliest kitchen experiments, it seemed as though it would not be too difficult achieving a usable pulp just by soaking, tearing, and pounding waste paper. It was not. Admittedly, the resulting pulp was not particularly fine, but it certainly would be sufficient to demonstrate the process. In addition, the final paper had plenty of character: it really looked recycled. The problems of pressing and drying were solved just about as easily. Taking a press was obviously out of the question, but I knew I could count on the old method of standing on the wet post. After squeezing some of the water out, sheets were transferred from felt to drying board with the use of a wide brayer. I can hardly imagine a simpler process. While not exotic or elegant in the least, it did take on something of an Eastern flavor by including hand beating and board drying. One would be mistaken to believe that the above procedures amounted to as much as a plan. In order to stay flexible, preparation was kept intentionally open-ended. The expedition got underway the morning of July 12, 1990. The air route from Colorado took us to Hong Kong, Chengdu, and then to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. So much has been written about the mystique of this ancient and once-forbidden city that the hour-long ride from the airport to town only increased my anticipation of awaiting splendor. In contrast to steamy Chengdu, the cool and clear mountain air, the fields of barley, mustard, and sunflowers, Buddhas carved in living rock, and adobe villages all combined to put us, "geo-psychically" speaking, somewhere between Old Santa Fe and Oz. This enchantment lasted throughout our stay and could not be dampened even by the presence of a grim-faced occupation army. But Lhasa is not the capital of mystery that I would will it to be, and it shows the impact of tourism almost as much as invasion. The Potala Palace still stands majestically above the city, but the blocks of bureaucratic monstrosities, as well as a new Holiday Inn, conspire to erode the soul of the city. Be that as it may, there were constant reminders that the essence of Tibet lies in its religion and in the devotion of the people to the exiled Dalai Lama. Two days in Lhasa at 12,300 feet commenced our acclimatization for higher altitudes, and then we set off across the Tibetan Plateau on the Friendship Highway. It took us over a number of 16,000 foot passes in snow, sleet, and rain, far from the Western world and perhaps even farther from this century. More nomads, more horse-drawn carts, more yaks, more prayer flags, ever higher, through Gyantse, Shigatse, Sakya, and Xegar. Each of those places had splendid monasteries, and nothing that I had read, either in anticipation of this trip or in more than twenty years of studying art history, prepared me for the level of artistry and craftsmanship that I saw in these few surviving temples. Against a background of ruin and relics, clockwise we circled ancient stupas, in step with pilgrims from the most rugged place in creation. With hands pressed together as in prayer we stood face to face with old holy men and greeted the god in each other. We spun row after row of golden prayer wheels that have for centuries released their harmony into the universe. Near Xegar we left the main road and ascended 17,000 foot Pang La pass. From there we hoped to get a good view of Mt. Everest, known to Tibetans as Chomolungma, Mother Goddess of the Earth. She was shrouded in clouds from her annual encounter with the monsoon and it was not until the next day that the sacred mountain suddenly appeared; a silent, massive, almost heavenly apparition. Just a few moments after our first view of Chomolungma, we came upon Rongbuk monastery. At 16,500 feet it was surprisingly alive with activity. Villagers from settlements down the valley were giving a new layer of stucco to the stupa, which had been looted and damaged during the cultural revolution. In fact, nearly all of the monastery buildings and the neighboring nunnery were in ruins. The original population of hundreds was now reduced to ten or twenty individuals. We watched prayer flags being strung from the stupa, and saw villagers carrying heavy mani stones, field stones inscribed with Buddhist scripture. They were constructing a huge pile of these beautiful stones, and in a few minutes Pierre, Steve, and I found ourselves lending a hand. Then, because we had offered assistance we were asked to participate in a puja, a ceremony of blessing. Seated on the ground, silk katas were draped around our necks and we listened and tried to understand as the abbot gave a short sermon. At one point he seemed to address his remarks our way and, judging from the chuckles he drew from the crowd, I gathered that they at least regarded us with kindly tolerance. The blessing concluded with cupfuls of chang, the local fermented barley drink, along with a boisterous chant and the heaving of fistfuls of barley flour into the air, until everyone was covered with a coat of white dust. A line dance followed, and we could gracefully decline for only so long before we had to join in, much to the amusement of the other dancers. I could hardly imagine a warmer reception to this special place. As the journey increasingly took on aspects of pilgrimage, quest, and crusade, any fears I may have had about traveling in this strange land finally evaporated. Camp was set up that night in a field to the south of the monastery and the next morning we were summoned to an audience with the abbot. We filed into the darkened, smokey room and sat on cushions while monks chanted, blew horns, and tapped drums. Barley seeds were tossed around and I was mesmerized by the sounds and the room's paintings, tapestries, and altars cluttered with bronze Buddhas and butter sculptures. When the formalities came to an end we entered into a conversation with the abbot about our reason for being there, of which he approved, and we listened to his suggestions about what we could do there at the monastery to help. He asked that we compose a set of guidelines (in English) on how visitors should conduct themselves and that we kindly build a rock containment structure where travelers could deposit their garbage. Bob then presented the abbot with a large poster of the Potala which we carried with us from Lhasa, and I gave him a box of paints and a roll of paper that I purchased in China. These gifts were passed between the seated monks and created a lot of excitement among them. After building the above-mentioned "stone dumpster," there followed a five mile hike to basecamp. Basecamp, at the terminus of the Rongbuk Glacier, was a desolate and rocky place. During a survey of the trash situation the next day, it became plain to all that there was much, much work to do. My notes used the word "appalling." We identified a number of dump sites, the worst of which was dubbed "The International Camp of Horrors" because of the volume and variety of wretched trash it contained.(3) July 25 was our second full day in basecamp and it was destined to be The Day That Paper Was Made on Mt. Everest. We woke to a layer of snow. The plan was for five of the team and some Tibetan staff to head up the glacier to put into place a rope-crossing at the river, a sizeable obstacle in the way of reaching Advance Base Camp at 18,300 feet. Steve and I stayed behind and monitored radio calls from the team. That activity lacked sufficient excitement so, by noon, when the sun finally burned through the clouds, I was ready to try my luck at papermaking. I pulled out all the equipment and went about the process in pretty much the way I had rehearsed it in my dreams. Of course I was not totally inconspicuous, especially when it came to pounding lumps of wet litter with a mallet, and soon I had the attention of our cook, Karma. I think I did a pretty good job of bluffing my way through with smiles and sign language, and I managed to convince Karma that I knew what I was doing. In a matter of minutes the two of us were sitting blissfully in the intense sunlight with idiotic grins on our faces, shredding and smashing gum wrappers, cigarette packages, someone's old laundry list, envelopes, film boxes, tea bags, and on and on; the accumulated fibrous detritus of "the world's finest adventurers." At high altitude it is not at all unusual to experience radical mood swings. I found it very hard to deal with the paradox of being at the top of the planet, with my head in the clouds, while surrounding my feet were the everyday discards of subway commuters half a world away. Snickers wrappers? Lipton Tea bags? Rainier Beer cans? I was never sure whether the nausea I felt at times was from the altitude or from disgust with my fellow man. Surely there is a way to experience beauty without defiling it at the same time. Too often the actual legacy of an expedition to Everest is a smoldering pile of trash left behind in the search for personal or national glory. Perhaps the rationale is that because a person has made the sacrifices necessary to get there, acting like a slob in the wilderness is an earned right. Better to have stayed home, if you ask me. I could already see that the mallet approach would be slow, so I looked around and found a heavy section of 4 x 4. The pulping was speeded by putting the soaked and torn material into a five gallon bucket and smashing it with the board. I wished for a meat grinder, but figured my chances of finding one in a Buddhist country were pretty slim. It took about an hour to achieve a usable pulp, or perhaps that is as much time as my patience would allow. Still interested, Karma watched as I added a few handfuls of the macerated mass to a dishwashing tub half-filled with water. Probably an unnecessary step, but I then used a hand cranked egg beater to further loosen and mix up the fibers. Pulling out the mould and deckle, I then formed the first sheet as if pulling a rabbit from a hat. Karma instantly figured out exactly what was going on and, after a few more sheets, I turned the mould over to him. Couching went smoothly and we had formed a dozen sheets before the weather started to threaten. We gave them a quick pressing and transferred the wet sheets to a roll of sheet aluminum that I had brought along for the purpose. The rain held off long enough for most of the sheets to dry in the wind and when the team came back from their reconnaissance up the glacier they were greeted with the first sheets of Rongbuk Recycled Paper. If there was a hitch in the process it was that the aluminum was not the best surface for drying the paper in that it was non-absorbent. Lying on the rocky ground it buckled under the pressure of rolling the sheets with the brayer. I mentioned the problem to one of the team, who suggested that a concrete pad left in the middle of basecamp by a Japanese television crew might do the job. The next day I checked it out and, sure enough, the smoother concrete provided a perfect surface for drying sheets of paper. It is ironic that what was such an obvious symbol for what is going wrong on Mt. Everest should have worked so well to my advantage. Following that first session of papermaking were three other days when we repeated the process on the pad and I had more helpers each time. Besides Karma the cook, our Tibetan camp-manager, also named Karma, Benjo, one of our drivers, and Nyma, a young and enthusiastic camp helper, all participated in making sheets. Also by this time the first of two groups of volunteer trekkers had joined us. In addition to the hard work of locating and lugging garbage, many of them found time for instruction in the rudiments of making paper by hand. If my papermaking adventure in Tibet had a climax, it surely came on the day that I "took the show on the road" so to speak. I gathered up the equipment and caught a ride down to the monastery. With Nyma as interpreter, we found the abbot and told him I was bringing tools to make paper and that I would come back in a couple of days with the trash to make it. The abbot's response was, "Make paper now." It did not seem like a negotiable point, and Nyma and I were quickly walking the perimeter of the ruins in search of litter, of which only a minimal amount was found. I calculated that it would be enough to start. When I showed the waiting monks what we were looking for, they delivered in a matter of seconds a stack of waste paper that seemed as though it had been waiting ages for this moment. Again the steps of soaking, tearing, and stamping were repeated, only this time, as each new step was introduced, one of the onlookers would immediately try his hand at it and, in no time at all, a good amount of pulp was made ready. I noticed that the size of the class had grown, and quite a few of the villagers that I recognized from the first day's dance were also watching and discussing the proceedings. When it came time to form the sheets there was an eager anticipation in the air, followed by approval as the floating bits of their former scrap coalesced into a wet, grey-brown rectangle on the mould. I made and couched another sheet and was about to make a third when one of the monks literally pulled the mould and deckle from my hands to try it himself. A question was asked: "What do you call this kind of paper?" When I sensed that my answer of "recycled" did not translate, I said, "reincarnated," and that brought on a round of laughter and cheers. After that, each of the monks gleefully took a turn as the villagers watched. I stepped back to take in the whole incredible scene; a muddy courtyard amid a ruined yet living monastery, five or six shaven-headed monks in maroon robes and perhaps twice as many villagers, the women in brightly woven aprons and long skirts, the men in black yak-wool tunics and trousers patched and patched again. Here were men, women, and children, all with their long, black braids entwined with turquoise, coral, bone, and old coins; their excited chatter exuding warmth and, because they were born to it, the compassion of Buddha. I do not know if their pleasure was inspired by the thought of making paper or if they were just happy to have a break in their desperately spartan lives. Behind the stupa, the blue-black sky was the only element that seemed remotely familiar. For the utter beauty of the moment I whispered my gratitude to a deity whose presence I could feel. Coming out of my reverie, I glanced around and noticed that all the monks but one had disappeared. I asked Nyma where they had gone and his reply was, "They went to write this all down." The one monk who stayed was the youngest monk in residence. It was he who showed the greatest interest in the process and, on two subsequent visits to the monastery over the next week, I was proudly shown a stack of papers he had made, along with a large sheet produced by laminating the edges of six sheets together. But he saved the best for last: a drawing and a prayer written out with a ball-point pen. With the equipment left in his care, it is my hope of hopes that Rongbuk Recycled Paper is still being made and used there. The tallest mountain in the world may be a magnet for crazies, and I had to search my soul to see if I was just another nut with something to prove; if, in my zeal to take recycling to "new heights" or maybe to set a new altitude record for handmade paper, it was inadvertently so. The payoff was in the delight of the two Karmas, Benjo, and Nyma, and of the monks and villagers that day at Rongbuk Monastery. There is something in a piece of paper that excites humans. I have read stories of world travelers who introduced paper to native people from the arctic to the equator, and the fascination is always there. I have seen it in the faces of kids in my neighborhood and of old people at craft fairs. Now I have seen the joy that humans get from paper in weathered, grimy, and grinning faces at a holy place near the roof of the world. I believe inherent in a blank sheet of paper are the concepts of liberty and freedom of expression, which is why the material is cherished by the oppressed and feared by the oppressor. I would like to think that what I saw was hope and that this seed of hope can grow and flourish.     Notes 1) The 1987 American North Face Expedition attempted to put the first American woman on top of Mt. Everest. Although turned away from the 29,028 foot summit in a blizzard, one of the team's climbers, Stacy Allison, returned the next year to achieve that goal. 2) Elaine further obliged my request by donating an 8 1/2 x 11 mould. Lee McDonald was also very willing to help and sent enough material for about twenty-five felts. 3) The expedition eventually collected and removed 2,863 pounds of waste. A 64 page post-expedition report is available for ten dollars, US postage paid, from the Everest Environmental Project, 3730 Wind Dance Lane, Colorado Springs, CO 80903.

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