Blog
Here you’ll find our blog posts, listed by main category. To receive posts by email as they appear, sign up for updates on the homepage!
Cleaning Up Mt. Everest, an article for Wilderness Medicine Magazine
Thank you to the Wilderness Medical Society and the team at Wilderness Medicine Magazine. We have an article in the Headwaters section in the latest issue, featuring our program with Thom Pollard, Mt Everest: Who Takes The Trash Out?Find the article here:
A Puja for our Friends
For the first time in three years, the Musa Masala team was back together. Arriving at the Wongchhu Sherpa Memorial Hospital Tapting at the end of April, we had come to paint the pediatric room in honor of our friend, Dr. Jennifer Konopka. Jen had been a powerful force in Musa Masala and a big supporter of the hospital project.
Ultrasound now at the Wongchhu Sherpa Memorial Hospital!
Here is a short film of a real journey: members of the Himalayan Yokpu Foundation bringing the new Ultrasound Machine to the Wongchhu Sherpa Memorial Hospital, traveling by four-wheel drive in rain-soaked road conditions.
Big thanks to Sonam Sherpa, Pasang Sherpa and Phula Sherpa, who delivered this much needed diagnostic tool. Sakar Shrestha filmed this piece in his beautiful style.
Everest: Who Takes the Trash Out?
We are back with a new show! Want to know about who is out there making effort to clean up the park and mountain? Want to know a little history of the cleanup operations over the years? Did you know there have been active clean up efforts going on for awhile on Mt. Everest? Want some firsthand accounts of the situation at the high camps this season?
Thriving Outdoors with Type 1 Diabetes
Whether you’re climbing, hiking, camping or even trekking in the Himalaya, wilderness travel can be a challenging experience. Add in controlling your blood sugar as a type 1 diabetic as your body adjusts to new foods, environments and stress levels, and you can have your hands full.
We reached out to a special adventurer, Svati Kirsten Narula. Svati is a writer, runner and hiker with a lot of experience in managing her diabetes care as she travels far and wide.
Nepal and COVID-19: Food Distribution with Wongchhu Peak Promotion
Unlike the worsening situation in the United States, Nepal has taken a different approach to COVID-19. The central government put a total lockdown of the country in place on March 24th. Although it resulted in the closing of the spring climbing and trekking season and caused terrible economic damage to the population, Nepal was able, with physical distancing and the wearing of masks, to keep the number of infections down in the country. As of July 26, there are 18,483 confirmed cases, and sadly, 44 deaths.
In the Shadows of Everest: Gaëtan LaMarre and the Khumbu Climbing Center
Gaëtan Lamarre is a documentary filmmaker from Canada. We at Musa Masala were lucky to get to interview him as he took his short film about the Khumbu Climbing Center, In the Shadows of Everest, around to film festivals. This film is just stunning. It captures the beauty of the Khumbu region and the village of Phortse in such detail. The story of how the center came about is fascinating. There is so much good stuff here. Read on then please watch the film at the link below and make a donation to the Alex Lowe Foundation. Enjoy!
Let's Clean Up Nepal
Raj Shrestha is a man on a passionate mission to clean up Nepal. In a short time, he has begun to transform the trekking routes in the Himalaya and the famous places in Kathmandu. He does it on his own power and enlists like minded activists and experts to help. Amazingly, that is not his only project! We asked him to tell us about his remarkable accomplishments that started in 2017. We are so impressed and want to share his plan with everyone.
Namaste Ramila: A Tsering's Fund Update
This is a very special post for us at Musa Masala. We started our website in June of 2016 with one of our purposes being to highlight some of the great work being done in Nepal in the non-profit area. We searched for small organizations that worked on goals that would change individual lives through dedication and a desire to help in a focused, well-managed fashion. We interviewed Peter Schmieding of Tsering’s Fund in September of 2016. (Check out that post here. Three years later, both Musa Masala and Tsering’s Fund have come a long way!)
Musa Masala at Everest Base Camp: The Everest ER Interview
Once again the Musa team visited Everest ER, the medical tent run by the Himalayan Rescue Association to treat climbers, porters, guides and staff at Mt. Everest Base Camp.
The following video features an interview that Lakpa Sherpa and Dr. Jennifer Konopka did with Dr. Suvash Dawadi and Dr. Subarna Adhikari while they worked at the clinic during the 2018 climbing season. A great footnote is that this was the first year two Nepali doctors worked together at Base Camp. They were joined by Dr. Brenton Systermans from Australia.
Our friend Dr. Jen: Optimism and True Moral Courage
This is a very sad time at Musa Masala. We have lost one of our members, our friend and an inspiration to us all. Dr. Jennifer Kurmaski Konopka was a powerhouse, a true energy source. Dr. Jen leaves behind a loving husband, brothers and sisters and her patients, who loved her. Jen was a pediatrician who had a thriving practice.
You don’t start an organization designed to help people and imagine these things happening. The greatest gift of Musa Masala has been meeting incredible individuals doing meaningful and wonderful things around the world. It is a people-affirming privilege to enjoy the company of caring, enthusiastic doctors, nurses, paramedics, EMT’s and mountain and trekking guides. I think Jen would say the same thing. She set such an example for me in every interaction we had, I will continue to think of her and let her actions lead me to be a better person.
A New Short Film: The Wongchhu Sherpa Memorial Hospital
Since Musa Masala started in the summer of 2016, we have been fundraising for the construction of the Wongchhu Sherpa Memorial Hospital in Khamding, Solukhumbu, Nepal. We have seen and camped on the land the hospital was to be built on, saw the buildings come up this past November and made a video to help promote the progress that had been made. Now there is a new short film, created by Lakpa Sherpa and the Himalayan Yokpu Foundation. This film, shot and produced by Sakar Shrestha, is a beautiful production.
Ama Dablam, Olga and Cyclone Fani!
Of all the exploits and climbing efforts in the spring 2019 season, we at Musa Masala feel pretty strongly that one of the most outstanding accomplishments belongs to our friend and fellow Musa, Dr. Olga Dobranowski. Olga just completed a solo, rapid ascent of beautiful and mesmerizing Mt. Ama Dablam. If you have been anywhere around this mountain, it will become your favorite. It holds you and you will never forget seeing it.
Lakpa Norbu Sherpa: The Unofficial Mayor of Everest Base Camp
We are proud to bring you a true force in the world of Himalayan climbing. Lakpa Norbu Sherpa is one of the leading experts in Nepal in the art of long line rescue. This entails hanging from a cable below a helicopter that flies thousands of feet above sea level, often near the ceiling of its capabilities. You are then lowered to a climber on rocks or glacier, often in temperatures far below freezing. After attaching the injured or sick climber to a harness, the two of you are then lifted into the air, dangling below the helicopter until you reach your destination. This is not the activity of your average human.
Ama Dablam: Olga Dobranowski's Solo Summit Success for the Wongchhu Sherpa Memorial Hospital
All of us at Musa Masala are so excited to announce the successful completion by Olga Dobranowski of climbing Mt Ama Dablam in Nepal, solo and unassisted. After only spending a short time on the summit, Cycole Fani turned the conditions into a whiteout, so Olga stayed at camp 3 overnight then descended to Base Camp the following day in very poor weather conditions. She completed the climb in an astounding seven days, from Base Camp back to Base Camp.
Our Book is Here! Musa Masala: Mountain Girl of the Himalaya
It's here! Now available worldwide, Musa Masala: Mountain Girl of the Himalaya, is available online and at our website. We want to thank the whole group from the Wilderness Medical Society 2016 Mt Everest Base Camp Trek, Wongchhu Peak Promotion and the 2016 crew at Everest ER. This is where it all started and now we are so proud of this beautiful book, illustrated by Julie Ramirez.
We 'd also like to thank Christina at BookBaby, who guided us through this crazy process.
Equal Playing Field: The World's Highest Soccer Game, for Women's Equality and Empowerment
Here is one for you sports fans. Thirty-four women soccer players from twenty-four countries climb the highest mountain in Africa and play a soccer game. Then, as if that’s not enough, they travel to the lowest point on the planet along the Dead Sea in Jordan and do it again. Equal Playing Field, a new film premiering on May 18th in Los Angeles did just that to empower women and highlight the inequality in women’s sport. And to round it out, they set a couple of Guinness World records in the process.