OCTOBER 2001

You can count on one thing - they will be back

Some people's aspirations are higher than others'. For FSU professor Tonya Toole, the dream involves reaching a plane 17,158 feet above sea level-the base camp of Mount Everest.
She recently came close when she and another FSU professor, Rochelle Marrinan, trekked within 1,000 feet of Toole's goal.

But illness brought on by the high altitude caused them to turn back.

"I just have a passion for being high in the mountains," Toole said. "I just love that."

A native of Ohio, Toole has been working at FSU for 21 years, teaching motor control and neuromuscular interaction and doing research involving Parkinson's disease. But, on the side, Toole has been training her mind and body to take on the Himalayan heights.

Two years ago, she ascended Mount Elbert, which at 14,433 feet is the highest peak in Colorado. Last summer, she and Marrinan tested themselves with a grueling backpack trip in the Sierra Nevadas of Yosemite National Park. Every business weekend this year before their trip, the pair traversed the hiking trails of nearby Torreya State Park.

Now Toole, 60, says: "I don't think I trained enough."
They took a series of planes to Katmandu, Nepal. A helicopter took them to Lukla, their starting point at 9,700 feet. They met up with six other people who also had paid thousands of dollars to be part of the 16-day excursion.

Accompanying the squad were about 20 experienced guides and porters.

Almost immediately, Toole became sick, with vomiting and diarrhea. Eventually the elevation brought her overwhelming exhaustion. Even tying her boots entailed heavy gasping. She found out later she had fluid on her lungs. Marrinan suffered serious headaches.

Medicine helped, they said, but Toole's exhaustion kept them moving slowly.

Despite their physical ailments, the trekkers were fascinated with what they saw. They crossed through tiny mountain villages as high as 13,000 feet, saw Buddhist prayer flags and rocks engraved with Tibetan prayers along the trail and passed herds of yaks (stocky long-haired oxen) wearing bells around their necks.

But the majestic beauty of the snow-covered mountains was the overwhelming sight.

"Even when you're at 15 or 16,000 feet, they're towering above you," Toole said. "It's just an awesome feeling of grandeur."

They bathed using warm water delivered to their tents each morning. They read or wrote when they weren't trekking. They pressed on.

"The higher you get, you just focus on the necessities," said Marrinan, who teaches archaeology at FSU.

Finally, they realized they weren't going to make the base camp goal. At Lobuche, an Italian research station at 16,655 feet, they made the agonizing decision to turn back.
They weren't alone; half of the group didn't make base camp. They were still disappointed.

"Yeah. Quite. Very," said Toole. "You know, it was my goal to go there. It was a dream. But I also read a lot of books on high mountain illness, and you just don't want to play around with being sick at that elevation."

She plans to try it again. Condensed from the Tallahassee Democrat, by Melanie Yeager

Send a letter to the Editor: fstimes@unicomm.fsu.edu

Copyright ©2001 Florida State Times