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1998 Kili started his own mountaineering outfitter in Kathmandu called High Altitude Dreams (HAD). He sent Lakpa with a group—again as an assistant—to climb his first “technical” mountain—22,349-foot Ama Dablam, a sharp, fearsome-looking, ice-covered mountain near Mount Everest in eastern Nepal. The next year, Lakpa was sent by HAD to his first training course with the Nepal Mountaineering Association, so he could officially become certified to work at altitude in Nepal. It was a one-month course. In 2000 Lakpa was sent to another month-long tutorial to receive his “advanced” certificate. From these courses he learned, mainly, “how much I didn’t actually know about mountaineering,” he says. And it was at this time that he had his first opportunity to work on Everest, which he promptly declined.
    Kili had offered him a job working as a high-altitude porter for an upcoming Everest expedition—the highest-elevation and highest-paying sherpa gig in the world. Lakpa could earn more than a year’s wages in just two months, if he said yes. It was a lucky break in many respects, because he didn’t have the level of experience typically required to work on Everest—and Lakpa, after his various safety trainings, knew this. He determined it would be too dangerous, for him and the client, so he politely turned his cousin Kili down.
    Lakpa spent three more years working as an assistant on trips up shorter peaks in the Himalaya before finally agreeing to climb on Everest, contracted through High Altitude Dreams to work with the American 2003 Everest Treks 50th Anniversary Expedition Team; it was led by a thirty-nine-year-old American real estate investor from Auburn, Massachusetts, named Paul Giorgio. The trip went well, and Lakpa found himself standing on the roof of the world for the first time on Monday, May 26, 2003, at 5:57 a.m. Giorgio, an avid Boston Red Sox fan, left a black-and-white picture of New York Yankees legend Babe Ruth, “to beat the curse of the Bambino,” he says (itseemed to work). * Lakpa would eventually return to this spot three more times.
    It was at this moment, on Lakpa’s first Everest summit, that he initially thought of the idea of flying off the top of the world’s tallest mountain. In his mind it was simply a matter of practicality.
Much easier than walking down,
he thought. He had seen paragliders hovering lazily over the smog in Kathmandu Valley when he was a boy, gently gliding on the breeze, and now he decided it would be a convenient way to get off the mountain, especially considering the long, treacherous two-day descent to Base Camp ahead of him, which has actually killed more climbers on Everest than the ascent.
Much safer,
he thought.

III
The Learning Curve
Pokhara, Nepal,
January 2000—Approximately 2,625 Feet
    “Lakeside,” the man said, and kept walking. “A bus will be here soon. It’s 60 rupees.” Babu didn’t understand the answer to his question.
Lakeside
?
It’s a funny word,
he thought, a word he had never heard before. It sounded to him a bit like the word
lake,
which, in Sunuwar, the language spoken back in his village, means something to the equivalent of “a high place.” It was 5:00 a.m., and he was standing alone in the Pokhara bus station with no idea of where he was or where to go next.
    A bus to take me where?
Babu wondered.
    There were still only 20 rupees in his pocket. The old man he had been traveling with said good-bye to him and good luck, and then he wandered off to beg on his own.
    The first rays of the morning sun began to faintly illuminate the Annapurna Massif looming to the north. Rising up over 26,000 feet, they were the tallest mountains Babu had ever seen.
Oh no,
he thought.
That’s probably where Lakeside is.
It certainly looked to be the highest place nearby. And it probably wasn’t going to be a cheap 60-rupee bus ride either, he figured. It would take at least a day for a bus to get there, he guessed, appraising the hazy