Linda Mountain and a group of her friends were in the lobby of the Nepal hotel where they were staying, debating whether to go ziplining or paragliding when the decision was cut short.
After hearing what sounded like a jet plane landing on the building followed by a friend screaming “earthquake,” the lifelong Milton resident found herself standing across the street from the hotel on a vacant lot watching as the five-storey building they had just been in shifted back and forth.
She has no idea how long the April 25 earthquake lasted.
“It was the most scared I’ve ever been in my whole life,” she said Monday, just days after returning home. “I was very fortunate — who knows what would have happened (had she been closer to Kathmandu, where 180 buildings were destroyed).”
Mountain, 55, and seven other Canadian friends were among a group about to fly to the capital en route home, from Pokhara, a city about 208 kms from Kathmandu. They had just returned from a peaceful boat trip to visit a temple on an island, in the country’s second largest lake, and were making plans for the day’s adventures.
That’s when the country’s worst earthquake in 80 years struck. The 7.9-magnitute tremor and its associated aftershocks killed more than 7,500 people. Its epicenter was located between the capital and Pokhara. It collapsed new buildings and centuries-old temples, and sparked a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest.
Mountain, along with Campbellville resident Cathy Wallace, had been helping their fellow friend Vicki Tyner celebrate her 60th birthday. A former Hornby resident, Tyner and her husband Bill Clark, a former long-time Milton resident, had arranged the trip through Bohemian Tours, which took them from Kathmandu to Nepal for a five-day Poon Hill Trek, 3,200 feet at the highest point, where it allows you to see the Annapurna peak, the 10th highest mountain in the world.
It should have been an adventurous vacation, but Mountain said the earthquake made it into something that she can’t quite shake even now. She feels fortunate to be back home, but saddened by the losses the Nepalese people have had to face.
“It shakes up your whole psyche,” she said. “This was not on my radar and it felt good to get my feet on Canadian soil.”
She said she’s still in shock about it, and was anxious during the hours following the quake to let her two sons, Greg, 23, and Jeff, 26, and the rest of her family at home know she was safe. There was loss of cell phone use and power so communication was difficult.
“I just wanted to get home, right then,” she said. “There were families sleeping on the streets in make-shift tents in Kathmandu and it was horrible conditions.”
Wallace had a different reaction to the earthquake than her travel companion Mountain.
“I was truly amazed at the whole situation. I wasn’t scared, “ said Wallace. “I should have been, my family (back home) was terrified, but — this may sound awful — I was quite taken in with the education of the thing.
“Standing across the street, watching both the hotels (there are two five-storey buildings beside each other, both constructed around the same time) swaying together in the same wave pattern.”
Wallace said it was actually Tyner who alerted them to the earthquake. Tyner has experienced earthquake aftershocks where she lives in Victoria.
“She looked over at a staff member and saw how his face fell,” Wallace said. “She screamed earthquake and we all ran.”
She and Mountain said they were absolutely impressed with the guides, who remained with the group throughout the ordeal, getting them safely returned to the airport on time for their flight on Monday.
“The guides stayed with us; they were so professional, they stuck with us,” said Wallace. “They made sure we had food and transportation, when their worlds were falling apart…they were so polite about the whole thing.”
Their guide, anxious about his wife and daughter, who survived the quake, just wanted to get home to his family too, said Mountain. “His 15-year-old nephew died. I felt so sad.”
A tax analyst with the Town of Milton, Mountain said the scenery and the Nepalese people were incredible despite all the devastation in the country.
She saw the most gorgeous scenery — mountains, landscapes and sunrises — and experienced things like white-water rafting and beautiful rhododendron trees.
As for the trekking, Mountain said she could never have prepared herself for the difficulty. Physically fit, she said the final day of trekking took them 12 hours, with the last six done through hail and rain and uneven ground.
After their trek, Mountain said the group was supposed to take a plane from Pokhana to Kathmandu on Sunday, but all commuter planes had been grounded. They had to take a bus over the rough terrain, which took seven hours.
Once they arrived, Mountain said the tiny hotel where they were to stay overnight before their flight departed for Turkey, and then Canada, was around the corner from two hotels that had been leveled by the quake.
“There was no way I was staying there,” she said, adding Kathmandu is so impoverished that it was difficult to tell whether the destruction was caused by the tremor. “We stayed at the airport and waited all night for it to open.”
“I read books about Nepal before I left,” she said. “I thought I was prepared for what I was going to see. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life — you have no idea the level of poverty. It blew my mind.”
She said Durbar Square, which had just been rebuilt from the country’s devastating 1934 earthquake, was destroyed again.
“I don’t know how the city will come back from this,” she said.
The trip is also the first one she has taken since the love of her life, husband Paul Mountain, a lifelong Milton resident and Town of Milton employee for 37 years, died suddenly on New Year’s Day a year and a half ago. They would have celebrated their 30th anniversary this year. “We had so much fun together and he was my guardian angel in Nepal.”
It was only when she got home to Canada that the tears and the emotions finally got to her. Seeing the looks on the faces of her family and friends when she arrived, Mountain said she then realized what might have been. “That’s when I lost it,” she said, realizing that had she died, her sons would have been without their mom too.
Wallace said even in the hours following the earthquake her world began to change.
“It felt like a war zone,” she said.
She added she doesn’t regret the trip, but feels bad for not staying longer to help out.
“I regret coming home, because I’m okay. I’m glad I’m here for my family, but I felt guilty because I was okay at that point and I thought I should be hurt, or that I should have done more there.
“But everyone was like ‘you gotta get out of the country.’
“The people — they are amazing,” she added. “You go first for the trek and second for the people. They’re very hard-working, nice people. You feel very safe there and they are thankful for every little thing.”
She said she continues to watch every news clip she can about the situation.
Mountain laughed when she thinks that this is what her friend wanted to do to celebrate her 60th birthday.
“It’s what she wanted…we’re all nuts,” she said.
Wallace was able to chuckle a bit about the experience this week from her home, adding “well, you can knock earthquake off the bucket list.”
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