On July 12, 2005, blogger Trevor Stokol wrote the following. He was apparently in Kodāri, Nepal at the time. From Trevor's blog entry, titled, Tenacious Green/Exhaling:
Goodbye China! Goodbye, joyless human machines of domination and consumption! Hello, Nepal! I almost kissed the ground, but then I remembered that I'm still in Asia, and I'd probably get a mouthful of my least favorite parts of this place! I told the official giving me my gratis visa at Nepali immigration, "I'm very happy to be back in your country." EVERYBODY got a namaste from me today...
Reading Trevor's blog entries about his trip around the world you get the sense he'd be a fun guy to hang out with. His very first blog entry at ballofdirt.com was titled, What's an enlightened potato? A medi-tater. I got a good giggle out of that. In that entry he wrote the following about practicing meditation prior to his leaving the U.S. for his round-the-world sojourn:
Waking up at 4 am. Eating nothing but a banana for 19 hours out of the day. No meat, alcohol, tobacco, sex, talking, drugs, touching, TV, money, driving, writing, reading, or exercise. Being completely silent while sensing vibrations throughout my body for nine days. For three one-hour sessions a day, no moving my legs, arms, or opening my eyes.Sounds worse than jail, right?
Yes, Trevor, it does. It took a committed, focused, and highly intelligent young man to even try—I would have found the above intolerable in my early 20s. I'd find it intolerable now, but then again, I have the attention span of a short-lived parasitic waterbug.
Blogger Mark at http://markwett.blogspot.com/ tells us more about Trevor, with whom Mark has been friends since childhood:
Trevor is an incredibly intelligent guy, and an incredible writer, as you can see on his trip blog, which he has been keeping for the last few months along his journey through southeast Asia. A man with a lust for adventure, Trevor is an Emory graduate with a love of books, especially those authored by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His heroes include John Lennon, Gandhi, and Winston Churchill. There are some true fighters in that bunch, and Trevor is no different. He has fought through a lot of difficult things in his life, and he is experienced in survival training...
Trevor Stokol, Mark tells us, disappeared on Mt. Everest in the Himalayas on July 22, 2005. The 25-year-old Plano, Texas man was in the last week of an 8-month tour through India and southeast Asia. In his blog, Mark links to this Dallas News story about Trevor's disappearance. From the article, titled, Plano man missing near Mt. Everest, by Steve Stoler:
Barbara Stokol is waiting for the phone to ring, anxious to hear good news about her son. Trevor decided to take a final 14-day adventure before ending his trip. He backpacked through Kathmandu to the Everest base camp, and was staying at a guest house with a traveling companion. Friday, he decided to take a day trip toward the camp to take some photos; that's the last time he was seen...
This is not one of those cases where someone goes missing and I can say to the reader; be on the lookout. No one in the vicinity of Mt. Everest is reading this weblog. The Stokol family, and friends of Trevor's like Mark, are in a boat the Holloway-Twitty family must find familiar—their child, son, friend, is lost in a distant part of the world, seemingly without a trace. Trevor knows how to survive in the wilderness; but this is Mt. Everest. The highest peak above sea level on the planet, the dangers in climbing Everest in the best of times are legendary.
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Those Yetis!
2 - Eric Olsen
great job Steve, very poignant, thanks
3 - Trekker
The Stokol family has a webpage with updates.
here
Latest news in there now doesn't look good, but who knows: sometimes miracles do happen!
4 - Jessica Bigby
Thank you for this article about Trevor. I gathered the same opinion of him after reading all his journal entries. I don't know Trevor, but his father Arnold has been my optomotrist for the last 15 years and is hands-down one of the kindest people I've ever met, and I know how much he loves his son. Please keep the Stokol family in your prayers...
5 - Steve Yarbrough
Thank you very much for this post. My wife has worked with Dr. Stokol for over 13 years and we have watched Trevor grow from a child to a highly intellegent and sensitive young man who was entering SW Medical School this month. The journal of his travels is well worth reading.
6 - Jesica
My name is Jesica - I'm Trevor's first cousin, living in Australia.
The situation faced by the family is horrible, but there has been so much support from everyone in helping current rescue efforts. He is an incredible individual - funny, intelligent, adventurous, strong and well equipped mentally and physically to survive almost anything.
Thank you for posting Trevor's story - in this way, we hope more love, prayers and thoughts are with him and the family.
7 - Jimmy Myers-former co-worker
I worked with Trevor for a short time at Medical City Hospital in Dallas. I have been there for sixteen years. That being a transition job for most (not me it seems), I have seen many many people come and go. I can honestly say, that Trevor is one of the "good" people. I can sometimes be very hard headed and not very easy to work with. Trevor really opened my eyes on several occasions and in his way, made me see the error of my ways. Eventhough he was ten years younger than I, we had some conversations that made me think that I was the one who was younger. Reading his journal brought back many memories of his passion mixed in with his humor. I have informed all who know Trevor at the hospital of the recent happenings. Everyone who worked with Trevor there offer their hopes and prayers to Trevor and his family in this tough time in their lives. We are hoping for a miracle.
8 - mieke (trekker)
Hi,
Instead of a thumbnail of what the book looks like, why don't you show a PHOTO here of missing Trevor Stokol? Wouldn't that make (more) sense? Such as this recent one, from his own blog and published f.e. by Everestnews:
http://www.everestnews.com/stories2005/pictures/Recent_Trevor_Photo.jpg
Or the one showing his father in Ktm while holding the searchposter, but unfortunately your "automated eyes" don't allow me to copy its URL here too.
Anyway, I guess that's what I would do if it's about the search for a missing person, even though the majority of your readers won't be in Nepal now.
Btw URL of 1SRG's (1st Special Response Group) page on how the search for Trevor is going:
http://www.1srg.org/trevor.html
Updated URL of the family webpage:
http://www.beverleylewin.com/trevorstokol.html
bye.