Marty and Anne Emanuel of Decatur first hiked Stone Mountain in 1972 and started going there more often in recent years to prepare for their 2013 trip to Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal. Most recently, Marty, 71, a prominent sculptor and former art professor, has been a regular fixture there, training for a two-month trek in Nepal with his previous guide, Dilli. For Marty it’s not about scaling mountains to conquer them and stand at the top; for him it’s the experience of being within the mountain. He departed on his journey April 19th and wasn’t scheduled to return until June, but a 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal on April 25th and changed everything.
“I didn’t even know I was missing.” —Marty Emanuel
At first Marty didn’t know the scale of what was happening at the time. “I didn’t even know I was missing,” he famously joked later. In fact, as if on autopilot, Marty captured several photos of what he now holds to be the very first moments of the earthquake with his point-and-shoot camera. “I didn’t even know some of these photos were on the camera,” he said. He first saw what looked like a landslide roaring down the mountainside and then almost simultaneously noticed huge cracks in the terrace where he was staying. Later he and his group crossed a treacherous suspension bridge that had been heavily impacted by avalanches of rocks, and he cites this as the scariest part of his exodus out of natural disaster. "There were two deaths in the initial slide, an uncle and nephew who were unfortunate enough to be down by the river," he recalls. Other less fortunate stories and images haunt him. Such as the image of funeral pyre and the tale a couple that survived a boulder crushing their car, but later one of them was killed by another falling rock.
Marty returned home safely to his family on May 3rd, most grateful and humble to be alive. His disappearance, the passionate search efforts put forth to locate him, and his return have been covered widely by local media and blogged about in loving detail by family.
Here are some photo from the five days Marty was in Nepal before his trip ended abruptly. Photos courtesy of Marty Emanuel.
I’m looking forward to seeing Marty at the mountain again, our humble foothill compared to the Himalayas. As he is a sculptor, who in fact works in stone, among other mediums, I recently asked him his thoughts about the mountain itself, the carving, and why he trains there.
“Stone Mountain is unique in the whole world —the largest exposed granite monolith. Ayers Rock in Australia is larger but it is sandstone. The mountain should have never been quarried; it should have never been carved; it should not have had buildings built atop it; it should not have a cable car to the top. And that’s not even talking about the content of the carving!”
“Training at Stone Mountain was an integral and important part of my preparation for my trip to Nepal. Even though I regularly walk around town, use a stationary cycle, practice yoga and Pilates, there is no substitute for hiking up and down Stone Mountain. Of course the mountain is quite small by Himalayan standards, but I am grateful to have it so close by. The steeper sections were surprisingly effective at simulating the difficulty of the trails in Nepal. There were numerous trails of 60-70 percent grade. I was hiking up and down Stone Mountain three round trips a day in preparation of my trip. I was ready!”
“An added bonus of training at Stone Mountain is the amazing cultural transformation of the mountain. When I moved to Atlanta in 1972 Stone Mountain was the bastion of the Klan. Now it is one of the Atlanta area’s most racially and ethnically diverse sites. It really does represent Atlanta at its best.”
Further Reading
- Jon Krakauer Says Climbing Mount Everest Was The 'Biggest Mistake' Of His Life
– The Huffington Post
