I culled 2000 photos to 400(ish)

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmaV1r8W

Ready to be able to brush my teeth with tap water!

And yes, I don’t know when I’ll be back again.

I got some last minute shopping done to burn off the last little bit of Nepali money I have. I did keep a small amount as we collect currency from all the countries we have visited. The hustling and persistence of the shop keepers is quite annoying, but I also understand they are trying to make a living.

Sitting in the lobby of the hotel with a couple hours to burn, I have time to sit back and reflect upon this trip. I have been able to see and do things that I didn’t think I would ever be able to experience. There also have been many aspects of payment for this trip and there will be will more payment shortly; I’ve ignored home and a busy workplace for three weeks now. In both aspects there are those that have covered for me and I am very grateful for those people.  Yet there there will still be some pain in getting caught up and back on track. I can only think and hope that the experiences I bring back from Nepal and the Khumbu Valley long outlast the short term pain I will experience in that regard; I sincerely hope there are memories and things learned that will follow me the rest of my days.

The fact I ended up in Group 2 seems to have had a bit of higher intervention in itself. Group 2 was full as of Jan 17. Yet a slot opened up for me within weeks of my original commitment in October 17 to trek with the earlier group (Group. 1). I have to accept I was meant to take THIS journey.

I can already tell there is an empty spot left where my planning, focus, and execution for this trip has resided for the last 6 months. Now I have to decide what to fill that void with. I definitely hope to fill part of it with some of what I’ve neglected in the last six months, but I also must set some future goals so that I don’t slide back into the physical state I’ve spent so many years in. Whatever the next goal/adventure is, I highly doubt it will be as grand as what I just completed.

Now, I have about 30 hours of travel before I’m home sweet home.

Stay tuned for the next adventure.

I woke up to a bit of frustration. I had 5 voicemails on my phone, yet I couldn’t access my voicemail; basically, it wasn’t detecting my password input. I spent 3 hours of my morning trying to work it out with AT&T. Answer me this; why is it that when I call the American help line, I get a representative that is clearly offshore and hard to understand, but if I call the international help number, I get a US based representative that is easy to understand and is more knowledgeable? IRONIC. Luckily, Jasmine spent a good portion of her evening helping me by checking my VM from her end.

After beating my head against the wall on the VM issue, I went downstairs for my free breakfast. I ended up sitting with 3 other teammates and having a long chat session. I’m not normally one much for talk, but we all had some great experiences to talk about. It’s a bit different when you have the choice to hang out together vs. you are chained by the hip on the trail.

We decided to meet back up at 2:00 PM and go to the shopping district we had our last group dinner at the previous night; at this point, 3 of the team were already in the air on the way home. We stopped in at a watch shop on the way to the restaurant; it amazed me there was a shop selling $1,000 watches (some Swiss outdoorsie models) in Kathmandu when the is so much poverty evident right out the street. Just for the record, I stuck with my el-cheapo Garmin watch.

Lunch was good, I had pepperoni pizza. I seriously am going to have to get back on the wagon when I get back home so that I don’t undo all this great work I’ve done on my weight. I am, however, taking a week off exercise after what I’ve put my body through. We were up above a busy intersection as we are lunch, so we traffic watched. Kathmandu doesn’t have traffic lights; there are policeman at every major intersection to direct traffic. We did see inactive traffic lights; our guess is they are not used because the constant power outages in the city. Or perhaps it is just a way to provide more jobs.

We did a little more browsing, but headed back to the hotel to meet our sherpa Kami that flew out with one of our sick group members. I really liked Kami; he appeared to be  the low man on the totem pole of the local staff, but he bent over backwards the most for us. Great guy. I also love the fact he tells us he has summited Everest just two times. That is a huge accomplishment, there should be no “just” in that sentence. Kami presented us with Khatas (ceremonial scarfs) and placed them around our necks. Very special, and I was glad to be able to say goodbye.

After Kami departed, our lunch group met again for a evening supper. We ate at Le Sherpa, an upscale restaurant; my $20 meal here would have been $50 back in the states. This is the same place we had our first team dinner with AC, so for two of us, it was ending where it began. We headed back to the hotel to find a Hindu wedding in full swing. We watched for a few moments, and then went our separate ways for the night.

 

The day has come to start the journey back home. We met at 6:30 AM for a light breakfast so we could get in line at the airport in Lukla. It is more of a first come, first served deal than the ticketing process we are used to dealing with at a normal airport. We were basically going to wait at the lodge until we got a call to make the 5 minute walk to the airport.

The lodge owner told us that it was time for us to go to the airport, because her husband that deals with the ticketing said it was time to go. We waited quite a while at the airport, I suspect that the lodge owner wanted us out of the dining room to be able to seat more customers.

The best way to describe the airport is controlled chaos, easy on the controlled part. I watched several planes come and go. Interestingly, American wrestling (WWE raw) was on the TV in the airport.

We were Tara Air flight #3 out of our airport. When I saw the plane was a Dehavilland Twin Otter, I was stoked. I’ve now flown in a Dehavilland Beaver, Otter, and Twin Otter.

The flight was uneventful. Down in the mountains, but uneventful. As we neared the city, I saw my first car in 2 weeks.

We landed at Kathmandu and got our bags in the waiting van. It is quite the sensory shock going from the relative-peacefullness of the valley to the chaos of the city. I’m still reintegrating, I can only imagine what it is like for someone that has lived in the valley and gone to Kathmandu for the first time.

Here’s what happened at the airport the day before I flew out, the pilot either hit the brakes too soon or didn’t keep enough momentum coming up the grade.

https://youtu.be/WvuCGTlF8Wo

And some history on Lukla Airport

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-cK38vIhGs

We got to the hotel, and the first thing I did was get a real shower in a real bathroom. It was great. I then had lunch. Other than that, I took care of a little souvineer shopping and had final dinner with the team in the Thamel district. Now I just have to get my stuff together and get ready for the flight. I have 1.5 days before my flight out; I could have changed flights, but everything is lined up right now, and easier to keep as is. It has been a great experience, but I’m ready to get home!

Our group of 8 became 6 for the last leg of the journey to Lukla; at least this time It wasn’t due to a medical issue. Two of our teammates opted for a helicopter ride back to Lukla so they could see some of the valley from the air. It was a flat fee for the helo, so they offered for a few of us to tag along. I was greatly tempted, as I would love to see things from the air; my knees and blistered toes wouldn’t have minded, either. However, I walked myself in, and I felt it only right to walk myself out.

We met for breakfast at 6:30 AM and hit the trail by 7:30 AM. Not very far out of Namche, we ran into a huge donkey train just getting on the trail. That slowed us down, but I was glad for the slowdown as it let me take it easier on my right knee (it was being the trouble child) as we progressed the 1500+ feet down in a short distance. You did have to watch out for all the donkey droppings 😉

Our group did do a fairly good job of keeping together today. It was nice not being too spread out. Near the bottom of the hill we hit my favorite (and highest) cable bridge. I know there are some people that would feel uneasy or a little scared on it in the wind or with it slightly bouncing from the walkers, but I really enjoyed it. If it wasn’t such a busy bridge, I’d love to be able to stand out on the middle and soak everything in for a good long while.

Once we hit the river at the bottom of Namche hill, we followed it for the most of the way out. There were some ups and downs, but it was fairly manageable. I hadn’t forgot the hill up into Lukla that we had as our final obstacle. We stopped to check-out of the park before lunch. Resting them a bit, there, I made friends with a beautiful black puppy with one blue and one brown eye. After helping get a good picture of it for someone with the help of a tiny piece of Snickers bar (I had to pay the puppy for its picture) it knew I was a mark and it started barking at me and its sibling showed up as well. I petted them a bit, but didn’t feed them anymore even though I was tempted.

A little bit further, we hit Phakding for lunch. This was the same lodge where we spent our first night in the valley. We had a nice lunch, and then set out for the last leg of our journey.  Our guide had mentioned that it might be a bit of rain, and she was dead on. It was only slightly sprinkling, but it showed some of what what we had learned on the trip. The first day in the valley, it had started lightly raining after a tea stop; we all donned our rain tops and bottoms, as well as putting our rain covers on our backpacks (at least most of us). It wasn’t 10 minutes later that the light rain had stopped, we were sweating in all our gear, and had to stop to take it off. This time, we just pushed on without adding the rain gear.

One of the last cable bridges, we had to stop to let a group of 3 porters cross. One was so loaded down with Pringles boxes that he couldn’t walk straight on the bridge. Another example of our tourist impact on the region; all the porter’s I’ve seen hauling junk food, soda, and beer (a lot of beer) deep into the valley. It is a double edged sword; it’s creating jobs and commerce, but it would be nice to see a little less beer and a little more medical/education supplies being hauled in.

We finally started the final push up the hill to Lukla. While the air was a lot thicker, the climb was still strenuous. For most of the day, anytime we stopped it was hard to get the legs going again. At last, we topped the hill and found ourselves in Lukla. The “by foot” portion was over. We were greeted by rain, and everyone made a b-line for our lodge. Along the final trek down the main street of Lukla, another trekker and myself stopped to take a picture (with permission) of a few local kids. After the picture, we exchanged hive-fives.

We got to the lodge and assembled shortly and had a round of beers (I drank a Coke – off the soda wagon for the end of the trip), and we then retreated to our rooms for another free hot shower and recoup before supper. I celebrated the end of the walk with a Yak steak and fries. I just now had to hope it didn’t give me “Delhi – belly”. Yak tastes like VERY lean beef, BTW. We also all had a piece of cake, one of the lodge owners had been suprised by her daughter with a mother’s day (Mata Tirtha Aunshi) cake, and she shared the celebration with all in the dining room; third cake celebration of the trip. Dinner ran longer than usual. Normally, we were hitting the rack by 8 PM or so on the trip. We sat around the tables and talked to well after 9. I think we all realized that leaving the table signified the end of the largest part of our journey, and didn’t want it to end. But we finally parted ways for the evening and had no trouble falling asleep after 27+ miles in hard terrain in two days.

If weather permits, we fly out of Lukla airport in the morning.

We started the day off with another change of plans. When we met For breakfast at 0630, we learned that one of our teammates had gotten sick in the night, it appears they got food poisoning. Altitude sickness is not your only foe. Water, meat, and ever fruit/vegetables can be your enemy. This team member was ultimately flown to Kathmandu, they should be fine.

We regrouped and headed out around 8:00 AM. The first half or so of the journey was not too terrible. The group was pushing pretty hard, some of us were trailing behind because we were still stopping and taking pictures; I didn’t invest all this time and money to ignore everything on the way out.

Along the way, it occurred to me that our entire environment had changed. The barren mountainside had turned green and we were down in trees and moss. I could see the village we were eating at (Tengboche), but I could also see we were on the other side of the river. That meant we had to go down the back up!

After a slightly strenuous climb back up, we arrived at Tengboche. You could see the huge monastery on the right as you entered town. Lunch was good; I ended up talking to some folks from Maine that were on their way up and looking for pointers. I told them to avoid Gorak Shep if possible 🙂

After lunch, the real work began. We headed down for about an hour, and it was hard down; that’s the roughest on me (my knees especially). Then a gruelling 1 hour up. It was BRUTAL. Things eased a bit, but we still had a good bit of climbing to do. There is no flat in the Khumbu Valley; you are either going up or going down.

We still passed some excellent scenery and pretty stupas.

I was oh so happy to finally see Namche; it meant rest and food were not far off. We got showers (what’s better than a hot shower – a free hot shower!), met for supper,  put devices on charge, and collapsed for the night. Over 13 miles of that terrain; they move us out a lot quicker than we moved in to the valley (no worries about taking it slow for altitude sickness going down).

Today, we started the the long journey back to Lukla in earnest. But… before we left, we had the optional trek up Kala Patar to get our best view of Everest yet and see the sun rise over Everest to boot. We left the lodge at 5 AM to start our 1200 ft climb. Long story short, I missed the peak by about 300 feet. I just wasn’t keeping up with the group at altitude with the climb. When I saw the sun was about to peek over,  I stopped along with one other group member and the Sherpa that hung back with us. Kami (Sherpa) offered to carry my pack for me, but I declined; however high I got on the mountain needed to be on my own. I have no regrets about not hitting the top; I still bested 18,000 feet and I knew I had a long hike to Pheriche in front of me and needed to conserve energy. I thought that was pretty good for me to have not dipped into diamox medication to increase my O2 levels. Mt. Denali summit is only 20,310 ft …just sayin …..

The view did not disappoint – I saw the most I had seen of Everest from that mountainside, and ate a frozen cliff bar and drank slushy frozen water while watching the sunrise.

We made our way down and met up for breakfast. It was a bit of a rush to get my bags packed, eat breakfast, and be ready for departure time.

We then started back to Pheriche, a nice relief after staying in the pit called Gorak Shep. The first part was rough terrain with some climbing, but it soon eased up into more downhill and less rocks. But not before we hit a yak traffic jam that made 635 look tame.

We stopped in Lobuche for lunch, my back was hurting a bit, so I popped an Excedrin. I also adjusted my pack rigging and changed my posture in hopes of helping.

The terrain started to become familiar, so I knew we were closing in on Pheriche. I think the whole group was ready for the stop. I was most happy to pay $5.00 for a hot shower after three days without; Im sure my whole team was ready for me to have that shower as well.

We had a good meal as a team, and followed it up with hot chocolate, and we were all pretty chill at that point. I guess we all feel some of the pressure is off; but we do have 2 more hard walking days to get back to Lukla.

 

I woke up at 4:40 AM and donned my cold weather gear with the temperature at 5 degrees F. The base camp manager, Anthea, told us people were starting up the Ice fall at 3:00 AM. So by time I was out looking, there was a string of lights moving up the top of the Khumbu Ice Fall, with some poor straggler a good bit behind. The stars were gorgeous as well; we were blessed with a clear morning (actually a clear day).

I stayed out in the sub freezing weather as long as my toes could handle it; I got to see dawn turn to day, and observed the sun starting to paint the mountains across the way. I had base camp to myself for about 45 minutes; quiet beauty.  I finally gave in and got back in my warm sleeping bag. Side Note: I had to put my water bottle in the sleeping bag with me to unfreeze it.

Some of the group took a hike to the edge of the ice fall. You could get an idea of it’s immenseness, but we were not right up on it; of all the parts of Everest, the ice fall scares me to death.

Back from our hike, we had a few moments to relax, and then had lunch. The summit team had arrived at EBC right as we were served lunch. After the summit team had a chance to recoup, we had one final get together with them, wished them luck on their trip up the mountain, and set out for Gorak Shep, where we would be staying the night.

We were blessed with good weather all day in contrast to the clear morning, cloudy evening norm. Made for great viewing and pictures on the way out of EBC to Gorak Shep.

To put it plainly, Gorak Shep is a complete dump. Since it is the last stop before EBC, they don’t have to glam it up. The table in the restaurant in the lodge we were staying in had a jar of jam that looked like a science project; we chose our meals wisely. People get sick at altitude, so the dining area was full of people coughing, hacking, etc. I’m not even going to describe the rest rooms.  The walls were paper thin, so you heard everything too. I just chalk this up to part of paying the price of admission to Everest; but it certainly explains why the “luxury base camp trek” sets up tents instead of using Gorak Shep lodging. Still worth it. Tomorrow we will hike up Kala Patar (over 18,000 ft) to get better views of Everest and see the sun rise from out behind the big mountain. 3 days left in the Khumbu Valley.