Day 3 & 4 - Hike to Namche

I was afraid, initially that either 1) I wouldn't make it to Namche Bazaar at all, or 2) I would take 6 hours to get there because of my sickness the night before.
The morning of departure from Jorsale, however, I was feeling surprisingly good. Upset stomach for sure, but other than that I felt pretty strong. I figured I'd take it slow anyway, not wanting the rapid change in altitude to knock me out of the trek once I got to Namche. I also lightened my load a bit, giving a higher percentage of the weight to our porter (who didn't even seem to notice).

Today looked to be the most grueling as far as hiking goes. We ascended 2,000 feet in less than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). Pretty much straight up.

We crossed another long burley cable bridge over the gorgeous wide, fast flowing Bhoti Khosi river, then up, up we went. We kept leap frogging a group of three porters who were carrying what must have been 150 lbs each of Fanta, Sprite, rice, and a truck load of other things towering over their heads. They would stop every 100 meters or so, place their T-Shaped stick under their baskets, rest their loads and take a few deep breaths as we slowly passed them. Then, while we rested and sipped our Nalgene bottles, they would pass us. This seemed to go on for hours.

Feeling better by the hour, I headed on up ahead of our crew for most of the day. Brian hung back with Christina and her illing knees.

We passed the first possible view of Everest but it was too hazy. The daily pattern seemed to be that it was clear in the morning, and then the fog rolled in around 11pm. This made the morning the best time for photographs.

Four and a half hours after leaving Jorsale, we rounded a corner and could finally spot Namche Bazaar. A great relief. We took off our packs and rested. Karma bought some little Debbie snacks from a stand, and I bought some ranch flavored Pringles and passed them out. They tasted awesome. I noticed that when I offered a handful to a porter, he was careful to divide them up with his friends equally, event though that meant that they each only got 1 or two chips.

Loyd said "looks like were all going to make it (to Namche)." The view of Namche was fantastic as we approached. Blue roofed, stone walled shops dug into the side of the mountain in a big horse shoe shaped cirque.

Treated ourselves to Pizza and soda at the Everest Bakery in town. It was marvelous.

Day 2 - Evening

Top Photo: An old Buddhist monastery above Jorsale that we explored.
Middle Photo: Crossing 1 of 7 bridges before Namche Bazaar.
Bottom Photo: Alison in our room in Jorsale (very primitive).

I must have picked up a bug in Kathmandu. It went from incubating, to a full on intestinal problem here in Jorsale. I took an anti-biotic and that seemed to take care of it. Thank God for Cipro. This marked the end of my desire for fried food that was so abundant along the way for me. Though it tasted pretty good the first few times (like fried noodles), I didn't want it to contribute to more intestinal problems. Mo-mos were looking better after that (like pot-stickers).

Day 2 - Morning

Two of our porters loading up after breakfast before heading to Jorsale.

The guy on the left is 52 years old. He is strong as an ox. I'm sure he could carry tripple the load I could. I think his knees are made of some genetically bio-modified carbon-fiber type substance that the good Lord has provided to the Sherpa tribe. Only two of our porters were ethnically Sherpas. Both of them built like small locomotives.

We hiked slowly again on Day 2. We decided to stop in Jorsale for the night before heading up the mammoth "Namche hill." We hoped that this would help us acclimatize and give our muscles a chance to adjust.

Day 1 - PM - Lodge at Phakding

Here we are at Karma's lodge. It was rustic but very nice. Surprisingly clean bunks and blankets considering that they appeared to have no washing machine and the tap water was icy cold. Obviously Karma and his wife had taken much care in making the lodge comfortable for trekkers like us. Diverging from the other lodges we came across, they had lots of Chinese food options on the menu. I recommend the Eco-Friendship lodge. And say hi to Karma and family for me when you pass through.

Day 1 - Noon - Lukla

Somehow at the Lukla airport, Loyd was able to identify our porters (whom we'd never seen before, only emailed). They asked for our baggage claim tickets, and I watched them disappear into the terminal. Since I still wasn't sure we had identified the right guys, I was once again concerned that we would never see them or our gear again. By the way, they turned out to be amazing, trustworthy guys that we quickly grew fond of.
They returned with our gear and we were introduced to Karma, who was friends with the porters, and offering his services as a guide. Then we trotted off to a lodge in Lukla.

After counting our rupies, we decided that we wanted to hire Karma as our guide. This turned out to be a great choice. He spoke good English, and helped us with ordering food, finding lodging, and pointing out scenery as we hiked along. He even offered us free lodging our first night at the tea house he was managing.

From Lukla we actually descended a few hundred meters down a trail that parallelled the Dudh Khosi river. It was still a bit hazy, but the view down into the river and up the valley was gorgeous and we were excited to see the surprises around every corner. If we craned our necks we could see some relatively high, snow capped peaks above the rim of the river gorge above us. We ascended we passed little villages, tea huts, yak trains, porters, and wheat fields beautifully terraced into the hills below.

We were struck right away by the immense loads the porters along the trail were carrying. The biggest load we saw the first day was 6 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood strapped to a guys back as he stepped down the stone pathway and then up the other side. If each panel weighs 35 lbs (which seems low to me) then he would be carrying 210lbs. Most of the weight was carried on the strap slung across the top of his skull. Crazy heavy! (see photo)

The weather was nice. About 75 degrees. We hiked slow. We took 3.5 hours to hike what the book said would be 2-3 hours. I could feel the tinge of a headache. It became more intense at night. Ibuprofen took it away nicely. As recommended, I started guzzling water. Research told us that we could lose up to a gallon of water a day, just by exhaling at higher altitudes. Because I am keen on exhaling, I chose to drink lots of fluids. We all did.

Day 1- Morning - Flight to Lukla

Rose today @ 4am. Took the taxi/bus @ 5:30am. Arrived at the domestic terminal of the Kathmandu airport and walked into an absolute madhouse. There was maybe 500 people and their mountains of gear attempting to shuffle their way through the archaic baggage scanners and up to the 4 or 5 ticket counters. It appears that no one knew what was going on, or where to go next (including the airline staff). Thanks to Loyd's assertiveness, he was able to worm his way up the counter to get some direction.
Our flight was for "6:30am" the first flight out, but we were immediately bumped to the "7:30 am" flight. They finally took our bags onto the conveyor belt. I was worried that I would never see my gear again as it disappeared into the little tunnel.
Our 1 hour wait turned into a 3 hour wait. There we no reader boards at the gates (all the gates were clumped together - perhaps to avoid the perception of order at the gates as well). Occasionally someone would yell in deeply accented English the flight number. We saw the need to place ourselves as close to the yelling airline personnel as possible in order to interpret the flight number.
They eventually bussed us over the runway to a big twin prop. Then more delays. They let us rest on the bus for another half hour.
Then we were stuffing cotton in our ears (in theory to protect us from the noise of the engines) at about 10:30am preparing for take-off.

The flight was relatively calm. Kind of bumpy as we neared Lukla, but apparently not bad considering the late hour. Planes rarely fly after noon because of the danger of strong winds that spring up later in the day. It was hazy as we flew. You could only see the ridges that were closest to the plane as we flew up the high valleys.

As we landed, the trekkers broke into applause. I'm not sure if that was because they were excited to be on their way to Everest, or out of relief that we had survived the flight through the mountains.

We were greeted with the shrill of whistles being blown by the Nepali police as they herded us quickly along the fence to the terminal. At the terminal I was surprised to see what must have been 100 plus porters pressed up against the chain link fence, apparently hoping to secure positions as porters in one of the expeditions. A man met me at the baggage claim pushing his business card into my hand. I didn't want to take it because I was afraid he had a limited number of cards and our porters were already hired.

Intro to Everest Trek 2

After spending a week in Kathmandu, we flew to Lukla, Nepal on a twin prop with about 20 other trekkers on March 27th, 2010. Lukla is the start of the Trek to Mt. Everest Base camp, and our goal - Kala Pattar (2,000 feet above base camp) . The ridge called Kala Pattar sports probably the best view in the world of Everest and the massive peaks surrounding it. Because it is located in a valley, there is no view of Everest from base camp.

Lukla stands on the side of a mountain at 9,380 ft / 2860 .
Kala Pattar - our final destination - sits at 18,192 ft / 5,545 m.
So we hiked about 8,800 vertical feet. (about 1.7 vertical miles).
Above 15,000 feet the diminished oxygen makes hiking very difficult and slow.
There is about 50% of the oxygen at Kala Pattar that you would have at sea level. And since we live in Portland, where the elevation is officially listed as 50 feet, we fully experienced lack of air up high. So we read up, and took recommended precautions such as a slow ascent, to reduce the chances of suffering AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). In hindsite, it looks like we should have moved up the mountain even slower.

Intro to our Everest Trek 1

Training Hike - Cascade Head, OR

I began dreaming of visiting Everest after reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer a decade ago. The story of the 1996 expedition was riveting, intriguing and thought provoking. I became fascinated by the story, and began devouring any other perspectives of the event that I could get my hands on.
The mountain has become something, almost magical, as the stage for so many life and death struggles. A place where men and women have focused their heart and soul as they pursued their greatest goal in life. Some received fame, others died for their passion. To accomplish the goal of summiting Everest requires massive, laser focused discipline and passion. Almost 40% of the climbers died who attempted Everest before 1990. Since then the number has dropped significantly. In 2004 it was 4.4%.
When Alison's parents were deciding where to go for a 1 year mission trip, they were deciding between Afghanistan and Kathmandu, Nepal. We got immediately excited about them going to Kathmandu, already thinking about the chance to visit them and trek to Mt. Everest.
Loyd and Joannie also were really excited about us joining them, and offered to help us with airfare if we would come and join them.
Thus the opportunity of a lifetime, and the beginning of planning to go to Nepal began in the Spring of 2009, almost a year before we would head to Nepal.
We began designing and revising the itinerary for the trek and all the details from that point, and have not looked back.