The bottom of the top of the world

This is what we came to see: Mt. Everest.



The Crew and Mt. Everest:



We're at about 18,000ft here, on Kala Pattar, over looking Mt. Everest (the tall one) also in the shot is Nuptse (far right) and the West Shoulder of Everest (forground). We got up at 5am to start the hike up Kala, it was still completely dark and fun with our headlamps lighting the way. We watched the sunrise over Everest and the rest of the Himalaya, an awesome sight.




bing.

There were a bunch of other trekkers up there at the time, and a bunch of our friends that we had met along the way. We spent about two hours hanging out up there, taking lots of photos, because we had spent a lot of time acclimatising, we felt perfectly fine at that altitude, amazing. When I saw the height on the GPS, i was pretty amazed.



About 4000ft higher than I was on Rainier. The weather was pretty chilly, not sure exactly of the temp, but well below freezing. We eat some breakfast of Snickers and Mars bars at the top and watched the show of light over the mountains, fore sure a highlight of the trek.



Here we are on the second day of the trek, from Phakding to Namche Bazar, still in the lush river valley, about to climb up and cross this hanging bridge. The bridges were awesome, so high up off the ground and they swing and bounce a lot when you cross them, but are super strong. we saw a bunch of Yaks crossing this before we did, but still while you're over it, it's a little scary. This one was about 100ft off the floor of the valley with a pretty rapid river benenth it...



This is Cho Oyu, another 8000m peak, took this shot around 5:45am from the high village of Gokyo. Another spectacular day in the Himalaya. :)

NAMASTE!!!

The trek was glorious!!! Just got back in Kathmandu and had a massive feast at the guest house buffet... We eat really well on the trail, lots of Dal Bhat (rice, veggies, and lentils) but bacon, eggs, tomatos, potatos, were too expensive for our budget. I had three eggs, a plate of potatos, fresh tomatos, another plate of pancakes, and about a pound of bacon. and about 4 glasses of orange juice. And somehow kept it all down.

The himalaya were just too much for words to describe... We went so high, climbed to well over 18,000ft, it was unbelievable. Saw Everest for days, and tons of other huge mountains, Nuptse, Ama Dablam, Theng Kutze, they towered over us. Huge waterfalls, insane. Still stoked about it, and it's over. No shower for 15 days, mutant funk. I look like a yeti. But I took a hundred photos or so and kept the written journal well updated... So, I'll be adding to the blog shortly with a full description and photos. I'll be in Kathmandu for the next 6 days, then we drive into Tibet for 8 or 10 days, then back to Kath and onto the Annapurna circuit trek, another 16 days on that, supposed to be even better than Everest base camp. Put a heart rock with "Sweet Marya" written on the back at base camp, facing Everest, so she can watch the climbers in May.





Also put up some prayer flags at base camp, with Marya Griffin written on it. She was with me for sure, miss her.

Trek details:
So on September 28th we woke up at 5am at the Kathmandu Guest House and caught a death defying taxi ride to the domestic airport. I was sitting in the front seat, as we terrifingly weaved between feral dogs, errant buses, other taxis, and people. Way too much activity for me at 5:30am. Once at the Domestic airport, which is more like a gymnasium of confusion, it's a giant room with a hundred people speaking 10 languages and all frustrated, we some how got boarding passes and through "security" which is a cheap excuse for some Nepali to play a quick game of grab ass. We took a little bus onto the runway to our Drommier 220, Short take off and Landing aircraft. This little 16 seater of noise and power was pretty wild looking. And soon we were on way over Kathmandu, towards the start of our trek and the high mountain village of Lukla.
Lukla is really cool, and where most people start from now, since the maoists have checkpoints in the region below. And while that may sound dangerous, it's totally not, all they do is make you pay a 5000 rupie fee ($70), which is a pain in the butt, but not too bad considering the alternatives. So, the 'airport' at Lukla is a little strip of black top which is 180ft higher at the top than at the bottom. It's basically goes up the side of a mountain. pretty crazy.



So we landed with a thump, and quickly deplaned as helis were landing and other planes buzzing in. An intense scene for sure. So we collected our packs, which were minus matt's trekking poles, that he had bought the day before specifically for this trek, a bummer, but we picked up some hiking sticks instead.




Grabbed some breaky and headed off for our first stop, Phakding. The route went like this:

Lukla-Phakding 9/28
Phakding-Namche Bazar (stay 2 nights to acclimatize) 9/29- 30
Namche - Tengboche (stay 2 nights to acclimatize) 10/1-2
Tengboche - Pheriche (stay 2 nights to acclimatize) 10/3-4
Pheriche - Dugla 10/5
Dugla - Lobuche 10/6
Lobuche - Gorak Shep 10/7
Gorak - Dzongla 10/8
Dzongla - Gokyo (over the 17000+ft Cho La pass) 10/9
Gokyo - Namche Bazar 10/10
Namche - Lukla 10/11
Lukla Flight back to Kathmandu 10/12

Trek stats:
Distance: about 40-50 miles
Altitude: Start: 2800m/ 9200ft Top: 5646m/ 18526ft
Time: 15 days
Weather: Clear and Sunny almost every morning, mid 60's in Lukla, 20-30's at Base Camp.