Namche

We arrived in Namche the day before yesterday. Namche is pretty nice but very touristy. Yesterday Brian and I took a long hike up onto a ridge above the village. We started the hike by following the main path up to the Everest View but we quickly tired of the crowds and headed off in a different direction. One of our porters went with us but when Brian and I started hiking off the trail to head straight for the ridge we wanted to be up on he absolutely refused to follow us. We thought it was pretty funny. We climbed up onto the ridge which was at about 4200 meters and got great views of Everest, Lhotse, and Ama Dablam. We are both doing ver well with the altitude and the extra day that we've taken here should help us even more as we go higher. We are both ready to be moving further up the trail.

The hike to Namche was very nice but the trail is incredibly touristy. We've started joking that we're on the GC (Geriatric Circuit) because nearly all of the tourists are older men. Brian and I are hoping to do a trek to a much more remote area with far less tourists when we are finished climbing. I'm really looking forward to that. From Namche we are headed up to Island Peak and then to Lobuche Peak. We dropped Pokalde from our plans because it would have been very expensive to get that permit. We are hoping to scramble a few smaller peaks in the Gokyo Valley or towards Thame. We should be back in Namche in less than three weeks and I will try to post again then. I hope everyone is doing well and I'm looking forward to seeing you all when I get back.

Flying away

This post needs to be brief since we still have a lot to do and our flight is at 730 tomorrow morning. We fly to Lukla and if we are able to arrange everything we will start the trek into the mountains tomorrow. The first peak we are headed to is Island Peak. I should be able to make one more post from Namche before going into the hills. We are both really psyched about the trip and anxious to get out of Kathmandu. Hope everyone is doing well.

Consistently Inconsistent

I met up with Brian on Friday and we've spent the last few days trying to get permits for the peaks arranged and flights booked to Lukla and tying up whatever other loose ends we've got. Brian met a shopkeeper, named Sanjew, of a jewelry shop on one of the main streets here in Thamel (the tourist area in Kathmandu) amazingly he didn't try to sell Brian anything but rather invited us to a party. Neither of us really had any idea what to expect so we met him at his shop and just went with it. His brother picked us up and drove us up to a nice house in a different part of the city. We sat in the garden and talked politics (not surprisingly they hate Bush), religion (arranged marriages are still the norm in many places here), and a lot about American culture (they are surprisingly convinced that Hollywood is the real America). We also met another brother and a cousin, Sidarth. Sidarth is in charge of the business and even though he is younger than the brothers they treat him with immense respect. It was strange because we never sat down and talked to all of them at once, but instead they each cycled through to talk to us and then disappeared to a different part of the house. Strange party. For dinner they served mutton in curry with rice and a kind of bread. It was really good although the meat was still on the bone. We found out later that the bone the meat was attached to was the skull. Delicious sheep head with brain and all, probably better I didn't know that until after the meal. We had lunch with Sanjew the next day and went back to their house on Saturday for dinner. Its been an interesting cultural experience.

So in addition to eating bizarre meals with strangers we've been trying to get our permits arranged for the peaks we want to climb. The only thing that I'm certain of is that if you ask 10 different people the same question you are guranteed to get 10 different answers. Progress has been slow, we have to go through a trekking agency to get the permits. We probably went into 8 or 10 different places trying to get straight answers on our plans. It was incredible how wide the range of answers to our questions were. Finally we settled on an agency today and paid our fees, arranged porters, and arranged our flights to Lukla. Hopefully we will fly the day after tomorrow, but we are not sure yet. I'll try to post once or twice more before we head into the hills. We are having a great time and really looking forward to getting into the mountains.

Holy Cows and Car Exhaust

Well I finally made it to Kathmandu. Pretty good flight over from Bangkok, I got lucky and was able to get my baggage fees waved because I was flying from the United States. If you are flying from somewhere else Thai Airways charges you $4.50 for each pound over 44 that you have in baggage. I had 100 lbs of baggage, so that was a lot of money saved. Apparently Americans travel with more baggage than everybody else, who knew? The taxi I took from the airport was just like my old red subaru, except the taxie had more rust and less suspension. On the ride to the guesthouse I started feeling light headed and nauseaous from all the fumes. I thought it was just being in Kathmandu where the air quality is terrible, nope just he fumes from the taxi leaking inside. I got to see a little of the city on the way over; several holy cows which look like they're fed better than some of the people, a guy carrying a full wooden bedset on his back ( one guy, huge bedset), and more twisting and turning alleys than I'll ever be able to fathom. The guesthouse is not bad, 12 dollars for a king size bed and a private bathroom. I'll probably move to a cheaper one tomorrow to save money. Well I need to see if I can meet up with Brian so I'll wrap this up.

Off to Nepal!!!

On Wednesday October 15th I’m outta here. I fly from Anchorage to Bangkok where I’ll spend one night and then on to Kathmandu the next day. If everything goes according to plan I should be meeting Brian Von Tersch in Kathmandu on Friday the 17th, my birthday. We are planning to try to climb three peaks in the Everest Region of the Himalayas. Island Peak, Pokalde, and Lobuche East are the three peaks we are going to try. This is my first trip to Nepal and the Himalayas. I’m psyched for the trip but I don’t think it has really set in that in less than a week I’ll be on the other side of the world.
I’ll try to email or post on this blog when I can, but I think it will probably be hard to do once we get up in the mountains. I’ll be back in Alaska in about six weeks.








Pokalde



















Island Peak














Lobuche East