Everest Trek Out-Takes, 1

While not traveling, here in Menlo Park, I am going through the 87 gazillion pix I have taken these past three years (and also the 87 gazillon 35mm slides I took prior to about 2005; digitizing them, 4 at a time), and have resolved to post some of the pix that should have been blogged in earlier segments of our travels. When we did the Everest trek three years ago, I posted very few pictures on the blog. Connections were infrequent and of inconsistent quality, and I hadn't yet figured out whether the blog was going to be more words or more pictures. So here, and in the next few posts (it was a three week undertaking), are some pix and a little commentary on our 2008 Everest trek. You can find the original Everest trek posts using the keyword search feature on this site, or by clicking on Nepal in the tag cloud at the very, very bottom of the page, or simply by going to October, 2008.

In Thamel, the touristy section of Kathmandu, Nepal, where
one goes to do the Everest trek (from Nepal, anyway);
Thamel is a riot of everything...commerce, people, food and
drink, nationalities and ethnicities, travelers and trekkers,
touts and louts; and some wonderful Nepalese

Kathmandu airport, domestic terminal; another riot; we
would never have found our plane without the assistance
of Dawa Geljien Sherpa, our handler and savior

En route to Lukla from Kathmandu aboard Yeti Airlines and
a Twin Otter aircraft; click to enlarge and read the pilot's
take-off and landing check-lists; two days after we marched
off from Lukla, one of these craft crashed on landing, killing
all but the co-pilot

Aircraft carrier Lukla; 9100 feet altitude; 12 degree gradient;
they say it is 1500 feet long, but I wouldn't give it 1000 feet;
there are some great videos on YouTube and elsewhere of
landings and take-off's; it's at the head of a hanging box
canyon, so you only get one chance...

And we're on the trail from Lukla, two days to Namche
Bazaar, approaching the first of scores of Buddhist
billboards--centuries old, carved and then painted...

In a guest-house on the trail; spartan, and sometimes
dubious sanitation; but at $2-$4 a night, not over-priced;
they make their money mostly in the restaurant, more
about which later

Touching up a prayer wheel; prayer wheels and
associated religious paraphrenalia everywhere

Welcome to Mt. Everest National Park

More billboards

One awakes many mornings on the trail to the sound of
stone masons; there is not a lot of lumber up here, but a
lot of stone, and nearly everything is made of stone; beyond
Lukla, nearly everything is carried on the backs of porters or
zopkios and yaks to the several villages above

On one of many, many bridges over the Dudh Kosi, coming
down the Khumbu

Nearly all high suspension bridges like this, bedecked with
prayer flags

Entering Namche Bazaar, stupa and walls of prayer wheels;
Namche is the last "big" town on the trail, last chance for
equipment, provisions, meat....

Namche from above, as you head on up the trail

Thamserku from Namche

First sight of Everest, on the trail above Namche (it's the
distant peak between us)