Chillin' in Kathmandu

We enjoyed a pretty low key day today in Kathmandu, getting laundry done, gear re-packed and airline reservations re-booked. Three people left successfully for home today and are in various cities tonight in the course of their homeward journeys.

I will stay until Monday, the 14th, by which time everyone should already be home or well on their way there.

It has been a wondrous trip, despite the frustrations of the last several days. With the invaluable aid of our sherpa guide, Kami Sherpa, and in spite of various illnesses and maladies, all of us made it to Gorak Shep (17,300'); most of us made it out to Everest Base Camp (17,600'), and up Kala Patthar(18,200'), establishing new altitude Personal Records in doing so.

Six of our ten were fortunate enough to achieve the summit of Imja Tse (20,305'), the first real Himalayan peak any of us had ever successfully climbed. I suspect that for some in our group, there will be others yet to come.

Last, in bad weather and uncomfortable conditions we made a rapid descent all the way from Imja Tse Base Camp to Lukla, engineered our own Yak-assisted extraction from that travel choke point, then arranged our own helicopter rescue from a make-shift LZ 15 miles off the main Khumbu trekking route.

Today, nine days after the weather initially clamped down on the Khumbu, at last report well over 1000 Trekkers still await succor from Lukla.

In the course of doing all that, over the 24 days we spent in the Khumbu, we logged over 41,000 vertical feet of ascent. I haven't yet scaled off the total mileage, but I suspect it will be somewhere north of 100 miles. No one was lost, no one was hurt, and illness, though present, did not for the most part prevent us from accomplishing our goals.

Truly, it was Good Fun in the Himalaya.

Namaste,
Jim Ronning