Saturday 21 April 2018

Himalaya (Lukla airport)

The wake up call came at 4.15am which equates to roughly 11pm in London time. Shailesh was bursting from the seems with nervous energy as he tried to cajole all of us to quickly get into the bus to the airport in the hope that the weather would break and allow the pilot the necessary visibility to fly to Lukla.

We were very lucky as it had been raining heavily overnight but slowly as dawn hit the sun slowly began to light up the surrounding mountains. The check-in was interesting as they stick to a strict 10kg weight allowance. I knew mine was slightly over as was the case with a few others so we duly paid up the excess baggage. The single propellered planes fly a max 14 people and cannot accommodate undue weight for the hazardous flight through the valley and up to Lukla at 2,840ms. As we left the Kathmandu valley bed we slowly increased altitude flying at times perilously close to the neighbouring mountains. I had an excellent view to the left over the snow capped Rollbaa Ling range.

25 minutes in and the runway was all of a sudden right there in front of us - in the front row seat I basically had the same sight as the pilot. The runway is super short and perched on the top of a cliff face. Basically there is no room for error with the runway sloped upwards to try and slow the incoming aircraft. Thankfully the young looking Nepalese dude nailed the landing promting a round of loud applause.

Stepping out onto the tarmac at the Hillary airport felt really nostalgic. I’ve dreamt about coming here ever since I could read and is a crying shame on me that it’s taken so long. We stopped for coffee on the terrace tantalisingly watching other flights navigating the short strip with the weather window only open for another 30 minutes. It was a huge stroke of good fortune to have gotten here.

A short walk ensued through Lukla picking up some last minute goodies before we started the traditional Everest walk - it still felt nostalgic knowing that we were following in the footsteps of all the greats such as Hillary and Tenzing - it’s the only way up. The well trodden path undulates to Phakding, the location of our Tea House was for the night.

I will remember this day for the 4 suspension bridges we had to cross wobbling a lot in the middle.

Another quick note on one of our guides Pemanuri Sherpa. An experienced Sherpa and another 8,000+ man who has summitted Cho Oyo (8,100ms). He’s full of information and was telling me all about the 123 casts in Nepal as well as the 125 different languages and the autumn and spring climbing seasons when he has to make the sacrifices to spend large chunks of time away from his fledgling family.

Now having dropped our stuff at the Phakding Mountain Tea House (2,650) we did a further quick acclimatisation walk. A good day and feeling good. My new Scarpa boots are so much lighter than the ones I’ve used for the last 15 years and the ones I used for Mont Blanc.


day 1 video: https://youtu.be/ziCT-QqUBok
















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