IGX

In case you missed the news, New Jersey and New York City were struck by SuperTornadicEarthquake Sandy and no longer exist, so best not to fly into Kennedy or Newark on your return trip.

Flying back tomorrow via Dubai and Seattle. We didn't get a lot on Sandy here in Kathmandu. Just news on Milan, atropical cyclone that hit India and had a feeble impact on Nepal.
What I have seen on Sandy looks horrific. Hope everyone's OK.

seeahill wrote:Flying back tomorrow via Dubai and Seattle. We didn't get a lot on Sandy here in Kathmandu. Just news on Milan, atropical cyclone that hit India and had a feeble impact on Nepal.
What I have seen on Sandy looks horrific. Hope everyone's OK.

how long you' be in Dubai for?

Home now, but I was in Dubai for 24 hours going out and 8 hours coming back.

Congratulations young man :) You live to climb another day!

seeahill wrote:Home now, but I was in Dubai for 24 hours going out and 8 hours coming back.

PM me when you've made your donation.

ATTA BOY TIMMAH!!!!!

You didn't forget to plant our flag did you?

Pix coming.

This is my friend Robin and guide, Pemba Sherpa who summited Everest this May at the age of 21. He was a climbing Sherpa and was asked to bring three oxygen cannisters to Camp 4. He carried four, used one for himself and went for the summit alone. He spent 1/2 hour there, along.

Ang Dorjee Sherpa, 16 Everest summits, uncle of Pemba, our other guide. This guy is a legend. He's pointing at Ama Deblam, which he could see from his backyard in Pangboche. Dorjee's brother, father, nephew and others have all summited Everest.

Summit of Kala Pathar, 18,514 feet, my highest point. Everest is the in the middle. Base Camp is about 1000 feet below, in the upper left side of the photo.

On the way to Base Camp.

Base Camp, 17,500.

FC,
You owe me, pal.

obvious photoshops

That looks like a great experience, Tim. It really is another world up there in the thin air. How did you rate the whole experience? And how did you and the others hold up?

seeahill wrote:Base Camp, 17,500.

Atta boy Timmy!

Nice job Timmah!

And, great pics, thanks for sharing.

Envious - fantastic job on the climb.

seeahill wrote:Summit of Kala Pathar, 18,514 feet, my highest point. Everest is the in the middle. Base Camp is about 1000 feet below, in the upper left side of the photo.

That is going to be a really hard product placement to beat. Most awesome.

Was there a Starbucks in base camp? Or two?

Awesome stuff Tim. Totally cool you took the Irongarm pics. I may have to stop giving you a hard time.

seeahill wrote:Summit of Kala Pathar, 18,514 feet, my highest point. Everest is the in the middle. Base Camp is about 1000 feet below, in the upper left side of the photo.

I always wanted to see this with my own eyes, actually be there. Hopefully I can before I die. This is amazing, and thank you for posting the pictures.

In answer to Gorby and others:

I was initially taken aback. At the start of the trip, Lukla, there were 1000s (yes thousands) of people on the trail. If you got behind a large group, you breathed in a lot of dust.

The crowds thinned out after about 13,000 feet. Hundreds on the trail. At 15,000 another thinning. Dozens of people climbed Kala Pathar the morning I did. But that's all.

After 14,000 we saw a lot of rescues. Helicopters coming in to evacuate people suffering from Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). Four or five rescues a day. Some people had to be evacuated on horseback. About 1/3 of trekkers get AMS.

We acclimatized, stopping for three "rest" days on the way up. We didn't rest on those days but climbed a couple of thousand feet, stayed for half an hour, and came back down. This is the classic "climb high, sleep low" strategy. It worked for all but one of us. This person couldn't breathe and stayed at 15,000 while the rest of us climbed on.

AMS is kind of capricious. It doesn't have anything to do with fitness, sex, age. Some people get it, some don't.

I thought I'd trained so hard for this that it would be easy. It wasn't. On the low stretches I was about in the middle of the pack. Some people passed me, I passed others. Above 16,000 I faded bad and dropped far behind my group. But I knew my pace and knew I'd make it to the summit of Kala Pathar. I just had to move slowly. Later, on the way back, we stopped in at the Himalayan Rescue Association where I had my blood oxygen level tested. 84%. The rest of the group was in the 90s. (On top of Kala Pathar you get 50% of the oxygen you get at sea level in a breath.)

How would I rate the trip: great AAA trip. Challenging for me without being out of the realm of possibility. The great thing was that our guide, Ang Dorjee, who now lives in the US with his American wife and two children, brought his family. We stopped at tea houses and lodges owned by his family, met Dorjee's mom in the house he grew up in and just generally got a lot more interaction with Sherpa people than anyone else. That cultural thing, along with the challenge and the awesome scenery made the trip. (I recall a clear full moon night with snow clad mountains bright in the moonlight: indelible memory.

Dorjee's kids and wife stayed with his mom as we climbed higher. The boy was 9, the little girl not quite 7. I could generally keep up with the kids because they got distracted and ran up and down the trail chasing butterflies and stuff.

I've got a pretty bad cough. It's called the Khumbu cough. You get it from the dust at lower elevations. Higher, you are breathing a lot of very cold air very fast. Pretty much everyone gets the Khumbu cough.

Oh, and I didn't lose much weight. Meals in the tea house are a carb festival. Plus you had to eat. Lack of appetite is one symptom of AMS and Dorjee watched everyone. Just choke down the rice or noodles so he'd let you go on.

In your estimation, what would a trip like that cost? This was sort of a freebie for you right?

It cost $3500. Airfare can be had for as little as $900. I paid a lot more for biz class for the 14 hour trip from Dubai to Seattle.

You'll probably end up paying another $500 or so for tips for porters and guides. Also, you pay for your water up high which can cost $3 for a liter, and your hotel in Kathmandu ($65/day). Meals in Kathmandu.

Figure $4,500 for the trip. Then do airfare. Ang Dorjee is affiliated with Adventure Consultants. They have Base Camp trips every year.

http://www.adventureconsultants.com/