That's what they call Mt. Everest.  At 29,028 feet it's as high as you can go on this earth. The question I seemed to get asked most about this trip is "Did you see a lot of oxygen bottles laying around everywhere?".  Ha, ha, ha.  Well the answer is more....

Lukla - Getting to Kathmandu is not an easy task. We flew from NY to LA to Tokyo to Bangkok to Kathmandu. Holy frequent flyer miles! But the real fun was taking a Russian M-17 Helicopter from Kathmandu to Lukla.  At 9,000 feet, the small village of Lukla with it's dirt landing strip, is the gateway to the Khumbu region for thousands of trekkers annually. I don't know anything about flying, but apparently the landing strip's 8 degrees of pitch has intimidated may pilots.  You don't want to overshoot it either because it dead-ends into a sheer wall of rock.

The only other way to get to Lukla besides flying is to walk from Kathmandu, and that'll take about two weeks if you decide to go that route. That's the way Sir Edmund Hillary did it back in the day (1953 to be exact). Most people, like us, choose to fly nowadays.

Cabin service on an M-17 consists of passing around a bucket of ear plugs and getting one hard candy each. more....

High Altitude - What's the big deal about the altitude anyway?   Well, if you go too high too fast, you die.  I'd say that's a pretty big deal.  Most of the time, though you just feel like crap, and it's all due to the change in atmospheric pressure as you go higher and higher.  I like to describe it as being drunk and hung-over at the same time. more....

journal
lukla
phakding
namche bazaar
thame
khunde
tengboche
dingboche
the pyramid
gorak shep
kala pattar
base camp