Let the trek begin!

Its been an awesome few days since I last updated from Kathmandu

We left on Tuesday morning on a twin prop 18 seater light aircraft from Kathmandu to Lukla, a tiny airstrip only 500 meters in the foothills of the Himalaya. Was an amazing flight, with a sharp sudden descent into the landing.

Check out the video below of the planes taking off! Cliff edge on one side of the runway and a wall on the other, not much scope for error! No wonder this airport is labelled the most dangerous in the world.

From Lukla we began our trek, first to Monjo for the first night and then on the second day we trekked alongside the Dudh Kosi river to Namche Bazar, crossing wonderful suspension bridges straight out of Indiana Jones and catching our first view of Everest in the distance along the way.

My bags hadn’t made it from Kathmandu so I used this stop in the largest trading post in the Khumbu to buy some basic essentials and a “dumb” phone for use at base camp. Base camp veterans all believe that simple phones receive better reception higher up the mountain and I’ve also picked up a local SIM card and receiving sporadic 3G now. The wifi connections in the tea houses have however been significantly worse than I had expected from online research pre-trip.

I’ve also managed to get my inreach satellite communicator working so from here on in (and hopefully to the summit!), you can follow our progress through the Garmin Mapshare.