We Made It In

< Newer | Older > Thu, 03/20/2008 - 10:00 — skress
Written by Scott: Hi everyone, this is Susan and Scott writing from the fabulous Monjo Guest House in scenic Monjo in the stunning Solu Kumbu. Yes we made it in today.
We were awake at 2:30am thanks to our non-adjustment to the new time zone. Luckily Pirates of the Caribbean was on TV. We had breakfast at 4:45am and Nima met us at 5:15am and took us to the airport.
It was not looking good as the airport was socked in with fog as thick as pea soup. I was skeptical that we would fly, but by 9:00am the fog broke and we made our dash to Lukla. There was quite a backlog of flights and it was a wild exodus as planes took off one after the other.
Our Canadian made Twin Otter handled the turbulent flight well and 40 minutes later we were making our noses dive approach to Lukla.
The landing was quite smooth and our porter Pasang met us at the baggage claim. By 10:00am we were on the trail.
The hike to Monjo took 4.5 hours and was filled with spectacular vistas at every turn.
It must have been laundry day as everyone was washing their clothing. They were hunched over a wash pail filled with cold water and a bar of laundry soap. Once clean, clothes were hung on a nearby tree, bush or fence to dry. It was a powerful reminder of how lucky we are.
Tomorrow we will have breakfast at 7:30 and be on the trail to Namche by 8:00am.
Today was a great day and we are glad to have begun our trek.
We'll post again in the next day or so.
Here's to clean air and beautiful mountains, S & S.
 
Written by Susan: We were unable to get the sat phone to work last night or this morning. We keep getting disconnected from the server for some reason. Therefore, the above posting is for yesterday and the one below is for today. We are now in Namche and have access to the internet here.
We had our best night sleep of our whole trip last night. It was cold,quiet and we were very tired. We had Tibetan Bread for breakfast. It is like fried dough with jam. It was good. We were on the trail just after 8am. The beginning of the trek was pretty east for the first hour.Then the next 3 hours were all steeply uphill. There were also a number of suspension bridge crossings which I have learned are not my favorite part of the trek. There is a nice rest spots 2/3 of the way there where we had our first views of Everest. It was pretty spectacular.There were some enterprising Nepalis there selling delicious mandarin oranges. We enjoyed one each. Although the views were spectacular I needed to put on my iPod part way through, put my head down and just climb. We gained 2,000 feet of elevation today. So far we are both feeling good. I had headaches yesterday, but so far so good today. We arrived in Namche at 11:30am. We settled into our room and are just having lunch, tomatoe soup and hash brown potatoes.  We will go to the internet café after lunch and then explore town later. A great day so far.
Susan and Scott

Messages

Lukla - Monjo

Cas — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 10:24

Having done this twice last year ..this is one of my favourite parts of the trek. Its not because its the most spectacular, or the most difficult or even the most dramatic part... Its because after the hussle and bussle of KTM and the hectic/lottery at the airport, the trek is finally under way..... Its quiet, the air is clean and its just a great feeling to be on the way.
Hope the rumours that your climb is confirmed on the South Side are correct. Enjoy the trek and those lovely mandarines

Cas

Yeah !!

Visitor — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 12:05

I am so glad you are on your way and that everything is going to work out.
I love reading your updates...they make my day. Wish I was there with you !!
Stay safe and enjoy every minute !!
Janicke

Glad you're on your way.

Visitor — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 12:16

I'm so glad to hear you are on your way Scott and Susan. Enjoy!

Dave

Enjoy the trek

Angus Murray — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 14:11

Dear Scott and Susan,
Good to hear you are on your way. Thanks for all your work in Kathmandu Scott, having you there to meet with Phil Crampton helped transition our climb from the north to the south side I am sure. I look forward to seeing you in Ktm on March 30. And I look forward to eating more Tibetan bread!
Angus

See you there!

Mike Brennan — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 14:48

Great news,assuming the swap over is certain...so we may meet up yet somewhere along the line....I'm intrigued to see how the rules work out on the ground in the next month. Enjoy your trek.

hi

pippy — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 16:19

such an amazing interesting read and trust SB2 to give us all the details. how high are you right now?
love your little buddy pippy

Greetings Scott and Susan...

wmpopper — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 17:12

Thank You both for sharing your adventure and hope that much goes very well.
wp

Climb On!

Visitor — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 17:54

Hi Guys,

Congrats on getting in! Still lots of rumors but nothing real to stop us from going all the way to the top! Great dispatches - keep 'em coming.

Climb On!
Alan

Excellent!

Visitor — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 20:16

Have fun Scott. Take some pictures of Cholatse for me will yah?

Climb on, Namaste Namaste Namaste.

chris

Alan's mantra "Climb On"

Mary Clare Reinhardt — Thu, 03/20/2008 - 20:29

Glad you guys made it to Lukla and had such a good day! Repeating Alan's mantra... "Climb On"! Or at least for now... "Trek On"!

MC

Enjoy the Trek

taloeffler — Fri, 03/21/2008 - 01:49

Hi. Yahoo for getting underway. If you've got time, make sure you head towards Thamo and Thame-it makes for a good leg stretching walk without too much elevation gained or lost (though Thame is a big day's outing).

Say hi to the Khumbu Valley for me,

TA

Reply to you all

skress — Fri, 03/21/2008 - 11:53

Hi everyone. Thanks for all your messages. Susan and I love reading them. Sorry not to reply to each of you, but we have limited internet. We compose our dispatches on the PDA and cut and paste. So we can not build replies into the dispatch just now. We may not post for a few days. As we go higher internet access is limited and I need to hope the sat phone pda combo works.
Scott and Susan.