To Lukla and Beyond!
At 9350 ft in elevation, 1510 ft long and 66 ft wide the Lukla airstrip is the most dangerous in the world. Built in 1964 by Sir Edmund Hillary it is the gateway to the Khumbu valley. The runway slopes upwards into the hill and the opposite end stops at a “gentle” cliff that drops off to the valley over 1000 ft below. This was our destination. We started our day in the chaos that is Kathmandu, leaving the Yak and Yeti at 7:30 am only to arrive at the airport to hurry up and wait for close to seven hours. Around 2:30 pm we were informed that all flights to Lukla were cancelled due to high winds in the Khumbu. But Wally (our expedition operator) had a Plan B – Helicopter! The ride was spectacular and we enjoyed every minute of it. We also...
Arriving at the Yak and Yeti in Kathmandu
My wife and I left Saskatoon in the grip of yet another winter storm. The storm was so bad that when the cab driver was leaving our neighborhood he did not know which way to go. He could not see a road because the snow had drifted across the road and was level with the surrounding snow banks, we assured him that plowing straight through was the course to take. It was. There was a bit of a tunnel through from some previous vehicles, he hit it right and we make it out of our neighborhood! Lifting off we felt lucky to get out of Saskatoon and on our way. Travelling is never fun, and we had a long haul including an over night in Bangkok, but nonetheless we were excited to arrive in Kathmandu a balmy +26 Celsius temperature. As we stepped out of our van...
Final Prep
There is a little over a week before I go. Lucky for me I love gear, because for Everest I need a lot of it. The list is too long to duplicate, but needless to say there are duplicates of many items. Going through everything, checking it twice, takes time. But there is another process that is occurring. I am about to leave the world for several months and I need to prepare everything else for the time I am away. Climbing Everest is not just a physical challenge, it is a mental challenge as well. Not a mental challenge like an extremely technical climb is, but one in which you have to keep a focused headspace. I leave Saskatoon in the last grips of a long cold winter, to go and climb up into a colder and meaner one, and when I return several months from now I...
Gearing Down
In less than twenty days I will be heading to the Big E. As the departure date for Katmandu nears, I have been receiving many of comments about how I must be in a really high gear of my training. It is exactly the opposite; I have been and will continue to be gearing down. That said, I am still training 7 – 10 hours a week but along with the time, the intensity has been lessened. The fact is, with climbing as a passion I always train. While it would be extremely trite to say Everest is just another mountain (because it is not, it is in a class all by itself because of its height), in some ways to me this is another climb on the list of climbs that I want to do. I recently reflected about how many days I have been in the mountains climbing the past 12...
Road Warrior Training
As I write this, I know I have eight hours, one more airport and one more flight to go before I get home. Home…it seems like a foreign concept after staying in five different cities over eight days. This amount of travel can be quite disorientating. Moving around so much, you start to feel disconnected from your life. Zipping across the continent – first west, then east, then south – with the time zone changes affects your sleep cycles. As well, business travel is busy, you try to pack as much as possible in while you are there for the short time. Flying is not fast, it is a time sucker. So how do you train when travelling? You lower your expectations and do what you can. In the last eight days I only got in four cardio sessions (three runs and...