On My Way To Everest National Park.
My Sherpa friends picked me up at 7:30 for a 9 am helicopter ride to Lukla. In what is typical in many developing countries, by 12:30 we hadn’t yet left!
Finally, we pile into the heli and I’m in the front with the South African pilot. These helicopters are specially made to go as high as camp 2 on Everest but I need to acclimatise first so we head off to Lukla’s Tenzing Hillary airport at approximately 2845 metres or 9334 feet.
The trip is pretty nice if you don’t scare easily I prefer the helicopter to the plane because the landing area is so small there is no second chance or margin of error of any kind.A helicopter pilot was saying that flying in Nepal is challenging because of the number of mountains everywhere. They need to turn off the bleeping sound which is the proximity warning since it would go off all the time. it’s like skiing down a tight run between mountains
We had a quick change of plans due to the very late start for the trekking day to Monjo since we wouldn’t make it till evening. So we organised to go to Phakding. It’s not a tough hike, typical Nepali mile, lots of ups and downs so measuring simple altitude gain is very deceiving.
It was pleasant, got into a mountain lodge (they aren’t luxurious here but fine) had our usual potatoes and nak cheese (close to a Gruyère from the female yak) then off to freezing bedtime since they don’t do heating as we know it I’m sleeping with all my hiking clothes on plus a down sleeping bag. Tomorrow is going to be a very long and tough day
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