Just 33 days until I leave for my hiking trip in Scotland, which I discussed in an earlier post. Since that earlier post, I've been reading additional information about my planned route -- beautiful and scenic, but, as I've also discovered, wet, muddy, exposed to high winds and heavy rains, and infested with ticks and the famous midges previously lamented. Parts of the route get 100 inches of rainfall per year -- and August is frequently a rainy month.
Wow, if I'd wanted to be all that miserable, I could have stayed in Seattle!
But the Scotland hike -- assuming I survive -- will be merely a training exercise for this year's major pedestrian effort.
During the first three weeks of October, Pascal and I will once more return to Nepal, this time for a serious exploration of the Mt. Everest region. Pascal, long-time readers of this blog may recall, also joined me for Himalayan treks in the Ladakh region of the Indian Himalayas in 2005, and to Annapurna base camp in 2009. He's now 24, and surely old enough to be settling into a quiet middle age, but he seems eager to leap into yet another expedition, and, if necessary, to assist in returning my remains to my family in a body bag. We'll be part of a total party of five trekkers.
My nephew Denny and I hiked to the base of Everest in 1995, and this year's trek follows the same route for the first two or three days -- from the tiny airport at Lukla to the Sherpa "capital" of Namche Bazaar (11,200 ft.). Our trail then leaves the main "yak highway" to Everest base camp, and heads in a more northwestern direction, ending up in the Gokyo Valley. From that valley, we will view Everest from a different, more westerly perspective, rather than from the south as we did in 1995. From the Gokyo valley, we'll have excellent, close-up views of four of the eight tallest peaks on earth: Everest, Cho Oyu, Lhotse, and Makalu. Along the route, we'll also have views of other magnificent peaks: Ama Dablam, Nuptse, Teng Kangpoche, and Kwongde.
While only the most basic and dirtiest of accommodations -- "tea houses" -- existed trailside in 1995, and our group of four hikers camped in tents, 16 years have done their bit in "improving" the wilderness. And so we'll be staying in trekking lodges in the lower and more accessible areas, such as Namche Bazaar (where Denny and I shared a tent in our guide's "front yard" in 1995, eating our meals upstairs in his house as chickens wandered up and down the stairs, and yaks made restless noises below in the first floor stables). But we'll camp in tents after Namche, as our trek takes us to higher and more remote regions.
After enjoying the lake-studded Gokyo valley (15,800 ft.) for a couple of days, we begin our climb to the high point of the trek -- Renjo La pass, at 17,880 ft. If I'm still alive once I reach that elevation, Renjo La will be the third highest elevation I've ever attained (outside an airplane). Only Kilimanjaro (19,300 ft.) and Kalapatar (18,200 ft.) at the base of Everest have been higher. I was younger for those climbs, of course, and no doubt had heartier lungs -- and more spare brain cells that I could afford to lose to the ravages of hypoxia.
Oh well, we'll just have to see how it goes!
After crossing over Renjo La, our trail loops back and descends for about three days until it re-unites with the main Everest trail at Namche Bazaar, and thence back down to Lukla (9,200 ft.), where a plane will fly us back to Kathmandu.
I'm not overlooking the pleasures and challenges of my upcoming Scottish hike, but obviously I'll be using it to check out all my bodily systems, hoping to assure myself that they'll be functioning properly in October. Both trips will be exciting, and I'm looking forward eagerly to both.
-----------------------Photo -- Everest viewed from Gokyo Valley
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