On the way home

 Winter storm on the way back from Gorek Shep. 

 Channeling my inner Chuck Norris.

In the rhododendron forest.

To infinity and beyond

 Top of Kalla Pattar. 18,500'

 Base Camp Marker.  17,500'

Almost there

 Every can of Pringles in smashed.  But I ate the whole can in 30 minutes.

 Dutifully journaling.  

The Kumbu glacier.

Getting high

 Scrambling across this is difficult.

Good morning.

Hiking up

 Inside a monastery in Tengboche.

 

Completely exhausted on an acclimation hike at 16,000 feet.

Higher, Higher, Higher

First view of Everest.  (tiny triangle in the background) From the Everest View Hotel. 

 Cake is taken very seriously at this hotel...

 This lady was knitting hats.  Got one.

Morning at 13,800 feet.  Trouble breathing, trouble eating, trouble... well I'll leave it at that. 

a few days of stuff

The plane to Lukla.  Where we start walking.  16 seater.  Nice.

Air drying our shirts. 

A monestary.  Doors are short in order to keep ghosts out.  (they believe ghosts can't duck)-totally true

And then she saw I had a camera... 

Maya.  Adopted by some tea house owners.

 Steep.  Steep.  Steep.

A typical tea house dining hall. 

 Morning tea with the moutains in Namche.

That's me, on top of the rock.

Another view from Namche

I'm sitting inside a tea house.

Namche Bazaar

Coming to u live from 11,700 feet. Long day of nearly vertical hiking.

Kathmandu 2

Getting ready to fly to Lukla.  Apparently Lukla has the MOST DANGEROUS runway in the world.  Not making that up.  Google it. 

I am experiencing a lot of personal challenges.  Using lots of antibacterial lotion to stay healthy. 

The suit thing was pretty cool.  Only white person around.  Bartered for a low(er) price.  Can wait to see the finished product. 

Flying out tomorrow morning at 5 am.  LETS GET TREKKING!

Kathmandu

 Getting fitted for my SUPER SUIT. 

 My daily bathing facilites.

 (Ok, this is not a joke)  Cremation area.  Families come to burn the dead here.

My new drinking buddies.  Man, those guys can PARTY!  

At another holy site.

Cheerio Snack

Mom, the cheerio snack tastes just like I remember it!  (What? Some "spilled" out of the bag when I was packng it.)

Training

So, the official training results are in. 

For this adventure

Since June 20th, I swam 50 seperate times ranging from 1000M to over 1.1 miles.  (I'm mixing my meters and miles because I swam at a 50M pool and a 25yd pool!)  I gradually increased the number of strokes taken per breath and got up to 6.  When I started I was struggling to do two.  Yes, I wore a speedo, but it was knee lenth.  Maybe that's why Bea wouldn't come swimming with me.

I ran 10-5K races this summer.  Topping it off with a 24:59 race time.  My slowest time when I started running was around 29:00+.  Maybe I should've eaten that burrito after the race.

48 miles of hiking, mostly in 1hr segments, carrying 40lbs of sand in my pack and sometimes the poodle.  Got a lot of weird looks when carrying the poodle.  And that was just from Bea. 

13 episodes of stair climbing at the high school stadium.  This was so boring.  But I occasionally caught a football or soccer game. 

Push-ups:  20.  (Not sure what happened there)