Trek Map

Time left at posting: 2111 hours

I thought I would add a map showing our trek to give everyone a better idea of what we are doing.  Pardon the crude attempt at Paintshop, but I wanted to show our route and points of interest.  I highlighted our route in yellow and marked our starting point and destination.  I also noted Everest Base Camp so you can see where we are in relation to it.  Gokyo does offer some very nice views of Everest as long as the weather cooperates, so we should get to see it even though we are skipping Base Camp.  The route we are taking is roughly 70 miles not including any side trips and has an elevation gain of 11,300 vertical feet

 

From our starting point in Jiri, it should  take us somewhere around 6-8 days of walking to arrive at Namche Bazaar.  Once there, we need to take a mandatory rest/acclimatization day, after which we can continue on with our hike to Gokyo.  We will follow the same path back to Lukla (more or less) and fly out for Kathmandu at the end of the trek.  We are hoping to have enough time for some side trips.  I am pretty sure we will take a day hike while acclimating in Namche Bazaar and perhaps have time to play around in Gokyo a bit more than we currently have planned.  We will have to wait and see how our schedule goes and if we can free up some time.

As for the preparations, we are getting ready to send our passports off to get our visas so we don't have to do it after arriving in country.  We don't have a lot of time to waste once we arrive in Kathmandu, so it is best to do what we can before leaving.  I have to get a bunch of passport photo's in the couple of days for our visas, permits and everything else.  I have also gotten my physical and started my vaccinations in preparation for our trip.  Nothing major, just 5 or 6 boosters to make my doctor happy.  My doctor also highly recommended an advanced medical kit to take along with us as well as a few additional items that we will need, so I am putting all that together.  Lots of health related items going with us, but the last thing we need is to get ill while trekking.

T - 100 Days and Counting...

Time left at posting: 2405 hours

Just a quick recognition of the fact we have 100 days left before we leave.  We now enter the strange and wonderful land of double digits.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy

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The Space Between

Time left at posting: 2543 hours

It's the old story of hurry up and wait!  We are currently at a point where nothing much needs to be done and the lack of exciting milestones in our trip preparations makes it seem as if our departure day is still years away.  It is the dead space between those exciting times in planning, preparation and actually leaving for our trip. Pretty much all the major preparations that can be done at this early stage have already been done, and it is still too early to start on most of what is left.  I did send a small retainer to our guide in Nepal today via Western Union (did you even know they still existed?), but I have not really thought about the trip much other than that.   That I am completely and thoroughly overwhelmed by my Java II class probably has a little something to do with keeping my mind off of Nepal, but I think is also has to do with the fact that my "to-do" list has no priority items needing to be completed at the moment.  So I wait!

Up to this point, I have not really told many people about my blog.  While I welcome any and all readers, I figure that most of you would prefer to wait until the actual trip starts and there is something worth reading on these pages.  I will probably post the blog on my Facebook page in the next few months or so and thereby open it up to the rest of the world, but your more than welcome to pass on my blog address if you feel so inclined.  This is not a private blog by any means.  And for those chosen few that are out there, please don't hesitate to add a comment or ask a question.  I had no idea that anyone was reading this until I was recently asked why I had not posted an entry in the last few weeks.  Corrections in spelling and grammar are always appreciated as well.  After all, I am almost a collage graduate and have a reputation to protect ;-)