You're going where?

While I have talked about this for some time, it appears that I will finally be going to Nepal this October. As one might put together from the title of my blog, I will be gone for a glorious 23 days on a trek to the Gokyo region of Nepal. We chose this trek as it offered an amazing experience and fantastic views of Mount Everest, but strays just a bit off the beaten (literally) path. My trek mate on this adventure will be my good friend and backpacking buddy Jeff from nearby San Rafael.  Jeff is a serious photographer and has taken some really great shots on our earlier adventures.  Not only is he a good guy to have around, but we are going to have some fantastic photo's to share afterwards.  I will hopefully post some of them here.  I have also added a link to his photography page in the my links section.  

So the basics of the trip for those interested are as follows. We are booked to fly out of San Francisco on the 21st of October and will return to SF on the 11th of November. From SF, we will travel to Hong Kong where we will have a 23 hour layover. We plan on hitting the town for a quick visit before jumping back in an airplane to Kathmandu. Once there, we will hook up with our guide(s), get our permits and jump on a bus for a 10-12 hour ride to a village called Jiri.  Jiri marks the formal beginning of our trek as we are on foot from here on. Our route takes us up and through Lukla, where most people fly in and start their trek to Everest Base Camp, and then to Namche Bazaar where we will peel off from the main herd and continue on our trek towards Gokyo. We will spend a couple of days exploring the glacier, nearby peaks including Gokyo Ri and the breathtaking views of Mount Everest before departing down the hill to Lukla for our flight back to Kathmandu. If you have never heard of the Lukla airport, I have added a link for a video that shows an aircraft landing there. It is listed as one of the ten most dangerous airports in the world (notice I did not say deadliest...) and should be quite the experience.  I am actually looking forward to this flight! After a couple of days in Kathmandu, we catch our flight back to the states where we will resume our routine yet wonderfully satisfying lives.

This blog will serve as a personal journal and as a medium for sharing my experiences with my friends and family. I had such a great experience with the blog I kept during our adoption of our son Jack, that I decided to create one dedicated to our Nepal adventure. Our adoption blog is still something that I return to visit and reminisce over quite often and I plan on using this blog in the same fashion.