Tag: Nepal

Lukla Airport, Nepal

By Mike Huber

Yet again apologies for the prolonged hiatus from writing.  I think five or six countries have passed since my previous blogs and I have just been caught up in the moment and dealing with life in my own way (is there any other way to deal with it?).  Having a bit of downtime over the holidays I thought I would try to pick up where I believe I left off.

In April I was scheduled for a 0700 flight from Ramechhap Airport in Nepal into Lukla Airport, which is the gateway to Everest Base Camp.  It is only a 20-minute flight between the two airports and as I stated in my previous blog after three days of delays forced me to scrap the Everest Base Camp trek originally. This was due to constant cancellations e to weather conditions.  As you can imagine the weather patterns in the Himalayan Mountains aren’t always smooth. There is nothing more demoralizing then boarding a flight and having the props fire up and then have the flight scratched and having to deplane.  Actually, there is.  That being if you fly halfway to Lukla and then are forced to return to Ramechhap due to winds.  This isn’t the best way to start off your journey to the rooftop of the world.

Lukla Airport is the world’s most dangerous airport.  Nature is brutal in these mountains and add in the dramatic runway at a 45-degree angle which ends abruptly and drops off 2,000 feet into some foggy abyss becomes a recipe for either numerous cancelled flights, or worse yet, a disaster.  When the Airport is up and running it is quite a sight.  Helicopters in and out constantly in-between fixed wing aircraft landing and gear and supplies being wheeled all over the tarmac.  It’s probably not only the most dangerous airport in the world but the busiest one for having only a single runway.

The other thing that I was to learn was even though it took four days to obtain a successful flight into the airport (I ended up opting for a helicopter to improve my odds of making it to Everest Base Camp) was that leaving Lukla airport is just as difficult. After two days of cancelled flights to return to Katmandu I once again chose to take a helicopter.

I was fortunate that I was in no rush, that and having the foresight to obtain a 90-day visa for Nepal almost assured me that I would eventually make it in and out of Lukla with minimal stress.  Having both time and patience was required for this as five full days of my two months in Nepal were spent gaining access and leaving Everest Base Camp through Lukla Airport.  I knew this time spent sitting in the airport making new friends would pay off once I began the trek to Everest Base Camp.

Another great asset was having my tour guide Kiran from www.theholidaytrek.com make the layovers much more tolerable as all I had to do was show up and hope the flight would be a go.  He took care of all the bookings, rebookings, and hotel accommodation setups.  I am not one to plug companies and I rarely am on tours but Kiran made being stranded for five days almost fun.  There also was another positive out of it.  While having a captive audience in Lukla I became friends with another trekker and we are going to be neighbors in the next country I travel to in a week.  Colombia!

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

 

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Nepal Annapurna Trek Part 1

By Mike Huber

You can catch up with earlier parts of Mike’s Nepal adventure here.

With the inability to reach Lukla Airport due to weather my guide and I were feeling defeated as we bounced along the bumpy road back to Katmandu.  We each had a couple of beers along the ride to kill the boredom and try to determine what next steps would be.  Upon arrival in Nepal I had the foresight to purchase a 90-day visa to be proactive should things go sideways, as they seem to always do.

Upon returning to Katmandu my tour operator Kiran met me at the hotel with a new itinerary. One that would lift my spirits for sure.  There was another trek I was contemplating, The Annapurna Circuit. It was a 17-day trek which was more remote than the Everest one. This would now replace the Everest Base Camp Trek.  Kiran then added that upon completing the Annapurna Circuit I would helicopter from Katmandu to Lukla as rotary winged aircraft had much less restrictions in terms of visibility.  All in all this would fill up a month and a half and allow me to hopefully complete both objectives (Annapurna and Everest Base Camp).

The next day Guyen, my guide and I were on our way on another local bus that would take us to Tribeni Tol, which was the starting point of the trek at a low 738 meters in elevation.  The first few days would remain at those low elevation but long days, up to 27k.  There were a lot of fires in Nepal and the region we were trekking had the worse air quality on Earth (even worse than New Delhi, India).

Not being much of a hiker and even less of a trekker it didn’t take long before I realized being uncomfortable was part of this hobby.  Something was almost always hurting. My previous occupation of falling out of airplanes had me feeling constant pain in my back and constant knee issues. Being used to having pain here or there (or everywhere) I travel with a plethora of medicines.  Pretty much a full kit and as needed I reload in countries where most of these drugs are over the counter.

It didn’t take but half a day and my knees were beyond shot.  My hiking poles became crutches.  It was time to dig into my medicine kit and see if I had anything that could help. A challenge with my med kit is the pills are from literally all over the world so whenever I need something I have to hope there is a cell signal for me to cross reference it and translate it.  After tearing the kit apart I found something that I thought may help.  It was a powerful anti-inflammatory I picked up in Romania.  As I opened the pills they looked a bit odd.  They were longer and sorta waxy.  Back to the internet I went. As it turns out it’s a suppository. At this point I was in a ton of pain and contemplating turning back as I didn’t want to get into trouble further u the trek due to this injury.

I gave the pills a shot, and with my dinner of chicken momos completed it was time to go to sleep to see if these Romanian anti-inflammatory pills would be able to salvage my trek.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Nepal: The Everest Base Camp Trek That Never Was

By Mike Huber

Day 1

The phone in my hotel began ringing, I fumbled for the receiver as I looked at my cell phone stating the time was 00:02. I had slept pretty hard and woke up thinking I was in Marrakesh, Morocco. I had one hour remaining before my Sherpa was due to arrive at my hotel.  As I became a bit more aware it hit me that none of what just went through my head made any sense.  Suddenly a pounding on my hotel door began echoing through my head. Ok, it was my Sherpa, but I was in Katmandu and not Morocco.  Dammit, it happened again: I lost track of where I was.  To add to the matter, the Sherpa was an hour early or I was an hour late.  Either way there was a gap in communication somewhere and it was time to get going.

Having just spent two days exploring and meandering through the vast number of temples in Kathmandu, the time had come for me to load up my gear and begin a 12-day trek to Everest Base Camp.  Once having my wits about me and double checking all my sensitive items were in tow, my Sherpa and I began our walk to a local bus stop where we would catch a shuttle to Ramechhap Airport.  My flight was set to depart at 0700 that morning.

The 5-hour shuttle ride to Ramechhap was anything but smooth.  Most of the roads through this portion of Nepal were under construction so there was no sleep to be had by anyone along the ride.  Eventually the rough van ride came to an end.  I had arrived at Ramechhap Airport with enough time to grab myself a coffee and my Sherpa a hot tea prior to checking in for what was to be a quick flight to Lukla Airport.

Lukla is the world’s most dangerous airport. It sits at around 9,000 feet in altitude and the runway is literally a giant ramp.  This airport even on good days faces some heavy dangers for aircraft due to winds and very low visibility. It is also the start for the Everest Base Camp (or summit) treks and during the high season is very bustling for such a small hub with only that one ramp of a runway.

As I checked my backpack and went through the airport security at Ramechhap I learned my flight would be delayed due to low visibility. I wasn’t thrilled but I also have the luxury of time, so there was little to do outside chat up several other travelers who were also doing the trek.  As far as airport delays, this one was actually pleasant due to all these really wonderful people I was surrounded by.

As the day went on (as did the full ground stop) my Sherpa and I began to lose hope of making it to Lukla.  This was a bit frustrating but out of our control, so we booked a hotel and would try again the following morning to get to Lukla.  There was really nothing to do but go with the flow and enjoy some of the local food and people that were here.

Day 2

The routine was similar and again there was yet another full ground stop for fixed-wing aircraft.  This time it was fog at Lukla.  It was only a 20-minute flight to get there.

With many of the same people from the previous day there we all began talking and telling stories to pass the time.  Some of these people chose to pay $400USD to take a helicopter into Lukla as the conditions were safe enough for them.  Many of the others didn’t have that luxury of time that I did, as most were on vacation. As 1400 rolled around we knew we would not be making it to Lukla this day and yet again a hotel was the plan. We would try again tomorrow.

Day 3

This was starting to get a bit silly.  The airport café guy knew my order by this point.  I was one of the first people at the airport that morning and I helped with opening the gates and letting vehicles onto the airfield (I probably wasn’t’ supposed to do that).  I was feeling like Tom Hanks in the movie The Terminal, but the weather looked sunny and the first couple flights had taken off.  Cheers erupted through the airport and it was now our turn to board our flight.  Everyone was loaded into the small prop plane and just as soon as the engines fired up they were cut.  We were told to deplane and that winds kicked up again.  It was our third day being scratched and although I was in no rush this scene was getting old.

Rarely do I use tourism companies but this was one time I was happy I did with all the cancellations. Kiran, the tour operator from Holiday Treks & Expeditions, took care of everything from the rebooking, to the hotels, to (sadly) my painful van ride back to Kathmandu. This made my life much less stressful and quite easy, but it didn’t look like Everest Base Camp was in the cards for me. It was a somber ride back to the city, but sharing a couple beers and jokes with my Sherpa helped keep morale up.  My main objective in Nepal was to see Mt Everest and to experience the base camp trek, so I wasn’t sure what would be my next move.

Join our Facebook ExNotes page!

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Help us keep the lights on:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!