The long awaited "I'm off to Base Camp" picture thread

***Crap, IDK why the fkn pics did'nt upload, I fkn hate this process,,,,,,I'll try again tmrw***
***Tried again, this time I used IMGUR,,,,,IDK what the hell is wrong with submitting these pictures


I'm starting a new thread for those of you who hadn't followed the original thread. For various reason, I hadn't had time to post them/ I am recovering from a total hip replacement x 1 week so I had a few minutes to be able to do this.

Here's the itinerary
Day 1: April 22nd: Arrive in Kathmandu
Day 2: April 23rd: Fly to Lukla
Day 3: April 24th: Namche Bazaar
Day 4: April 25th: Namche Bazaar (Acclimatization Day)
Day 5: April 26th: Namche Bazaar (Acclimatization Day)
Day 6: April 27th: Tengboche
Day 7: April 28th: Dingboche
Day 8: April 29th: Dingboche (Acclimatization Day)
Day 9: April 30th: Lobuche
Day 10: May 1st: Gorak Shep and Kala Pattar
Day 11: May 2nd: Everest Base Camp
Day 12: May 3rd: Periche
Day 13: May 4th: Namche Bazaar
Day 14: May 5th: Lukla
Day 15: May 6th: Fly to Kathmandu
Day 16: May 7th: At Leisure in Kathmandu and Transfer to airport


I departed April 15th, flying out of Bush Intl, landing in Dubai for 9 hours and then on to a 4.5 hr flight into Kathamandu,,,,jet lag is real, I landed around 0800 that morning and hated life for 36 hrs.

After getting my bearings and rest, I traveled the Thamel district, and then toured Kathmandu for 3 days.



The Hindu cremate their dead along the Ganges river:





I returned to Katmandu Intl for the flight to Lukla,,,,so called the most dangerous airport on Earth,,,IDK about that, but a plane I took pics of a plane (green plane, first pic)crashed about 2 weeks after got back home, no survivors.







We stayed in Lukla about an hour waiting on 4 yaks and a yak man then we got on the trail.






We didn't make Namche Baazar the first day,,,,we had a team member that struggled so we stopped short and made Namche the next day.



In Namche we stayed a few days and climbed (about 1500-200ft each day, climb high, sleep low to build red blood cells) to acclimatize and sight see.


We found a Wal Mart




Went to the highest Irish bar in the world
LINK

We also met the oldest living survivor of the first successful summit of Everest in 1953,,,it think he was 147 years old.


Then we hit the trail for Tengboche




Tengboche Monastery,,,,I think this one was finished in 1605,,,,,the monk that built it had his head and hand preserved for all the enter to observe.

LINK



We ran across the monk in the above photo who was smoothing out freshly poured cement that some asswipe stepped in,,,,he wasn't much of a talker.

We hit the road early for a long day to Loboche,,,,here, you are above the tree line so they no longer burn firewood, they burn yak dung,,,,smells like death. It also started to get really cold.








The next morning we departed in -5 degrees and a snowstorm for Gorak Shep (translated Dead Ravens). We walked through the memorials of the dead hikers/climbers




After a really cold night we woke up to clear skies and -10 and hit the road for Base Camp arriving about noon,,,,of note here, the Sherpas didn't wear gloves,,,,I asked one after about 2 hrs on the trial why they did that and he put his hand on my face and it was warm.



It got pretty warm when the sun came out on the approach to base camp.


We ate lunch as a group before going explore


Khumbu Ice Fall Glacier






We returned to base camp and took the obligatory pic on the famous rock before retiring for the night in -5 temps.



We woke up in the middle of the night to several avalanches and I was ready to GTFO at first light,,,,we had several really long days, 8-10 hrs each day with the first stop at Periche.





Then on to Namche, and finally Lukla.



The flight from Lukla was sketch at best with really bad weather. We were socked in for a few hrs, then a small gap opened for a very short period of time,,,,,we took a shot at it and flew under the nasty stuff,,,,really sketch at best.


I took a really long shower once in Kathmandu, ate some good food, got an all day massage then packed up for 22 more hours of fling back to Houston.

To go to altitude, you should take Ibuprofen and I did each day,,,,when I got back, I had a constant pain in my right hip which indicated a need for a total replacement. I just had that,,,just got back in the gym 4 days after surgery to train up for another trip to K2 next. Hope you all enjoyed.