BACK HOME with lots of good memories

What an amazing trek ... definitely stepping into the unknown and stretching our boundaries allowed us to experience some spectacular views and witness the resilient people of Nepal in their day to day life.   Once I regain more hours of sleep, I will post another more detailed update.  In the meantime, here are a few more photos, such as our porters and guide, yaks, Stupa memorial to Hillary & Tenzing, us wirth flags at Hillary's school in Khumjung, and other scenes.  Prayer flags were everywhere.

BACK IN KATHMANDU

What a great journey it has been.  We arrived back in Kathmandu yesterday and today we are simply relaxing and enjoying the heat of the day (about 80 F) before we return home to the oncoming winter weather!

 

Here are 3 of our photos, one at Base Camp Everest and the other two of me on top of Kala Pathar.

SUMMITTED KALA PATHAR

We all reached our destination at Everest Base Camp.  We were elated.  After many photos, resting and taking in the scenery, we headed back to our tea house for the night.  It was a restless night for me as my friend Sandra was suffering from a cold and was very congested causing her to wake up choking on her flem.  She recovered but by this point it was close to 4am and time for me to get up and get ready to hike Kala Pathar with our guide Hom, another porter and our friend Shondra.  It was an early start at 4:30 am with temperature around -10C.  I could feel the cold air in my hiking boots but as long as I kept moving, I was comfortable.  In approaching the summit, my spirit soared and out came the camera, the flag, my GPS for a geocache photo and then I tried to capture the experience.  I was fortunate to find someone to take my picture at the highest point.  Time past quickly and we needed to get back to the tea house for breakfast.  It was 8:30am; we gathered our gear and hiked down to our next tea house at Periche for the night.  It was a long but rewarding day.  It was still cold the next morning waking up.  We huddled around the woodstove before departing for Namche Bazaar.  I was so grateful to have experienced this.