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EVEREST PANORAMA
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EVEREST PANORAMA The following article is kindly donated by Margaret and John Speight who trekked with Golden Hill Travel on a customized Everest Panorama adventure. The Everest Panorama is a popular trek with our local guides that can be customized for two or more persons, click here for more information. ‘Our guide,Tsering Sherpa, was friendly helpful and kind – all we could have wanted. He ensured that we saw the best views of Everest, Lhotse and much much more’ “Have a safe journey home”. Us have a safe journey home! - all we had to do was meander down the hill from Khumjung via Namche to Phakding, but our well-wishers were potential Everest summiteers heading off to Tengboche and thence on to Base Camp to prepare for a summit attempt at the beginning of May. Apparently there are 28 teams preparing to climb Everest this Spring - some via the North Face from Tibet, but the majority from Base Camp on the Khumbu Glacier. So far we had encountered three teams and a Dutchman trying to acclimatise before joining his team in Kathmandu., and watched the yaks return empty from delivering supplies to Base Camp. We had flown out from Kathmandu to Lukla with the Canadian team and shared with them the excitement of the first glimpse of Everest. Hard to believe that three of their team would hopefully be standing on the top in a few weeks’ time. We continued to encounter the Canadians en route to Namche and then met up again in our lodge at Khumjung. A shortage of electrical plugs meant that their Internet broadcasts were carried out in the unsalubrious surroundings of the toilets - off-putting for all concerned! Their departure was followed by the arrival of an Italian team - Cantabrian Everest 2000, a very cheerful crowd, who were obviously carbo-loading as they fell upon the chocolate pudding in the evening and only managed to eat the porridge at breakfast if it was accompanied by mounds of honey. Hank, the Dutchman we met at Pangboche, was suffering from altitude sickness and had descended from Pheriche to recover. He was part of an Anglo-Dutch team, and regarding the question as to where Dutch climbers train, well, apparently it is on Ben Nevis or in the Ardennes in Belgium. Hank’s girlfriend had been the first Dutch woman ever to summit Everest the previous year and he was seeking to emulate her feat. It was also in the lodge at Pangboche that we had our strangest and most interesting encounter. We had just arrived, and ordered tea and pancakes after acknowledging the presence of a lama in the corner of the room (whose lodge this was), when the room suddenly filled up with noisy Italians - 31 of them, comprising the Catalonian expedition to Everest. They were there to seek the lama’s blessing for their venture and for the next hour and a half, this was what took place. The lama blessed eight prayer shawls for the eight hopeful summiteers, then proceeded to chant and read from scrolls and ring bells, while all around cameras flashed and video cameras rolled. We ate our pancakes and watched in fascination as finally all 31 were presented to the lama, money exchanged hands and they all received a written blessing and good luck message. Since our safe return to England, we have followed the progress of these and other ‘ expeditions on the Everest website and can only fervently hope that Byron and Hank and the others all return safely. Our thoughts are also with those in the expedition run by New Zealander Guy Cotter, whom we encountered at Namche and again at Khumjung where he and his wife and small children were renting a house. Guy had taken over Adventure Consultants after his friend Rob Hall had died near the summit of Everest in 1996, along with so many others that dreadful year, and Guy had been involved in the rescue attempt. We also remember a charming German man called “Thomas, who had left home two years previously to cycle through Europe and India, had parked his bike at Jiri to walk alone in the Himalayas, and hope that he is still enjoying his travels. We met so many fascinating people, not forgetting most importantly of all, the Nepalese themselves, so friendly and happy to welcome us to their beautiful country. In the Sherpa museum at Namche we learned more of their heroism on Everest and the largely unsung work they perform for the numerous expeditions, and we also met, in the lodge at Namche, the husband of the woman leading an all-female Sherpa party attempting to climb Everest this year. We returned from our visit to Nepal quite mesmerised by our experiences both in the Himalayas and in Kathmandu too, and also humbled by the determination of those we met on our trek. Everyone was heading for a peak, from Everest, through Kala Pattar to Gokyo Ri. We managed a leisurely trek, but were rewarded with magnificent views of Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse, etc and like many others, fell in love with Ama Dablam, a beautiful mountain whose shape quite eclipses its greater neighbours,’ For more information on this and other adventure opportunities with Golden Hill Travel contact info@goldenhilltravel.co.uk |