Kongde Day one

Monday, Day 1,

Woke up around 2:30, so I started worrying about baggage, do I have a headlamp?. I cannot say I was not excited to jump in  a cab in the dark at 5:30 AM to catch the flight to Lukla.  I want my crampons.  After waiting in the airport for 3 hours, looking at everyone’s boots I was wondering; Why are you wearing your brand new, never used La Sportiva Spantiks, $750 double boots, to ride an airplane?  I finally decided it was to save weight in the baggage. But you should at least scuff up those boots once or twice.

Then we were on the airplane getting cotton for our ears from the immaculate stewardess, then  landed bounce bounce bounce in Lukla, and waited around for another 3 hours for Nima’s bag of borrowed climbing gear to arrive, ate a couple of hard boiled eggs and some garlic soup, bought a hat . This is the first day of walking, it is cloudy like it might rain.  My hard shell is  in the lost bag.

 The plan was to walk to where the trail crosses the stream,  at Ghat, about an hour short of Phakding, and then hike up the mountain as far as possible.  But the late start because of Nima’s missing bag made that plan impossible.  The problem is that the walk to Ghat is all down hill from Lukla. I know exactly how far it is from Ghat to Phakding because after we decamped at the worst tea house I have ever stayed in (where is the bathroom?  Downstairs, turn left, outside…). I walked to Hermann’s German bakery to visit my friend the baker, who was very glad to see me.  He gave me some ginger lemon tea and I bought some round bread, chocolate cake, peanut cookies and he gave me another bag of cookies.  Ghat must be around 8,000 feet, which will be our starting elevation tomorrow. I walked back in the dark, but Nima had sent two of the porters to find me.