Regardless of whether a certain SherpaTrek writer will be joining the rest of the group for the upcoming Nepal departure date (still no passport), here is a run through of the action-packed travel itinerary. It starts with a Sunday morning flight out of Salt Lake City to Los Angeles and then a long stretch to Taiwan. I still can’t imagine how an airliner can stay in flight for such a distance (but I sure hope it does). From there it’s a relatively short hop to Bangkok for a day and a half of shopping, and then the last leg of the flight to Kathmandu, which will be on Wednesday. That gives the group two days to take in as much as possible from the bewildering choices for sightseeing. Personally I think the best itinerary option for those two days will be to not get sick. That might involve such conservative sightseeing options as hiding in the hotel room and not touching, eating, or drinking ANYTHING. I doubt that will be an option though. Pema is inviting the whole group to spend some time in his downtown apartment, and like fate, there’s no avoiding the chicken curry.

The real adventure begins on the Friday the 7th as the group packs into a sturdy propeller plane (which I’m sure will serve some Nepali version of pretzels, probably packs of RaRa noodles) and make a few rounds on your prayer beads for some good karma points to help us land safely at 9,500 feet elevation in Lukla. Essentially the Himalayan trailhead is just as you step off of the aircraft and strap on your daypack. It’s a short hike to a camp site at Toktok and welcome to high elevation “sleeping”. Here’s how the rest of the itinerary will look. The first column is the day of the month of October, the second is the elevation at which we’ll be making camp and sleeping for that day, and the third is the general area or destination:

08 11,300 Namche
10 12,400 Khumjung
12 13,000 Phortse
14 14,000 Dingboche
16 14,600 Thukla
17 15,900 Lobuche
18 15,900 Lobuche, climb Kala Pathar 18,000
19 15,000 Chukhung
21 16,500 Island Peak base camp
22 17,800 High camp
23 17,800 Climb Island Peak 20,300

During each of these days the group will set out for day hikes that push the exposure to elevation a bit higher. The skipped days will be spent at the same as the previous camp and the group will set out for various day hikes. More later on details of the itinerary.