Preparing for the high elevations involves as much physical conditioning as you can manage. If you’re fortunate enough to have mountains (over 8,000 feet) and a few nights off available, hiking the trails and sleeping at elevation will pay off great dividends as you start to push your body’s ability to adapt to ever decreasing oxygen volume. At over 8,000 feet (I definitely start to feel it at 9,000 feet) you’ll find that simple exertion will get your system a little worked up, with a higher heart and breathing rate. The idea of spending some time in the mountains, besides the fresh air, is to give your body a little advanced warning and so it will have an easier time getting in gear when you really do go trekking.

Richard gave a fantastic presentation to the students of Snow College today! But on the drive down to Ephraim he took some time to tell me all about the shopping day we’ll have during our layover in Bangkok. It was quickly apparent that shopping in Thailand is a standard part of the itinerary on any Nepal treks. Many travelers will gladly backtrack in their flight route to get at the Bangkok markets. After being cramped in that middle seat between the window and aisle seats for practically two days, what’s a few hours more? Bangkok and other similar southeast Asian cites are manufacturing centers for many Western name brands. Rich’s plan is to bring an entire extra trekking duffle bag (the huge kind) to stuff with merchandise that is priced scandalously low relative to Western levels. Richard’s favorite items are the authentic Callaway brand logo items. He’s an avid golfer, and his friends really appreciate getting Callaway golf shirts as gifts. Richard expects to pay US$3 per shirt in Bangkok for shirts that would cost US$45 in America.

As I was recently writing up a section in the website about immunizations I realized I had totally spaced getting it done for myself. Many of us from SherpaTrek are embarking on a Himalayan trek for the month of October, and it is now officially time to stop daydreaming about it. I’ve done a lot of reading about keeping healthy for the trip to Nepal, but to my great fortune I have a cousin who is a well-informed nurse (which means she didn’t get her information from just surfing web pages). She quickly rattled off a list of vital immunizations for the trip, and asked to see my shot records. I felt a dread coming on because there’s no way I could get any proof together of my last big immunization binge as I was about to travel to South Korea several years previous. At that time I got my shot record back with extensive scribbles and rubber stamped splotches enough to cover me for many years to come. But now without proof I might have to redo the full series, including my favorite, the cold peanut butter shot in the rear end (a.k.a. gamma globulin).

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