There I was, flapping in the frigid wind and clutching to a chunky boulder, my jaw gaping in amazement at my personal view of Mt. Everest. That’s one (melodramatic) way to describe the pinnacle of our journey trekking through the Himalayas last fall. To be honest, I didn’t get a very clear view of anything because my legs were locking up from the chill in the gusting wind and the steep drop seemingly on all sides. I was so cold and worn from climbing the last hundred meters or so that I only sought out shelter between the rocks for relief from the elements. I had my video camera with me, and I did my best to reach up out of the rocky crevasse to record a panoramic view or the mountains and to assess just how steep the drop was just down-wind from me. Watching the footage now it’s a bewildering sweep across indistinguishable rocky terrain and a crackling audio track of the wind and the violently snapping prayer flags overloading the tiny microphone.

Today I’ve been scrubbing through our group’s combined collection of photos from our trip through Taipei, Bangkok, Kathmandu, and our trekking to see Mt. Everest. There were 3 or 4 digital cameras between us, I was taping onto digital video, and the Strange’s brought an actual film camera (they must have borrowed from a museum). It’s wonderful looking through all of the old scenes with the perspective of a little distance, and so many of the sights were amazing and unforgettable. Of course we have probably hundreds of landscape photos featuring white-capped mountain peaks. Along our hikes we had to stop around every new turn in the trail because we would get another spectacular view. There were also a lot of memorable people we met and there were a few yaks that left an impression on us. A lot of the pictures were of us relaxing and having fun, so those must have been after we had rested and gotten warm from the day’s hike. There’s just so much to tell in the pictures, and I could go on for quite a while on many of them. Maybe I’ll feature photos here on the blog and give a little back story. In any case, I have prepared and uploaded a selection of the 200 finest photos for you to view in the SherpaTrek Gallery, along with some stunning wallpapers.

This weekend I stopped by to visit some family in the area and I was excited to report on my experiences from Nepal. I brought along a few tapes of digital video I had shot over the month, and I figured the best way to describe the whole adventure was to show them the footage. That’s a treat I’ll have for this website some day soon, but there are a lot of wobbly miscues I need to edit out first. I’d like to convey the true sense of the surroundings to them, with all the sounds and smells, but watching all of the video for the first time it seemed far removed from the muggy heat of Bangkok and the sense of dread of climbing the hill above Namche. Maybe with some editing magic and some extra action scenes I’ll be able to enhance the sense of immersion.