Hey guys,
I wanted to share with you my climbing trip in the Khumbu region of Nepal. For those who don't know me too well yet, I love the outdoors, especially the mountains. The last couple years, I spent most of my holidays hiking or climbing to reach isolated, distant and tall summits. It's a hobby I'm growing more and more passionate about the more time I dedicate to it. Apart from enjoying the presence of nature and breathtaking landscapes there's also an incredible depth to the sport with lot's of challenges and skills to learn. Although I'm still a relative beginner to the sport, I think that's what's driving my interest. There are so many mountains and challenges for a mountaineer to conquer. For every mountain conquered you become more experienced motivating you to plan for the next challenge somewhere around the world.
For this trip, the goal was to climb Lobuche-East, which stands at 6119m. Before this, the highest mountain I'd ever climbed was Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada (4421m) so it was a big jump in challenge for me! :)
I did this trip with my twin brother Max and it was an incredible and bonding experience. I say bonding because growing up we were never together. We went to different boarding schools and different Universities also. This resulted in us not being close at all which is quite sad, especially since we're twins you know. This trip really helped strengthen our relationship and serve as a debut to a life-long hobby that we can do together.
Nepal is a beautiful, rich (in every sense except wealth unfortunately) and diverse country with incredible people. The local Sherpas are always smiling, friendly and willing to help. I've never met such an incredible content people in my life.
This is a photo of me and my brother on the plane going from Kathmandu to Lukla. Lukla is where we'll start our journey which will last 1 month.
Lukla is the most dangerous airport in the world apparently. The runway is literally on the side of a mountain, thus its quite short. Check out how the runway is slanted upwards to help slow down the planes..crazy!
The mountain regions of Nepal are quite difficult to access and the infrastructure is quite poor. Because of this, most things are brought to the Mountain villages by porters and donkeys- who carry 60+kg on their back up the trails for days. No wonder they're the best mountaineers in the world.
This is Namche Bazaar, the last big village we'll pass through on our trip. Namche is a hub where mountaineers do their final preparations before heading off to their expedition in the region.
That's Ama Dablam in the background. It's considered the Matterhorn of Nepal. You can't really tell from this photo, but it's the most majestic beautiful mountain I've ever seen. (really dangerous to climb btw :P )
A friendly Yak :)
Summit Day! so steep!
Our Sherpa smoking a cigarette on the summit lol. He didn't even break a sweat. (He's climbed Everest 6 times.. this is a walk in the park for him).
A photo of us on the summit. The tallest peak in the back is Everest :)
Okay Time to head back down.
The man in between my brother and I is the first Sherpa to have climbed Kangchenjunga- the deadliest mountain in the world and third highest. We were fortunate enough to meet him on the way down and spend the night in his lodge.
Back in Lukla and ready to take a flight back home!
Thank you for reading the post guys!
Yours,
Christophe