Trek day 1 - Kathmandu to Lukla to Phakding

September 30th

We woke up early to take a morning flight from Kathmandu to the gateway to the Everest region - the town of Lukla.  Lukla is a small town at 9380ft on the side of a mountain.

Beautiful mountain views on the flight.

You feel like you could reach out and touch the scenery.

They leave the cockpit door open.

This lets you see the crazy angle of the runway as you come in for a landing.  Before landing, you fly over a ridge and dive down toward Lukla on the other side of the valley.  At the last minute, the pilot pulls up and you land going uphill.

Our little plane.

This gives a good idea of the actual angle of the runway.

When you take off, the runway ends in a cliff.

Starting off!  Look, we're trekking!  The animals here are called zobkyo (pronounced like "job Q").  Zobkyo are a cross between a yak and a cow and are used at lower altitudes (well, lower by Himalayan standards) to carry supplies and equipment.

First view of a big mountain!  We're definitely in the Himalayas!

Tiny town on the other side of the valley - just a few houses and some terraced fields.

Here's a view down the valley.  The sheer scale of the landforms is incredible.

Beautiful view up the Dudh Khosi River valley.  We'll be heading up this valley for most of the trek!  The hike from Lukla to today's destination - Phakding, has some up and down but overall we descend around 1000 feet.

Uh, oh!  The toilet facilities along the trail leave a lot to be desired.  This is just a wooden shack with four holes in the floor.  Why are there four instead of one?  Good question.

The Dudh Khosi river.  The word "dudh" means milk and the river is aptly named.  The source of the Dudh Khosi are glaciers high in the Himalayas which give the water a gray-ish, white-ish color and the river is made even whiter by the fact that it's nearly all rapids.

A large mani stone (prayer stone) along the path.  Mani stones are Buddhist shrines with the mantra "Om mani padme hum" (Behold Buddha in the lotus flower) carved on them.

While zobkyo do carry some supplies, the majority of the items moving up and down the trail are carried on the heads and backs of porters.  I can't imagine how much work it must be to carry all of those planks.

A large prayer wheel along the way.

More mani stones.

Four hours of walking, and we made it to the town of Phakding and our first trekking lodge, the oddly named "Hotel Beer Garden".