Hi Razzu
 
Thank you to you, Sham and all the team for making the trek up to Kala Patha such memorable and exciting adventure, for me, and I am sure for the others in the group as well.For me it was truely an experience of a lifetime. Thank you for being a willing helper at the end of the phone for Marian when at Chitwan and on route.
 
I have now been back in my own bed for three nights. But only really functioning today and half of yesterday.  I have been into my garden and planted vegetables as well as flowers instead of just flowers after seeing how industrious are the people of Nepal.
 
I am back to work tomorrow by this time next week life will be back to normal; but I will be a richer person for my experience I now appeciate all I have and hopefully not take it so much for granted again.
 
Thank you
 
Dianne

The trek was not just successful but it was truly amazing and as I said long ago from Namche Bazaar, we were blessed. I stayed on in Nepal after the trek for several days with Dianne, my sister-in-law from NZ so that she could see a little more of Nepal with me while the rest of the group travelled home to Saudi Arabia. Dianne and I did talk about the trek but we were so busy travelling and experiencing the wonders of Bandipur, a medieval village and Chitwan Park where we rode elephants, saw many rhinos and even more birds (and even leeches, Duffy) that we did not dwell so much on the trek but rather enjoyed what we were doing right then and there. What we did as a group on our trek to Kala Patthar was as a team and I think all of us recognize that. We did well and apart from some minor symptoms of altitude sickness, we stayed remarkably healthy, a tribute to our support group, especially the cook and kitchen staff. They performed in very rudimentary conditions at times and no matter what the weather or camp facilities or even our own appetites, they took good care of us which allowed us even more chances for a safe and healthy summit. Our Sherpas Ganu and Kaliyan, and our Sirdar, Shyam were always there to encourage us on and Razzu, who I would call our director, managed the whole team in a way that made us all feel like VIP’s. Read the rest of this entry »

Our trip has many emotional feelings for me.  Our group was a nice group of friends, so that made it all fun.  Our leadership was prepared and knowledgeable, so that made things work well and very educational. The weather was great, so that made it beautiful to see and relive in photos. Our time in Lukla was somewhat saddened by the crash, so that made it poignant.  And the mountains were spectacular, so that made it special for me as a geologist.  I enclose a shot of Lhotse (taken in the morning from Dingboche)…what an amazing view of this great mountain with a surreal “halo” on top!  The south face (shown in my photo) rises 3.2 km (1.98 mi) in only 2.25 km (1.4 mi) of horizontal distance, making it the steepest face of this size in the world…according to Wikipedia. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

This is just to let everyone know that the whole group is safe and the plane that crashed in Lukla was another one. At this moment, Razzu, Marian and the group are still waiting to fly out from Lukla. The Yeti Airlines plane that crashed was attempting to land.