Checking in from Hotel Tibet in Kathmandu

The sometimes logistical nightmare of transoceanic travel seems to have been avoided! I landed in Kathmandu, Nepal yesterday with both duffels and no issues with connections or customs. On the first leg from Seattle to Frankfurt we overflew the artic ice sheet and Greenland which were in full view on the cloudless night. Unbelievably stunning! The other two legs were pretty mundane expect for the fact that I was actually able to get a few hours of sleep (I usually can’t sleep on planes).

I arrived at the same time as two other folks who will be joining the trek to base camp and together we made our way over to the Hotel Tibet in the north central part of town. After getting checked in and meeting my roommate for the next two nights I immediately went into a gear check with my IMG guide. I had a minor freak out when I couldn’t find my dark goggles but finally found them inside my down booties. Nothing like a fun game of hide and seek to start the trip. Other than getting laughed at for the “ridiculous” amount of food I brought everything else got the thumbs up.

Ignoring the urge to take a nap, the roommate and I headed out to grab some lunch and found a surprisingly good pizza joint. We each had a Nepalese beer to help cool down during the heat of the day and, as you would expect, talked at length about climbing. We spent a little time after pizza exploring a local touristy market before heading back to the hotel. According to the locals the city has been exceptionally dusty over the past couple of weeks from a large construction project taking place somewhere in the city. Combined with the crazy traffic it makes the thought of trekking in the mountains where there are no roads all the more exciting.

I spent the next two hours trying to get gear sorted and put into separate stacks for the different duffels. The task was a bit slower than it would have been normal due to jet lag and lack of sleep. I eventually gave up and just cleared my bed and passed out around 6:30 p.m.

The exhaustion from travel helped me sleep pretty solid through the night. I got up around 6 to get ready for our first team meeting at 7. We all met on the roof top of the hotel to go over the next couple days and to get to know each other a bit. We broke from there to enjoy breakfast together downstairs. From there it was back to my room to finish getting gear packed into their corresponding base camp duffel, trekking duffle, and trekking back pack. The weight limits for each are 30kg, 15kg, and 7 kg respectively for a total of about 114 lbs. Fortunately, most of that gets carried via yak or porter. As was said in our meeting this morning: you are here to climb; let the support staff support.

That brings me up to the moment where I am still trying to avoid taking a nap. There is a team dinner at 6 tonight followed by another early bedtime. We’ve got to leave the hotel at 5:45am tomorrow to go catch our flight to Lukla (if anyone wants to see one of the craziest airports in the world search Lukla on YouTube). I’ll make another post in about two days from Namche Bazar to update on the first two days of the trek to base camp!

Author: upwithwes

A blog about going high places. View all posts by upwithwes