Everest
It's the day for the Everest flight - 5am start for 645am flight. But when Bhanu the agent gets me to the airport it's foggy. The view of the mountains from Kathmandu has been obscured since I got here with a general mist/pollution haze, but this is real fog. After kicking around in the waiting are for 2 hours or so we eventually get called.
The small prop plane has 20 window seats which are all taken (the fuselage is only 3 seats wide) . I've been told by Bhanu that he's secured the best seat in the plane for me, because he knows the Yeti Air (!) manager at the airport - and it turns out to be true - book C10 if you go, last seat on the right.
On the way out I'm on the 'wrong' side - the full range of the mountains is there on left, though you can see quite a lot across the narrow plane. I get called for my turn in the cokpit just as the plane approaches its closest to Everest and starts to turn. It is an unforgettable sight - a complete panorama of rock and snow, with Everest dead centre and its flanking peaks. Yes, there it is, really, just a few miles away and the peak still 4000 or so feet above us.
Back in my seat, as the turn continues, and the plane tilts, I glimpse one of the trekking halts up to Base Camp, a container village, still far from the peak. Everest is such an icon, and there it is in the clear blue light, with its characteristic jet stream plume of snow. The view continues. I seee the whole sector of the Himalayas all the way back to Kathmandu as we slowly drop back towards the valley. Remote high settlements cling to the mountaninside with their
terraced strip farming and little stone houses.
This is another experience I will never forget.
[I will post notes on Kathmandu and Bhutan as soon as I can.]
[Pictures of Everest and Kathmandu on www.picturetrail.com/k-e-i-t-h-m]
The small prop plane has 20 window seats which are all taken (the fuselage is only 3 seats wide) . I've been told by Bhanu that he's secured the best seat in the plane for me, because he knows the Yeti Air (!) manager at the airport - and it turns out to be true - book C10 if you go, last seat on the right.
On the way out I'm on the 'wrong' side - the full range of the mountains is there on left, though you can see quite a lot across the narrow plane. I get called for my turn in the cokpit just as the plane approaches its closest to Everest and starts to turn. It is an unforgettable sight - a complete panorama of rock and snow, with Everest dead centre and its flanking peaks. Yes, there it is, really, just a few miles away and the peak still 4000 or so feet above us.
Back in my seat, as the turn continues, and the plane tilts, I glimpse one of the trekking halts up to Base Camp, a container village, still far from the peak. Everest is such an icon, and there it is in the clear blue light, with its characteristic jet stream plume of snow. The view continues. I seee the whole sector of the Himalayas all the way back to Kathmandu as we slowly drop back towards the valley. Remote high settlements cling to the mountaninside with their
terraced strip farming and little stone houses.
This is another experience I will never forget.
[I will post notes on Kathmandu and Bhutan as soon as I can.]
[Pictures of Everest and Kathmandu on www.picturetrail.com/k-e-i-t-h-m]
posted by Keith at 2:49 pm
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