A time to remember

While my sleep patterns are now slowly returning to Eastern Daylight Time, I have had much opportunity to revisit all the wonderful memories created over the last month while in Nepal and Bhutan.  This picture above seems to really capture the very best of my recollections - those very high mountains and the glorious freedom of pushing past my own fears and insecurities.  Those of you who know me well will certainly be surprised to see me in this teeny-tiny ultra light!

Then there were the mountains!  They were gorgeous, but getting up there was excrutiatingly difficult for me.  Here are some views of the trail from Lukla to Namche Bazaar -- a total of 21 hours of climbing and descending and climbing again over a five day period.

What was I thinking?

Yaks and trekkers on the trail............

My gosh, that trail was very steep every now and then!

Just deciding where to put your foot required every brain cell!

And it kept going up and up (I spent a lot of time turning around to see how far I'd come!).

This is me, having climbed up to just about 12,500', with Mt. Everest just to the left of my head, Lhotse just behind my head and Ama Dablun to the right of me.  All I can say is I really, truly appreciate the effort it takes for summiters to slog another six days from this location just to get to Everest Base Camp and the additional thirty days or so after that that it takes acclimatizing in preparation for attempting the Everest summit at over 29,000'. 


 

My second goal was seeing beautiful Bhutan and the incredible Taksang Monastery. 

Here is a view of the monastery from halfway up the mountain.

Don't look out or around....just look down at your feet, place one foot in front of the other and try to keep your balance!

Almost there.....

A chance to rest......

Finally ---- I'm there.  I just haven't thought about the trip back down and up and down again yet!

Again and again I realize just how lucky I am to be able to travel like this!  I'll be sharing more of my pictures as recollections as my pea-sized brain recaptures normal function.  Get ready for the complete travelogue!