Kathmandu (4,953ft) to Lukla (9,383ft) to Phakding (8,564ft)
#Miles4Missions Itinerary
Day1 (May 12th)–Bixby to Kansas City to Newark
Day2 (May 13th)–Newark to Dubai to Kathmandu
Day3 (May 14th)–Kathmandu
Day4 (May 15th)—Kathmandu to Lukla to Phakding
Day5 (May 16th)–Phakding to Namche Bazaar
Day6 (May 17th)–Namche Bazaar
Day7 (May 18th)–Namche Bazaar to Dole
Day8 (May 19th)–Dole to Machermo
Day9 (May 20th)–Machermo to Gokyo Ri to Gokyo
Day10 (May 21st)–Gokyo to Namche Bazaar
Day11 (May 22nd)—Namche Bazaar
Day12 (May 23rd)—Namche Bazaar
Day13 (May 24th)—Namche Bazaar to Tengboche
Day14 (May 25th)—Tengboche to Thukla
Day15 (May 26th)—Thukla to Gorekshep
Day16 (May 27th)—Gorekshep to Kala Patthar to Everest Base Camp
Day17 (May 28th)—Everest Base Camp
Day18 (May 29th)—***RACE DAY***Everest Base Camp to Namche Bazaar
Day19 (May 30th)—Namche Bazaar
Day20 (May 31st)—Namche Bazaar to Lukla
Day21 (June 1st)—Lukla to Kathmandu
Day22 (June 2nd)—Kathmandu to Dubai to Newark
Day23 (June 3rd)—Newark to Kansas City to Bixby
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
-2 Timothy 1:7
I fly more than almost everyone I know. It has been a very long time, maybe 15+ years, since I remember being nervous about a flight and I have taken some doozies over the years. None have been quite like the flight from Kathmandu to Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Lukla.
I made my way to the domestic terminal at Kathmandu a mere 30 minutes before scheduled takeoff of my flight, which sounds absolutely insane, but it’s standard fare here for domestic flights in Nepal. In fact, they hadn’t even opened the airport when I arrived. I have flown a dozen or so domestic flights out of Kathmandu either to ferry to Pokhara for our Annapurna Sanctuary Treks or on sightseeing flights to Mount Everest, so the tiny red brick building that houses the domestic terminal is a familiar place for me. Check-in is chaos. There are few computers, just a flurry of men running around grabbing duffels and handing out boarding cards. I have flown many flights on the two main domestic carriers Yeti and Buddha airlines. Today I am flying on Sita, a first for me. I had been told they were very serious about the weight requirements for the flight. If your combined bag weight is over 10kg (22lbs), you pay extra. I was a couple of pounds over, paid 1,000 rupees ($7.50), and made my way into the pretty small holding area (that they have thankfully expanded a couple of years ago).
Domestic flights in Nepal operate very much on a “if the weather is good we will fly today…if not, we probably won’t” philosophy, so hearing a boarding call for your flight is pretty big relief. I have waited for more than 5 hours in the holding room multiple times and have more than once been sent away and told to come back tomorrow. For those who wonder why we build in buffer days on all of our Nepal trips, this is the why.
The flight to Lukla is so small that they do not even do a boarding call. The same guy who checked you in kind of works the room to find all the faces he remembers and tells them to “come now…it’s time.” He found me waiting in the line at the small coffee stand. I asked if I have time to wait for the coffee I paid for. He sternly looks at both me and the lady pulling shots…we all know she needs to hurry. She does. I got my cappuccino and headed to the bus that would take us to the plane. Crisis averted.
The plane to Lukla has only 16 seats. None are assigned. There is literally zero space for your hand luggage, so you just wedge it between your legs. There are two curtains hanging between you and the cockpit, though you can pretty much see into there as the curtain sway back and forth. There is no real pre-flight speech from the single flight attendant, save one command. “At no time are you to take pictures of the cockpit.” She seemed pretty serious about that one. Still, as the props roared and we took off down the runway, the guy sitting in the front seat reached out his GoPro on a stick between the two curtains into the cockpit, and the people sitting around me all chuckled.
The flight was cloudy. I worried they would turn us around. No one is allowed to land at Lukla without clear visibility…and for good reason. The airstrip at Tenzing-Hillary is unlike any in the world. It is a mere 1,729ft long and slopes uphill at an 11.7% gradient. Below the bottom end of the runway is a sheer drop off and top end uses every available foot until it butts up against the mountain. It is almost impossible to abort a landing attempt on approach. You kind of only get one shot.
As we were nearing Lukla, the ground was occasionally getting very close to the plane as we passed over and occasionally beside the Himalayan foothills. I know everything seems closer than it is in situations like this, but we were less than 200 yards from the hills a couple of times. When we passed the hills and they would fall off under us, the plane would bounce a bit from the wind sheer. The final approach was exhilarating. I whispered under my breath “God gave us a spirit not of fear…” And immediately, we slammed down on the very end of the runway and 3 seconds later we were stopped at the top of the hill. It was just incredible. They deplaned us quickly and moved the plane to a tiny holding area to make room for another plane that had chased us in.
The views were stunning from the first moment we deplaned, but I noticed very quickly that the fine people from Sita had somehow not loaded my duffel onto our plane, but we were assured that if the weather holds it would be on the next flight in a couple of hours. A minor inconvenience really, but I didn’t mind. It gave me time to meet my porter Sidar; eat my trekker’s breakfast of eggs, hashed browns, toast, coffee, and hot tang, which was a first for me; and make my way to a spot above the runway to watch the flurry of planes and helicopters taking off and landing. I counted 20 different helicopters land in the hour and a half I was sitting there. Eventually, another Sita plane arrived and with it my duffel. After a few minutes at Sidar’s house for him to grab a bite to eat and his gear, we hit the trail.
The trail from Lukla to Phakding, our stopping point for the night was very easy hiking. It was mostly downhill and had a surprising number of flat sections. We walked the 5 miles of trail in a little under 2 hours before stopping for a late lunch. We were on the fence about staying in Phakding or pressing on to Monjo another 3 miles down trail when it started to rain. Hiking on to Monjo would’ve lightened the hike to Namche on the next day, but I wasn’t in the mood to hike in rain if I didn’t have to, so we found a nice tea house and checked in for the night.
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