April 17th. Our Epic Trek begins, flying from Kathmandu to Lukla, where most people start their trek to Everest Base Camp and to the summit. At the Kathmandu Airport we boarded a small plane with single rows of seats on either side, and we were told to sit on the left side for the best views of Mt Everest and the Himalayan range. The Tenzing-Hillary Airport also known as Lukla Airport – the most extreme and dangerous airport in Nepal , is the world’s scariest airport. And we were going to land there in about 35 minutes. The runway is 1506 x 66 feet with a 12% gradient. The elevation of the airport is 9,200 feet. At its southern end is a 2,000 foot drop into a valley and the northern end a stone wall and hairpin turn. Luckily for us the weather was perfect and our pilot landed the plane without incident. We could feel the difference in the air as soon as we stepped off the plane and walked up to a small tea house for breakfast. All our bags, and there was a lot of them, were collected from the plane and distributed among the porters who were carrying them to our next stop. A few expedition bags for Kevin and Brad went straight up to Base Camp. The trek starts right in Lukla following the stone pathway between the buildings. There are no vehicles in the Khumbu Region, only yaks, donkeys, cows and a few horses for transportation. From Lukla we descended 1,500 feet to the Dudh Kosi (River of Milk). We passed through several small villages before stopping for lunch at Thado Koshi with spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, as we sat outside eating our meal of Dal Bhat veg curry and ginger tea.
The trail continued north up the Dudh Kosi valley to Monjo. We crossed several long metal suspension bridges over the River. We arrived at Monjo around 3:45pm, a small village in the Khumbu region of Nepal, at an altitude of 9,317 feet. We stayed at the Monjo Guest House and upon arrival we had some ginger tea and went to our rooms to rest before dinner. Our room has an attached bathroom with toilet and shower, and warm comforters on our beds to keep us warm in our sleeping bags. We ate dinner together with other Trekkers in a cozy little dining room, warmed by the stove in the kitchen. Bed by 8 PM ready for a big hiking day tomorrow.