Sunday, April 13th, the day has arrived when we leave for Nepal to hike to Everest Base Camp while Kevin continues his journey to summit Mt Everest. Bob and I leave Santee around 9am and drive the rental car into Del Mar to pick up Kevin and his four bags of gear. We had to rent an SUV to fit all the bags and the three of us in for the drive to LAX. We said farewell to Ericka, Harper, Linda and Panda and took off for LA arriving in plenty of time to catch our 4:20pm flight to Kuala Lumpur, 10 1/2 hours with a stop off in Tokyo. We met Brad Horn and his friend, Brad Holcroft from Brisbane, in Kuala Lumpur and we all got on the plane to Kathmandu, arriving at 11:30am on Tuesday, April 15th, having missed Monday all together. The highlight of our flight to Kathmandu was the great view of Mt Everest rising above the clouds. What an amazing mountain and to think that climbers are actually able to to reach the summit, standing on top of the world!
We were greeted at the airport in Kathmandu by Jiban from Shangri-la Nepal Trekking, who is organizing the summit climb for Kevin, Brad and Ake. His son, Sapan, took us to the hotel, the Yak&Yeti, where we immediately took a shower and felt so much better; especially after the wonderful buffet lunch.
After a briefing with Jiban about our hike to Everest Base Camp and Kevin and Brad’s summt attempt, we went to visit Elizabeth Hawley (born Nov 9, 1923, in Chicago). She is an American journalist and chronicler of Himalayan expeditions. She traveled to Nepal in 1960 and never left, still lives in the same flat and drives the same car, a VW beeltle. She interviewed Kevin and Brad about their summit climb. While she has never climbed a mountain herself, Hawley has been the best-known chronicler of Himalayan expeditions for over four decades.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Reinhold Messner or Ed Viesturs: your summit never happened unless Elizabeth Hawley says it did.”
