After a day of "rest" and acclimatisation in Namche, we were ready to go higher, and about to enter for the first time a real alpine environment. The stage was pretty short, walking up the valley on a pleasant trail until a big fork between the main path heading to Dingboche, the Imja valley and Everest Base Camp, and another going in the Gokyo valley, to the west, which was the way we had planned to return to Namche, in a few weeks. The trail then reached another hour-long uphill section until one of the most sacred sites of the Khumbu, if not Nepal: the Tengboche monastery, located on a beautiful ridge in front of Ama Dablam, Lhotse and Everest. We visited briefly the monastery, chancing upon dance rehearsals for an upcoming festival, then dropped down the hill for another half hour to our goal for the day, the tiny village of Deboche. As was becoming the norm, the weather had clouded up in the afternoon and hid the views from us, but it cleared just before sunset, treating us to gorgeous scenery in every possible direction.

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Rest days are primordial in any proper acclimatisation schedule, and having gone from sea level to 3400m in just two days, one was needed when we reached Namche. However, since the trek had barely started, we were all feeling strong (it wouldn't last) and decided to go explore the surroundings rather than gorge on apple pie in the many Namche bakeries.

Our day began early, as the clouds had finally lifted and we hiked a few minutes before sunrise to the top of a hill, from where we could, for the first time, see Everest. In front of us, half a dozen of the world's highest mountains. In our backs, the lower but more impressive Kongde group. Quite a way to wake up! After breakfast, we hiked to the top of the hill above Namche, sporting the Japanese Everest View Hotel, a luxurious establishment famous for flying tourists by helicopter straight from Kathmandu, have them be altitude sick for a couple of days (but with a nice view) and fly them back. The scenery, with Ama Dablam in full view, was beyond words. Later in the day, we dropped to the twin villages of Khumjung and Khunde, visited a monastery (with a genuine yeti skull, yes sir) and the main hospital for the entire Khumbu. As we returned to Namche, the clouds returned and temperatures dropped, a pattern which would soon become familiar.

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The third day of the trip involved our first real uphill section, a steep, hour-long climb to reach the village of Namche, the sherpa capital of the Khumbu. Before reaching the hill, we spent a pleasant day in the valley above Phakding, crossing frequently between banks of the Dudh Kosi and enjoying a little scenery. Though the weather was improving and no rain fell, clouds were still obscuring most of the views and, were it not for the many yaks and teahouses, it would have been hard to believe we were really in the Himalayas. In the evening, relaxing in a beautiful lodge in Namche, we had our first glimpse of proper mountains with the impressive 6000er Kongde on the other side of the valley. At 3400m ourselves, we were also starting to feel the effect of altitude. Thankfully, our next day would be an acclimatisation one, though we all decided we would go explore the nearby villages rather than rest in Namche.

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This is the first post in a series of photo essays relating, day by day, my trip to the Nepal Himalayas in the Fall of 2010, with (almost) exactly one month of time difference. In this first essay, though, I have decided to group the first two days, since the beginning of the trip involved mostly a lot of airline travels.

The trip was designed and run by British company Jagged Globe. For me, the first step was to fly from Copenhagen to Heathrow (via Stuttgart), where I met the leader of our team, Mungo Ross, along with 6 of the other 8 climbers (the 2 others were already in Nepal). We then flew to Delhi and finally to Kathmandu, where I met an old friend of mine from Denmark, Rune, for a first meal of Dal Bhat and a few rounds of beers. Early next morning, we drove back to the airport and, luckily, managed to get on a flight to Lukla, in the foothills of the Himalayas. The twin otters used for this flight need good visibility to land on the incredibly tiny Lukla airstrip and the weather had been unusually bad in the previous month, with a monsoon which didn't seem to want to go away, a combination of factors which had stranded many trekkers and climbers in Kathmandu in the previous weeks, including other Jagged Globe groups.

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On September 2nd and 3rd 2010, Nic Mullin and myself attempted a full traverse of the Aiguilles de Chamonix, from Midi to Grépon. We left early in the morning of the 3rd, but lack of acclimatisation, route finding mistakes and general slowness made us reach the summit of Aiguille du Plan in 8 hours instead of the guidebook 4. Since the traverse is a committing route and since we were starting to really feel the altitude, we decided to bail and returned to the cablecar station in 5 grueling hours.

Here is a photo essay of a wonderful climb. Enjoy!

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5:30. Both our alarms go off at the same moment. I had just found something resembling sleep in the decidedly not so comfortable bivy bag, but, excited by the climb to come, get up in an instant. It's too early to eat anything, but Dave manages to force a Scottish egg down while I lace my boots. We prepared the packs a few hours ago, when we reached the north face car park: a small rack, two 8mm ropes, our personal kit, a quart of water and some cereal bars, we're going light today. In less than half an hour, we are gone.

The path starts in a forest and goes steadily uphill. It takes me a little while to find a comfortable pace, especially with my huge Spantiks on the feet, but the walk in the dark soon becomes quite pleasant. After a little while, we reach the upper car park and a wide plateau void of any trees. In the distance, some lights close to the CIC hut let us know that we are not the only ones heading up the Ben.

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The first thing that I noticed was how bloody damn exposed the route was. Constantly going up and down and from side to side, with sobering (and undoubtedly fatal) falls just a step away, the ridge alternated between climbing moves and upright walking on a very narrow path, with no chance of grabbing anything to help stabilize. There is but one way of progressing: trust your balance, make sure you are fully in control, and just go for it. It reminded me a lot of running it out in trad climbing, and my mind quickly settled in that mode for the rest of the day, scared to death but not allowing my movements to be affected by it (other than the occasional cursing that anyone who has ever belayed me knows very well).

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