Nepal and Thailand TR (kind of)

[wfinley]

Hi all... I am back from my travels in Asia.

 

Thanks to all of you who helped me plan this trip. Your help was crucial!! I owe you all beers.

 

I'll be adding a real TR later along with more pix. In the meantime enjoy these few pix.

 

In short we were gone 6 weeks; spent 1 month in Nepal; 3 weeks in the Khumbu and 1 week in Katmandu and Chitwan National Park. We followed this up with 2 weeks in Thailand where we went sport climbing on Tonsai Beach.

 

Trip Highs: Camping out with a view of Ama Dablam out the vestible. Teaching our porters how tie into a rope and place rock gear! Climbing on the beach!! (I haven't been to a real beach (beaches in Alaska don't count) in over 20 years.)

 

Trip Lows: Reaching the headwall of Island to find a bottleneck of 60+ climbers all fighting for a chance to either head up or rap down. Crashing at a beach beach bungalow at Tonsai only to discover (after going to bed at 9) that the epi-center of an all-night techno rager was a mere 100 meters away.

 

Gear Notes: We brought everything. Packing for glaciers at 20,000' and sport climbing at 0' is hard. Good thing China airlines lets you bring 2 30 Kilo bags.

 

Approach Notes: My wife had a free ticket. She flew from Anchorage to Chicago to Toyko to Bangkok to Katmandu. It took her 39 hours. I flew direct to KTM from Anch via Taiwan and BKK but it cost me $1500.

 

Books Read: My wife struggled through The Brothers Karamazov and is still fighting to finish it before Christmas. I read: Bangkok Dangerous, A Scanner Darkly, Vineland and Blood Meridian. They were all excellent reads!!

 

Once again - thanks to everyone who responded to my multiple questions. You helped us plan an awesome trip!!

 

More pix here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ken4ord]

Sweet looking trip and great pictures.

[mountainmatt]

Amazing pictures! Did you climb mountains or head out trekking?

[cj001f]

Nice work!

[enelson]

i am on 500 of brothers k as of last night! tell your wife christmas is still a long way off, it can be done!!! i have the same goal.

[enelson]

great pics too... hehe

[David Trippett]

Awesome!..... very ramro! Thanks.

[Mister_Anderson]

Looks like an awesome trip. Great photos! So how did you like Humanality?

[wfinley]

We didn't get on Humanality. Alas - too many climb not enough time!

 

To answer questions -- we were in the Khumbu for 3 weeks and had permits for Pokalde, Island and Lobuje East. We climbed Pokalde via the SE ridge. Island we attempted and made it all the way to the summit headwall before running into a traffic jam of 50+ people - 3/4 of them trying to come down and the rest trying to go up. The headwall was a tangle of ropes and yelling climbers so we bailed.

After Island I came down with a nasty respiratory infection and after coughing a hacking for a few days I went on antibiotics and we descended.

 

A few days later we hiked out of the Khumbu, toured around Katmandu and Chitwan and then went to Railey for 8 days of sport routes!

 

PS -- To give you an idea of the crowds on big peaks here's a photo of Amadablam's summit ridge. We were told that this season there were 35 teams attempting the SW ridge -- and each team had an average of 8 people!

 

 

[drater]

That first Thailand pic the route left or right of Tidal Wave?

 

8a+, super boldery if I remember right.

[pup_on_the_mountain]

Nice pictures! Sounds like a fun trip

 

 

To give you an idea of the crowds on big peaks here's a photo of Amadablam's summit ridge. We were told that this season there were 35 teams attempting the SW ridge -- and each team had an average of 8 people!

 

Talking about Ama Dablam, check the news about the recent avalanche.