Friday April 1st 6.30am, Namche Bazar. (EST is 11 hours behind Nepal)
We get our first glimpse at Everest!

We have arrived in Namche Bazar at 3,425m. It’s a busy, bustling town, carved out of the mountains; full of sherpas, climbers and hikers. It acts as the capital of the sherpa community and takes us further away from our western comforts.

We set out early yesterday morning (Thursday) from Phakding on a climb that took us 6 hours and almost 3,000 feet up the foothills of the Himalayas. In places, the paths were so steep that we had to watch our every step as one mis-placed foot could tumble you down hundreds of feet. Cameras and photographs had to wait until we got to a rest point as it was too dangerous to take photos while we were walking.

We crossed 2 more bridges, probably a hundred feet above the raging river. One of the bridges was made of steel and wood and many of the wooden slats were missing where yaks had taken a wrong step and tumbled down. Our yaks all crossed safely and the party is well and in good spirits.

Then, as the path crested a hill, we looked up through the clearing clouds, and saw our first glimpse of Sagarmatha, Mount Everest, all 29,028 feet of her. The majestic, breathtaking sight of the Mother Goddess of the World took our breath away and we whooped and hollered at the view. There’s no way to describe the elation of seeing Everest, our goal, and we all took pictures of Sean, grinning and pointing to the summit. He’s an inspiration to us all.

We are sleeping in tents at night with temperatures dipping well below zero, but last night I slept better than I’ve slept for weeks. This morning we awoke to find everything covered with a layer of frost and we dressed quickly and huddled together as we drank the morning’s first brew. As the sun rises and we start to walk, we peel off the layers to cool down.

Yesterday was a physically demanding day for most of us and today we will rest and acclimatise at Namche Bazar where we plan to test all our satellite video phones.

More later.

Terry