Nepal: The Roads vs. The Mountain

MK Ambassadors Tayloe and Kristin of Katabatic Consulting check in with an update from Nepal:

March 23, 2008

Did I mention the driving situation here?  Good Lord!!  It's amazing that a death or two per MINUTE does not occur...the way people drive here blows my mind.  For those of you who know what I am talking about...you get it.  For those who don't, there is no way that I can adequately explain it...pure madness!

Anyway, the climbing season on Everest is still way up in the air...no pun intended.  We all met with the president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) today and the situation is a bit of a mess.  The Nepal government has issued Trekking permits for the first time in history for anyone trekking, working, climbing and so on in the Himalaya this season.  So this is generating a lot of headaches and running around to get everything squared away on the last afternoon here in Kathmandu.  Luckily, this sherpa (the President of the NMA) is our logistics and case camp manager so it has made the effort a little easier for our team.  If you didn't know, the base camp clinic has been in operation since 2003 and Luanne is pretty dialed-in with all the top officials...thank god for this!

Our group leaves tomorrow to fly to Lukla and until further word comes up the hill, we will hold up somewhere enroute to base camp.  So today, we gathered, checked and packed equipment and staged it for the outbound flight tomorrow.

In the meantime, we have been visiting the stupas and temples around the city...what a trip!  The culture is unbelievable and an eye opener for me as I have never ventured to this part of the world...it's been great to have Kristin fresh off a trip from here last month as I would be totally lost otherwise.

So, as in past DSPs you can see a revolving theme and that theme is pretty routine for us magnets of drama...we'll see what the future brings.  Email will become more difficult as we venture into the big hills, but stay tuned...it can only get better!

Namaste