Arrival in Lukla

Lukla airport.


First day of hiking.
Guesthouse in Phakding

Today we flew into Lukla (altitude of 2800m). The lads and our guide Subba met me at 5:00am at my guesthouse. From Nepal airport we boarded this tiny little plane headed for Lukla. I was sooooo excited and giddy imagining all the expeditions to Everest starting out in the same place as us!! After a short and very turbulent plane ride we arrived in Lukla. We ate breakfast at a cute little teahouse with photos of past Everest expedition groups and Sir Edmund Hilary decorating this quaint little log hut.

It was a very short hike today (2 hours) to Phakding. It's the same elevation as Lukla so we need to spend a night here to acclimatize. When we arrived I was feeling really ill. I had a splitting headache and I felt nauseous. The boys were all fine and were starving so while they ate lunch (I couldn’t even think about food) I went to bed for a couple hours. I can’t be affected by the altitude already, can I? After some strange dreams about AMS I woke up with a slight headache, visited with the boys for a while and drank some coffee.

Over a cup of coffee I met this German guy who asked me to be a part of a study. He’s in med school and he and his partner are conducting this study on altitude sickness. He used this tool to measure my inner ear waves and are hoping to find a link b/t altitude sickness and the inner ear? He took my pulse: 87. Oxygen: 99, and said I have excellent acoustics in my ears (or something like that). I will be measured again by his partner near base camp to see if there are any changes. I am very curious.

I spoke with him for quite some time and he said every week they see people coming down the mountain suffering from AMS. It’s not uncommon for people to have to be helicopter rescued either if they don’t heed their symptoms and descend. Yikes. I have now heard stories of a few people dying on their way to base camp with high altitude sickness. Who knew it was such a problem just getting to base camp!! After feeling ill today I realize it may be a problem for me down the road too. I’m very interested to see how my body handles the altitude.

The Irish lads are great! They all offerd me medicine and askd how I was doing and such. I didn’t take anything. If my body’s not doing ok I want to feel it.