Objective

You might have noticed that my Objective had not been posted yet.  The main reason is that I have not finalized my plans for trekking and climbing until earlier this morning!

Here's my plan:  The guide service, Alpine Ascents International, will have two teams trekking in mostly side-by-side:  1) the Mt. Everest climbers and 2) the Everest Base Camp trekkers / Island Peak climbers.  I will be trekking in with the Mt. Everest climbers which includes expedition manager, Garrett, and my good friend, Steve Richards who will be climbing to Camp II on Everest (he thinks of it as a dance rehearsal :-)) until we get nearly to Everest Base Camp, then I will be joining to Island Peak climbers.  That was the decision that came late.  I will be climbing Island Peak (20,305 ft.)!!

Just before Everest Base Camp, the Island Peak climbers will stay the night at Gorak Shep, the last village before base camp.  The next day, we will hike up to Everest Base Camp and spend some time before descending back to Gorak Shep.  On the way down, we will cross paths with the Mt. Everest climbers that will be coming up to base camp to move in for 2 months or so.  The next day will will summit Kala Pattar (18,192 ft.) and descend back down the valley and spend a day at Dingboche.

Next day, we say good bye to the trekkers who will continue to descent back to Lukla while the Island Peak team will head over in the Island Peak base camp, a two day trek.  The summit attempt will be the very next day with the descent all the way back to the closest village, Chhukung.  Another night in Dingboche where I will say good bye to the Island Peak climbing team.

From Dingboche, I will solo trek the two days back to Everest Base Camp - expecting to arrive on Friday, April 20.  At that point the Everest climbers will be up on the mountain doing their first acclimatizing rotation, so it will be me, the base camp manager, Joe, and the base camp cook, Jenny and the rest of the base camp crew.  My plan to wait for Steve to come down from Camp II and then the two of us will trek out to Lukla together.

Super custom and super exciting!!!  It all starts early tomorrow morning when we fly from Kathmandu to Lukla -- watch this video of that flight:  http://youtu.be/uDfI4tbMUvs