Sunday at the Yak & Yeti

Pretty busy day with all of the climbers and trekkers coming in and tons of last minute prep work happening with the guides and staff.  I got up intending to hit to gym right at 7 am when it opened to have enough time to make our 8 am breakfast.

Stepping on to the treadmill, I'm setting up my iPhone for some running tunes and I notice a new email.  "Kurt, if you are up come join me for breakfast and we can also work on a few things, then we can hit the gym. --Garrett"  Working on Sunday too.  Haha - I LOVE every second.  I step off the treadmill that I haven't even turned on yet and head up to the 'command center.'  We work for a while in a nice private lounge area (also serving some kick-ass coffee), grab a workout, and then I head to the lobby to find Steve and the room key.

Later hanging out in the lobby with one of the Everest climbers, Mark and a few others.  Mark and his daughter Leanna are climbing the seventh of their Seven Summits!  It quite a story.  I spread out of the blog dispatches.  Mark and Leanna are also joined by rest of the family for the trek!

Over on the other side of the lobby, Garrett is being interviewed by Elizabeth Hawley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hawley).  Another long backstory.  World-famous Elizabeth Hawley has lived in Kathmandu since the 1960 chronicling every Himalayan climb every since.  Check this out:  http://www.himalayandatabase.com/hawleybio.html.  After the interview I suggest a picture of Garrett and Ms. Hawley.  She suggests we take it next to her famous blue 1963 VW bug.  At nearly 90 years old, it takes a little bit to get to the car.  But it is a classic shot and my first brush with climbing greatness.

I'm running low on time even though I've been up since 2:45 am.  Thank you jet lag.  So I'll to tell you more about my Sunday at the Yak and Yeti in the next couple of posts...