NEPAL EARTHQUAKE: Shishapangma Seven Point Eight

Gasping for breath in the thin air I looked at my watch – 11.55am. An excellent time.   Lhakpa Sherpa and I had set out from Shishapangma Advanced Base Camp (ABC) at 9am in mixed conditions – heavy snow, fog, little visibility, and a gentle breeze that left the long string of prayer flags blowing gently in the wind. It was one of those mornings that you could almost hear the individual snowflakes falling to the ground, quietly covering...

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The sacred pilgrimage of adventure: Shishapangma puja ceremony…

 An integral part of any Himalayan expedition is the highly auspicious ‘Puja Ceremony’, a ceremony of gratitude and religious ritual during which homage is paid to the mountain deity.  The ceremony is traditionally conducted by a trained Llama or Sherpa who reads from a book of sacred prayers while sitting in front of a stone altar covered by a smorgasboard of offerings - cookies, sweets, chocolate bars, popcorn, rice and...

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Base Camp: The Yak Rodeo on tour to Shishapangma Advanced Base Camp

“Ayyyyeeeaaaaa, whoogh, whoogh”…. followed by the dull ‘thud’ of a rock hitting a kit bag. This is the high altitude orchestra harmonising a band of burly plodding yaks as they help to transport hundreds of kilos of all of life’s ‘expedition essentials’ to Basecamps in Nepal and Tibet.  Our move from Base Camp to Advanced Base Camp is no exception. 23 lumbering, wooly yaks at a cost of approximately $5,000 and carrying 40 – 45...

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First views of Shishapangma

A warm and windy night marks our first evening on Shishapangma.  At 4,800m it had the potential to be a restless evening as altitude-fuelled dreams transition the mind between varying degrees of consciousness throughout the long cold evening – the first of many in my tent.  We arrived yesterday afternoon to Chinese Base Camp in wild and windy conditions, the mountain obscured by a thick blanket of snow, cloud and spindrift. Shishapangma...

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Creature Comforts in Nylam, Tibet

There’s a rule of thumb in the wonderful world of mountaineering that when the opportunity to have a shower arises, it’s best to take it as you never know when and where your next shower will be. Unfortunately the water coming out of the communal shower in the Snowland Hotel was so ice cold that one could only presume that there was a direct line to some sort of glacier outside of town or, perhaps it was used as a form of Chinese water torture....

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Beverly Hillbillies meets the Wild West...

Heavy snow in the high passes has forced us to stop for three nights in Nylam.  Nylam can best be described as the Chinese version of the Beverly Hillbillies meets the Wild West. Cows and dogs graze together along the side of the dusty road, eating cardboard boxes and whatever garbage they can find while the local people go about their morning routines - rolling up their shop windows, washing their hair, dusting off their front steps whilst...

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And so the journey begins... Kathmandu, Nepal - Zheng-Mu, Tibet

After months of planning it’s finally go time as the bus pulls up to the hotel. The bus will take us from Kathmandu to Zheng Mu, the Chinese border town separating Nepal and China.  We are now well and truly on our way. Looking left out of the bus window I see rusty blue motorcycle with the exhaust cleverly secured onto the frame with oily twine and strategically placed electrical tape. From the handlebars of the motorcycle hangs a series...

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DESTINATION Kathmandu: Where life slows down & up a gear at the same time...

There’s something about Kathmandu, the capital city of the ancient kingdom of Nepal, which heightens the senses. A city where chaos rules. Where life both slows down and up a gear at the same time.   Dust clouds swirling around in the sticky heat, bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling at a snails pace accompanied by the persistent honking of horns at decibles which pierce the ears, generators grinding and humming loudly echoing in the alleys,...

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