Way back when, in our younger days, “ex-Marine” (husband, Steve) and I did a one-week easy trek out of Pokara, Nepal into the Annapurnas. It was our first time trekking and the stupifying Himalayas left an indelible impression.

Years later, countless Everest articles, documentaries and specials (can you believe it has been 10 years since that well-documented disaster), it was finally decided that we had to see Mt. Everest for ourselves. Not the complete trek to Everest Base Camp…that might have been beyond our capabilities because of the altitude…but Mountain Travel Sobek’s “Everest Escapade” fit the bill. Mountain Travel has been arranging trips to Nepal since the 1960′s and organized the first commercial treks there.

Nepal Map
The timing was good and costs reasonable. Not to mention this nine-day trek was right up our alley. It included: a few days in Kathmandu; mountain flight to Lukla where the trek would begin; the ultimate altitude would only be around 12,700′ (high enough for us; and back to Kathmandu.

Committed to an April departure – optimum times are Spring and Fall for Everest – sent a deposit and were ready to do the rest of the planning. Now would be the time to make arrangements for 2007!

The main concern (at that particular time and still today) was the political situation in Nepal with its coups, demonstrations and Maoist terrorists. But MT-S assured us that even if there were some problems in Kathmandu itself, there would be any around the Everest region…too high and difficult for the terrorists to bother. That reassured us! Even so, ex-Marine still ran around screaming, “You are going to get us killed” for a few days and insisted (rightfully so) I check out U.S. Department of State’s Consular Information Sheet on Nepal…just in case I really was trying to get us killed.

The sheets confirmed that this area was relatively safe…on to planning…