Dispatch 1- Preparation:
March 16 Tacoma, WA
The
adventure begins - though I have not yet left the country,
the trip really has begun. On Monday, instead of coming to
school, I went to Eric Simonson's garage to do the final food
packing. Eric is the trip organizer; he is one of
the co-owners of International Mountain Guides. Mark Tucker,
the expedition leader, was also there.
Last week we stapled together large waxed cardboard boxes (often referred
to as fish boxes - these are normally used to transport fish)
and went shopping for food that is not easily obtained in Nepal. 
Our
task was to fill these boxes with the food that we had bought and keep
an inventory of each box. The challenge in this is balancing lighter
items with heavy ones - there is a seventy pound weight limit on the
flight to Katmandu, so the boxes can't weigh more than that, but you
are also charged per box, so you need to fill each as much as possible.
When we got the last item packed we had a total of 18 seventy pound duffel bags. These were then taken to a trucking company near the airport to be driven down to Los Angeles where they will then be loaded onto an airplane bound for Katmandu.
Everything is falling into
place nicely now. I saw a copy of the official climbing
permit from Nepal and my name is on it - that's a good thing.
Also, I got a copy of my plane ticket - which is what really
makes it feel like the trip is a reality. Now all that's left is getting
my personal gear together and getting to the airport.
The numbers . . .
1260 - pounds of food that we are shipping from the US to Nepal to supplement food that we will be able to buy there (vegetables, grains, meat, cheese, etc.).
25 - hours of flying that I am going to have to endure to get from Seattle to Katmandu . The first leg is down to Los Angeles , then on to Osaka , Japan and then Bangkok , Thailand . After a 10 hour layover, I will continue on to Katmandu .
$114,000 - US dollars that our expedition is paying the Nepali government for a permit to climb Mt. Everest .
