EQUIPMENT LIST:
Peter Owens' basic Equipment list is very good. (see at http://www.InstantWeb.com/p/peterowens/visas.html#EQUIPMENT ) That list with my add-on list (see Appendix E.) is even better. We rarely got in trouble with that combination. We brought most of the items on Peter's list of cold-weather gear, and we were glad we did.

We all brought a few things we did not need - not a big deal. And there are always a few things we wished we had brought. I brought extra sun-screen and lip-balm, in case I wore out mine, or ran out, or lost mine. I never ran out. I brought extra pants and jackets, and when I figured out I had enough warm clothes, I loaned these to my favorite Nepali porter, to help him keep warm. I brought an extra sleeping bag, in case I got very cold. When I heard a buddy complaining that he was very cold, and I was sure I'd be OK, I loaned it to him. I loaned out a couple spare pair of mittens, to guys who had brought gloves, or mis-placed their mittens. (Mittens are MUCH warmer than gloves.)

(Several guys said, "I think I lost my mittens" or, their what- ever - but they always turned up in a day or two.) When I got back to Kathmandu, I could not find my airplane ticket. I searched and ransacked and perused every piece of paper I had brought, and could not find it. Just before I called the airline to ask what I hould do if I could find my ticket, I asked my wife if she had them. She said, "Of course not..." - but when she checked, she did have them. It is easy to misplace something in the midst of your stuff. But hard to actually lose it. Don't assume it was stolen.)

I had my day pack which I carried, which typically weighed about 18 lb., with all my battery-charging equipment strapped on. (See the February 8, 2001 column, "What's All This Battery-Charging Stuff, Anyhow?" at: http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=14176&extension=html

But on any day I was going for a day-hike, I did not want to bring all that heavy, bulky stuff along. And there were about 17 days when we went for a day hike after we got to our early camp. I found a neat little Adidas day pack, weighing just 8 oz., which I bought for $7 in Namche. It had a mid-sized main pouch and 4 small pockets, and was perfect for my parka and lunch and a water-bottle or two. Other guys agreed that a small "summit-pack" can be handy.

BRING NEXT TIME?
When I asked my friends, what should we bring next time, one guy wrote: "Well, let's see; I guess the number one thing I would 'like' to bring the next time is either a hot tub or a sauna. The question is, how in the hell do I get it carried? The second thing would be a good bartender with a very well stocked bar. The only other thing I can think of would be the lady at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok that gave me the foot massage while I was there. There is no question what we would LIKE. I think the big issue with all of these items is 'how do we get them up there?' Any and all suggestions as to how to accomplish these worthy goals would be appreciated."

Another guy made his list of "Should have brought": Wind proof mitten covers, Neck gaiter or scarf; Small day pack.

Never used: "Ice creepers; Third camcorder battery; spare battery- charging circuit; ASA 400 film - (the light was plenty bright)".

- Still, it's good to have such stuff as back-up, even if you never use it.

Some of us used 1 walking stick. Some used 2. A couple old-timers were adamantly opposed to walking sticks. All did well.

One of our guys said that next time, he would bring along some big POSTERS of the Himalayas, and go down to Vern's Frozen Food and Meat Locker, in his home town, and stand around in the cold, and walk on a treadmill, and eat some hot soup. Think of how much money you could save on airfare, and be just as miserable as you want! (But he's a great kidder, and he's already planning his next trek.)

FIRST AID:
We had very little need for first aid. Sunscreen, lip-balm - I brought along several spares; never needed. You literally cannot buy glacier cream (high-altitude suncreen, loaded with zinc oxide so your face begins to look like a clown's) but HIGH-SPF sunscreen does pretty well.

WATER BOTTLES:
I found that carrying a water-bottle on my camcorder's fanny-pack waist-strap, every day, all the time, was a VERY good idea. EVEN when I had 1 or 2 liters of water in my main pack, it was good to keep water AT HAND, to sip as often as you wish. Water in your pack that you can not easily drink - does not get consumed, and does not do you any good. When you are hiking hard, especially at high altitude, drinking AS MUCH WATER AS POSSIBLE is an excellent idea. Getting thirsty is a bad idea.

MAPS:
YOU can buy an excellent map by Schneider for $16. You can order from www.Adventuroustraveler.com . There are other very good maps. I just bought two maps from Omni ( http://www.omnimap.com/maps.htm ), and they are excellent as they have the UTM grid on the maps. The Sagarmatha map No. 278604 covers the Everest region while the Namche Bajar No. 278603 covers the area west of the first map. Actually, here are the catalog numbers and names from the web site:
- http://www.omnimap.com:80/catalog/int/nep-50.htm
Number 65-0454-2786-03 Namche Bazaar $11.95
- and 65-0454-2786-04 Sagarmatha (same price).

GPS:
I did bring along my Garmin GPS12, just for fun. It was really never essential, but if you got caught in a sudden storm and lost the trail, it might be helpful for navigation. I brought it to mark some reference points that are not well marked. The location of Everest Base Camp, the airline trail approaching it, and Kongma La and the trail east of it, are not well defined, so I'm glad I got the data. My receiver went flakey and would turn itself off if bumped, so I just had to be careful to not bump it. Then when I got home, I found a big offset (210 meters west and 640 meters south) compared to our true location. Supposedly a "User's Grid" will correct for this, with a scale factor of 0.9999, per the map, but my "Users's Grid" refused to give readings, so I had to just add a constant offset (210 meters east and 640 meters north) to each reading. When I send my GPS-12 in for repairs, maybe they can fix that.

HEALTH and ACCLIMATIZATION: Pills:
We brought along some little pills, just in case we needed them. Some of us brought Diamox pills, which are good for you if you have trouble acclimatizing to high altitude. Most good trekking books explain all about these. I and some other guys did not bring diamox pills, as we had been to high altitude before, with no problems. We did not think we would need them. But in retrospect, we SHOULD have brought them, and if you are going to sleep up as high as 14k, you should bring them.

Sleeping pills? These are a bad idea when you are at high altitudes. If you cannot get to sleep, a Diamox is safe, and most sleeping pills are NOT.

Other pills: We also brought along some Viagra pills, in case we had to do some debating with difficult bureaucrats. In concept, you might like to have available for such conflicts, as "baksheesh", a bottle or two of whiskey, to help convince such bureaucrats to see that your point of view was valid, on any technical point. Like, in case the airline agent wanted to auction off our guaranteed reserved seats on a plane to some higher bidder....

But bottles of scotch are kinda heavy to carry along on a trek. Viagra, which is a universally-appreciated drug, is not normally available in Nepal or India or Asia. ONE PILL can do the same political job as a bottle of scotch -- but MUCH lighter.

Potassium: I always take 3 potassium pills with breakfast, to make sure I don't run low. I volunteered to give such pills to anybody who needed them in case of leg or foot cramps. Nobody had cramps on the whole trek, though on some training hikes, and on previous treks, the potassium was valuable to prevent or cure leg cramps.

ACCLIMATIZATION:
We did pretty well because we allowed plenty of days to acclimatize. As a general rule, if you walk up from low levels, you can walk up as fast as you want up to 10,000 ft., but you should not ascend faster than 1000 ft. per day above there. If you fly into Lukla as we did, you should not go above Namche without spending a couple days in Namche. McGuiness' book is quite clear on this; see pp. 223-230. We went up slowly to Namche, and after a few days, we went slowly above there. THIS is all to prevent Altitude Sickness (A.S.). Later, after we had been high, we were able to go up faster than 1000 ft/day.

FOR EXAMPLE: After you have been up to 15k ft (as you are at Gokyo), after you descend, you can then go up again to 15 or 16k feet easily and quickly, so long as you do not spend more than 4 or 6 days down low. A couple guys who started without Diamox decided to use it after they came up with some preliminary symptoms of altitude sickness. They very quickly got better. I never had problems, even up at 18,000 ft (3 times) or at 18,600. A couple of us got along fine - but just because you can do this once or twice, does not mean you can be confident to do it again. We met people who had a friend who had to get helicoptered out, from 15,600 ft., even though he had spent a lot of time above that previously, with no problems. And he had not gone up too fast. Damn' shame - but at least he was smart enough to get out safely.

We saw a LOT of helicopters - about 2 or 3 per day - going up the valleys and promptly coming back down. Most of them were carrying out hikers or hikers who went up too fast. We sure did hear a lot about people with A.S. One of our guys didn't feel well at all above 12k ft (barely above Namche).

Too many people were going up too fast. Too many trekking organiza- tions CHINTZ on the time they take to acclimatize you properly. Too many people getting sick; too many people chintzing on their diamox. I did not bring diamox, and a couple other guys and I did not take any, and we were just fine, BUT we were lucky.

One afternoon, a friend of mine and I went on a day-hike over to Dingboche, to take photos, and see the town. We were strolling through Dingboche, and came across a stretcher, sitting in the middle of the trail, with several people standing around. We noticed the boots sticking out. We noticed that the person's body and face were all covered up. We noticed that there was NO HURRY about getting the person any further down. We concluded that this unfortunate person had been carried down from Chhukhung and POINTS EAST (Imja Tse area?) and was now dead.

Our friends were AT THAT EXACT TIME, attending the daily lecture on A.S. in Pheriche. The doctor had just started her lecture, when an aide handed her a radio-telephone. She turned aside, listened to the phone, and gasped, "She's DEAD?" Apparently she had been in touch with this rescue effort, and expected the person to arrive in Pheriche shortly, in poor shape from A.S., but alive. Well, the people at the lecture sure did pay attention after THAT! They thought it may have been a trick, to get their attention - but we saw the body, in Dingboche.

TECHNICAL REPORT on SAFETY:
One British friend wrote: Recent info by the Royal Geographic Society (RGS) shows trekking in the Himalayas as very low risk regarding deaths.

I could not really find anything you can print out. However, I believe what he said, that the risks are not too bad. That's consistent with our observations and experiences. Hey, these trek organizations have mostly done their home-work well, and know how to avoid bad risks.

More on DIAMOX:
A couple of our guys discovered that if you could not get to sleep after midnight, if you POP a diamox, you could get back to sleep. I'm not sure if this is the best recommended procedure, but it seemed to work for them. One guy who did NOT discover this was plagued by sleeplessness, and by loss of appetite (which are both manifestations of A.S.). He lost 22 lb. But he is recovering. (He did not feel well above Namche; although he's normally a strong hiker, he got half-way up Kala Pattar and had to quit as he had ZERO strength, due to his inability to eat.)

I must say, we started out from Lobuche in the morning and went up to Gorak Shep, and stormed up Kala Pattar to 18,606, and I felt great. I was obviously in better condition than anybody else on our hike. Then we descended over the southern horn of KP, and down the trail to Gorak Shep. When we crossed the sandy area, and I actually had to ascend 40 feet to our tea-house - I was REALLY very tired! I was really glad I did not have to ascend 100 ft!!!!! So, being in "good condition" can fool you a lot.

CONDITIONING:
On this trek we knew we would be doing a LOT of work at high altitudes, where the air is thin. I did a lot of running up and down stairs, at sea level, for conditioning, for months before the trek. I was able to run up and down 65, 70, 80, and sometimes 84 standard 10-foot flights of stairs, in 20 minutes, and I did most of my breathing through my nose. I found it very useful to be able to do such good practicing, even at night, even in case of bad weather, even when travelling. I think I was in better shape than any of the other trekkers, when it came time to just work uphill.

Breathing through your nose is quite important. It's a real handicap if you can only breath through your mouth; it dries you out excessively, and can chill you badly. If you want to be in good shape for any high-altitude hiking - even 12,000 ft - practice breathing through your nose as you increase your exercise.

Of course, climbing up and down stairs should not be your ONLY exercise. Keep on hiking, too! But if your only hiking trails did not have much rise, or if you could not fit in enough good exercise at least 3 or 4 days per week, then stair-climbing can be a very important part of your conditioning.

Of course, as with any other kind of exercise, don't do more than you should. Some nannys say, "be sure to consult your doctor before running up stairs", but I recommend, "don't over-do it, don't increase your exercise faster than you can handle, and use common sense. And be careful not to trip and fall down the stairs."

I think that's a pretty good disclaimer....this is in addition to the good advice in the 1997 trek notes.

Another good thing about running up and down stairs is, it strengthens your legs for descending (which riding an exercycle or a "stairmaster", or a treadmill with an upgrade, can not do). I ran up stairs, 2 steps at a time, and then scampered down at a fast rate, up 13 steps in 7 seconds and down in 8 seconds. I've never before been in as good shape for down-hill hiking, and I must recommend stair-running for all these reasons.

Kathmandu:
As usual we spent several days before and after the trek in Kathmandu, staying at the very inexpensive ($7 per night) Potala Guest House: http://www.stayxs.com/new/booking/Facilities.asp?WSID=61&HHM_ID=602

We went to see the usual interesting places, Swayambhunath and Boudnath, and Pashupatinath; and Patan and Bhaktipur. We are still looking for new and interesting places. Dwarika Hotel is an amazing combination of a fine new hotel with a museum of old woodcarvings: http://www.dwarikas.com .

I keep looking and finding new things to see in that fascinating town!

TELECOMMUNICATIONS:
There are many Internet parlors in Kathmandu. They were charging about 1 rupee per minute, or 85 cents per hour. The keyboards were often a bit flakey, and the server rates were slow. But a good typist can put out an email easily. I got myself a hotmail account (no cost) so I could send and receive email.

At Lukla, there were a few e-mail parlors, and allegedly one internet parlor. If I'd been stuck overnight, I would have checked that out. But we were able to leave town with only 4 hours of delay. Up in Namche Bazaar, there were at least 3 e-mail parlors, but no internet parlors. They said any e-mail you typed would go out at 4:30 or 10:30 PM, by satellite phone. Fine by me. The prices seemed reasonable, but I did not use them. I did not have much to write in Namche when I had time to spend, and later I did not have much time to spend in Namche when I had things to write.

Most every town at Lukla and above promises phone connections. Our Sirdar tried to phone out to Kathmandu, and while the phone worked occasionally, it seemed to FAIL for a week or so. Fortunately we did not have any great NEED to talk to the world. No emergencies. Later, the phones got fixed.

When we finally got back to Kathmandu, I sent out a quick 1/2 page note to close friends and family, so they would not worry about if we'd gotten ourselves killed or hurt.

WEATHER:
We had no rain for over 4 weeks. But we did have a lot of clouds, on many afternoons, and sometimes they even came in before noon. Especially if we got to camp early and washed some clothes, we discovered the theory that PUTTING CLOTHES OUT TO DRY CAUSES CLOUDS TO APPEAR. This theory has been tested and is very close to 100% valid....

Morning were usually cool down between 10 and 40 degrees F. If it had been windy, this would have been brutally cold, but it was rarely more than 1 or 2 mph, and even this breeze dropped off as the sun rose. We had a few windy afternoons. We had some DUST, but not that much. Yaks would kick up a little dust, but yaks walk so slow, they don't kick up MUCH dust.

Weather changes: One morning we started out in nice weather from Na, and soon hit a rush of icy air coming down the glaciers. I had not taken off any warm clothing, except one mitten. Other people had already stopped to take off a jacket, and when they were hit by this cold air, they had to stop and put their jacket on, and later, stop and take it off.

It is important to be able to MODULATE your body heat, by slight adjustments of your warm clothes. Don't stop and waste 2 minutes taking off a jacket. Take off one sleeve of your parka, as you are hiking along. If you are STILL too hot, keep walking and take off the OTHER sleeve. Take off one mitten. Stuff your hat in a pocket; then you can pull it out of your pocket and pull it back ON. It is important to be efficient in the way you match your clothes to weather conditions. Not just in Nepal, either.

WATER:
Up on Kala Pattar, or on Gokyo Ri - there was no water. But these were only 3-hour trips. On the hike up to Imja Tse, or over Kongma La (6-hour hikes) we never ran low on water. But there were streams if you needed water. We always brought along iodine drops, so we could purify local water supplies. I think I did that about 4 times in 35 days. Our water-filter provided good filtered water every morning and night, and many noons, too. Of course, sometimes there were delays while the sherpas thawed it out...

OVERALL:
- Would I recommend hiking in this area, the Khumbu area of Nepal, going up toward Gokyo Lakes and Kala Pattar and Everest Base Camp? Oh, my, yes. What a handsome and beautiful area. If you are a good hiker, you should consider this area for some of the best hiking and trekking in the world. Read the notes in my web-site on trekking, about other treks.

This was a great trek, and if you can spare 42 days, you can go to all sorts of great places, all in a row. But if you can't spare more than 22 days in a year, you can still go to places like these
- it will just take a couple years to see it all.

Would we recommend this kind of LONG 35-day trek to any strong trekkers?

Sure, but it would be best if you have already been on a trek, or can go with a friend who has been on a trek. Peter Owens would be happy to set you up with a full package, all food and staff and porters and equipment. Could you just go to Kathmandu with a couple friends, and hire a couple porters and go on a tea-house trek? Yes, you could, but I think you would have more fun, better food, and better health, tent-camping with Peter's cooks and sherpas.

This was not the same as any other trek, and not EXACTLY the same as a merger of Peter Owens' Gokyo Lakes trek with his Kala Pattar Trek, but similar to that, with some extra side-trips added in. Refer to Peter's website per http://www.Instantweb.com/p/peterowens

As that web site says, Peter can design special trips (as he did for us) in addition to his standard scheduled treks.

Peter Owens' Treks:
This is as good a place to say it as any: my wife and I have been on 11 treks total with Peter, and Sigrid has been on about 14 all by herself. Peter was too busy to come on this trek. But he gave us one of his BEST crews, with 3 great sherpas and Salamsing Tamang as Chief, and Tara Rai as Cook, and 4 great kitchen-boys, and a couple dozen porters. Every one of them was skillful and personable and helpful, and any one could cover for any other's job if needed. One day a porter was sick, and Salamsing lashed his pack on top of the porter's load and went racing down the hill with 100 lb. I didn't even get my camcorder out fast enough to record that!

A great and wonderful group of NICE GUYS! I hope to go trekking with them again, soon!

CONCLUSIONS:
We had a very good trek, and fulfilled almost all objectives, including not getting sick or hurt, and NOT getting anybody mad at anybody. We had about 30 days of great, clear weather, with great hiking, great views, and no rain. The last day, we almost got skunked out of our flight from Lukla to Kathmandu, by heavy low clouds, but the Yeti airlines pilot came in to land at Lukla when all other airlines had QUIT, and got us back safely to KTM. See at Appendix LLL.

WHERE NEXT?
I'm still trying to figure out where to go. I would like to bicycle around the Annapurna Circuit. This would be a tea-house trek. Not sure how much interest there would be in this. Starting on June 1 from Pokhara. It shouldn't take more than 24 days.

APPENDIX BC:

Battery Charging:

My text and circuits on how to charge up your camcorder batteries, were published about 10 March, 2001. It's posted on the web; Go to: http://www.national.com/rap

- and click on E.D. Columns, and it's easy to find my columns, and the column, "What's All This Battery Charging Stuff, Anyhow?"

APPENDIX D:

The old MINI-report''. (Revision C.)

Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000

Subject: Mini-Report

- Mini-Report on Trekking in the Everest-Khumbu area, Oct-Nov. 2000.

Hello, Friends: Here you go:

Ten of us guys flew from Kathmandu to Lukla on 11 October. We hiked from there up to Namche, at 11,600 ft., and went up higher and did a lot of hiking for a month, most of it above 14,000 ft. We hiked with Salamsing Tamang as our chief guide, and Tara Rai as our cook, and 3 sherpas, and 20 porters, and 4 kitchen boys, all engineered by Peter Owens' Asian Treks. ( http://www.Instantweb.com/p/peterowens )

The moon was about full when we got to Namche. We had heavy rain for an hour on the evening of October 13th.

The moon was about full AGAIN when we got back to Namche. We had a little drizzle on the afternoon of November 12th, as we departed from Namche.

In between, NO RAIN AT ALL. Many sunny mornings, and great views. How's that for nice symmetry - and great weather?!

We had several objectives - including Gokyo Ri and the upper Gokyo Lakes; Kala Pattar and Everest Base Camp; Chhukhung Ri and Imja Tse Base Camp; and Ama Dablam Base Camp. We really did get to all of these. Most of us got to the top of Kala Pattar at 18,600', and the other trekkers got most of the way up, with great views of Mt. Everest and several other great peaks (Nuptse, Pumori, Ama Dablam, Tchola Peak) and several great glaciers. And we got to many other wonderful places that we never put on our wish lists!

We wanted to go up to Chola La, and Kongma La. Chola La was too much of a climb, and too far from our trekking route, so we did not quite get there.

But all of us who wanted to, made it over Kongma La, an 18,200' "short-cut" pass from Everest Base Camp to Chhukhung. (OK, I was the only one who wanted to. It was beautiful, and worth the effort.)

We visited a few dozen handsome, small, high Nepalese towns, and some of the excellent trails connecting them. (And some of the lousy, rough trails, too.) We did a LOT of cold-weather camping, with morning temperatures between 8 and 38 degrees F. But the weather for hiking was usually excellent.

Nobody got hurt or sick. (One person had some altitude sickness, loss of appetite, and sleeplessness, and had to retreat to lower altitudes.)

It's surprising that despite all the advice and medication, some people just can not beat the altitude problem.) (Another person THOUGHT she had altitude problems, and descended before we could talk her out of it.) Nobody got gored or pushed off a trail by a yak. (We saw about 100 yaks every day, and some of them were pushy....) Nobody had his boots fall apart. Nobody even got a BLISTER on his feet!

We planned to see the first day of _Mani Rimdu_ at Thyangboche. But the first day, not much was actually happening, just a big BLESSING ceremony, and by the second day when the morality play got going, we were 10 miles away, nearly at Lukla, waiting for our plane. Fortunately, the day BEFORE the first day, there were rehearsals of some of the dances, and we got to see plenty of THAT.

Our recording altimeters said we ascended (and descended) 55,000 ft, and I figure I did 20,000' more than THAT. Almost every day, we had opportunities for short or long afternoon hikes.

Four of us had camcorders, and carried solar panels to charge our batteries. I got about 25 hours of video, which will take up a big chunk of my Christmas vacation, trying to edit it down to an hour or two of good stuff. Several trekkers asked us, "I left my camcorder home because I couldn't figure out how to keep my batteries charged. Tell me how you do it." Report is available on request, about February 8; see Appendix BC above.

The book by Jamie McGuiness (Trekking in the Everest Region) available from Amazon.com and elsewhere for about $16, was an EXCELLENT guide, and we recommend that.

We engineered this hike so we could see EVERYTHING, and not miss any great places because we didn't have enough time. Some treks go to Kala Pattar, for example, but don't have enough time to go to Everest Base Camp. We had plenty of time to do every- thing RIGHT. It was wonderful.

(If you are interested in the MAXI-report, it should come out about January 10. If this mini-report was addressed to YOU, I'll send you the Maxi-report, too. If your name was not on this, just ask for it. I'll try to get it posted; but sending this costs so little, I'll send it out, and if you are not very interested, you can delete it, not a big deal. It's not like sending paper....)

For any inquiries about the GREAT hiking in this region, you could ask me, but also take a look at Peter Owens' web site listed above. Peter has several 15-day treks in this region, every year, to Kala Pattar and Gokyo...

Best regards. / rap and friends... / 22 xi 2000

P.S. - we are already thinking about plans for our next trek. Noah wants to go to Mt. Kailash; Nancy is interested in going back to Mustang; I am curious about Dolpo, or maybe going around the Annapurna Circuit, by bicycle. Sigrid - Sigrid has already been almost everywhere!

P.P.S.: When we left Singapore, it was Nov. 18, and when we got to SFO - it was - of course - Nov. 18. I told Jim, while we waited at the baggage claim, " This is Ground-Hog's Day. If you don't live it right, you have to go back and do it again. You may have to go back to Lukla and break rocks while waiting for a plane...." All he could do was GROAN.

APPENDIX E:

Extra Equipment beyond Peter Owens' List:
Recommended by rap:
Pillow-case; New watch batteries; only new water bottles. Decongestants.
Postcards from your home area. Whistle. Hip flask & holster for water.
(Bring to Kathmand