Entries from 'Hiking'
In the land of the gods
- Aperture: f/22
- ISO: 250
- Shutter Speed: 1/60 s
- Focal Length: 15mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
En route to Meteora from Thessaloniki, I managed to navigate Him and I an hour in the opposite direction – east toward Turkey instead of west toward Kalambaka. But our excursion to Istanbul, the last stop on our World Trip, wouldn’t come for a week yet, so we made a U-turn around Lake Koroneia and…
Tea for two at Petra
- Aperture: f/11
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/1000 s
- Focal Length: 300mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
By now, if you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you know my somewhat guileless affinity for animals – both wild and domesticated – has often gotten me in trouble during this trip (See posts on the koala, the monkey and the mule attacks). Pursuing the four-legged residents of Petra was not particularly dangerous, but it…
When the mule pushed me off the mountain
- Aperture: f/11
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/250 s
- Focal Length: 10mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
It was our last day on the Everest Base Camp trek, just a few hours hike outside Lukla, when the mule pushed me off the mountain. I remember Ray LaMontagne’s song, “Beg, Steal or Borrow” was playing on my iPod at the time because it was hearing the lyrics again, after the crashing and crunching…
Into thick air
- Aperture: f/13
- ISO: 800
- Shutter Speed: 1/1000 s
- Focal Length: 10mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Day 10 – April 7, 2013 – Pheriche to Namche Bazaar Hiking from Pheriche back to Namche Bazaar proved a grueling task – almost 8 hours of path pounding, including an uphill section that took about 45 minutes to climb. The sky was hazy, the trail ahead fuzzily obscured. It seemed every ridge we rounded…
Kala Patthar: The coldest we’ve ever been
- Aperture: f/10
- ISO: 500
- Shutter Speed: 1/200 s
- Focal Length: 10mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Day 9 – April 6, 2013 – Gorak Shep to Kala Patthar to Pheriche Climbing Kala Patthar, by Him: “Lakpa?” I called into the dark room of bunk beds where several Sherpa guides were sleeping in what seemed to be a giant pile — completely understandable given the below 0 temperatures. The hour was nightmarish, just…
An avalanche at Everest Base Camp
- Aperture: f/13
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/1000 s
- Focal Length: 75mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Day 8 – April 5, 2013 – Lobuche to Gorak Shep to Everest Base Camp “Hotel” is a generous word to describe Sagarmatha National Park Hotel, a ramshackle collection of plywood boards resembling a child’s self-constructed tree house. The ceiling of our room sagged like the cloth ceiling of a decades-old minivan taxi, and the…
From extreme ironing to blow-up dolls
- Aperture: f/14
- ISO: 200
- Shutter Speed: 1/320 s
- Focal Length: 12mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Day 7 – April 4, 2013 – Dingboche to Lobuche After spending two nights making multiple trips to a bathroom exposed to the frigid night air of Dingboche, we packed our backpacks once more to move on. We left Hotel Family about 8:15 a.m., heading west over the hill we climbed the day before to…
Operation Clean Underwear
- Aperture: f/18
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/125 s
- Focal Length: 15mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Day 5 – April 2, 2013 – Pangboche to Dingboche In case you couldn’t tell from the video documenting our terrifying landing at Tenzing-Hillary Airport, I had some trouble understanding our Everest Base Camp trek guide. In addition to his strong Nepalese accent, Lakpa had a tendency to speak much too quickly, blending each sentence…
When the “yaksit” hits the fan
- Aperture: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/60 s
- Focal Length: 20mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
“IS THIS NORMAL?!” Her shouted to our guide, Lakpa Sherpa, as the plane bounced violently in an updraft. In fact, it was very normal. We had just crossed a mountain ridge (only a couple hundred feet separated us from the trees below), and the windy updraft on the far side of the mountain ridge jostled…
Your Everest Base Camp trek packing list
- Aperture: f/2.4
- ISO: 50
- Shutter Speed: 1/123 s
- Focal Length: 4.28mm
- Camera: iPhone 4S
I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but let me repeat: I have NEVER been as cold as I was on the Everest Base Camp trek — not even during that Disney half-marathon when we ran with Him’s parents through the rain, hail, sleet and snow in shorts, and his dad defrosted with a hair dryer…
