Dan Mazur of Summit Climb briefs the team, which is followed by a brief  and slide show by Max our guide. We have Rajan with us as a second climbing guide along with 5 climbing  sherpas, yaks & yakmen.

Our team of 10 climbers consists of :

Natalie & Rolfe – SWITZERLAND
Dean – USA
Mark – USA
Paul – ITALY
Steve – UK
Matti – FINLAND
Jules & Calin – HONG KONG
Michael – HONG KONG

The only way is up!

Tonight was our team Dinner at YING YANG restaurant - Max Kausch our guide fuels up:

Max is Argentinian, 29 years wise, and already summited twice on Cho Oyu!

Kit check with Max – time to make sure we have everything . We pick up a barrel to safely transport our oxygen ! Only mats to get now and we are good to go…

Morning call  to Dan Mazur of Summit Climb to let him know we are here!  

We head to the Bejing Hotel to  meet our trip leader/guide Max and finalize all the paperwork.   Met Ted Atkins from Top Out. Tried on our oxygen masks, checked hose and regulator and picked up 6 PIOSK oxygen bottles.  Picked up last few bits of kit from Alan & Shona’s .  Feels very real!

The day has finally arrived and it’s time to lock up and leave Discovery Bay and head to the airport. We have four very large North Face expedition bags packed and ready to go. The taxi driver does a double take as he sees us piling the 4 bags in then adding another two jam packed back packs – well we are gone for 43 days! It’s a five minute drive down to the Plaza where we pick up the airport shuttle. As we pull into the Plaza I catch sight of Brad & Ali and my eyes start watering as I see them fixing a good luck banner to the bus stop ! When we get out we hear Brad’s laptop blasting out one of my favourite songs ‘ Aint no mountain higher ‘ – all four of us are dancing at the bus stop, laughing and smiling – what a funny sight it must have been for on lookers ! How lucky we are to have such gorgeous fun friends.

Check in with Dragon Air goes smoothly – 80 kg of baggage checked in.  A big thanks to Steve Lawrence of Cathay, who arranged for our 40kg excess to be waivered !  Our flight was delayed by an hour due to storm cloud over Hong Kong, and a build up of planes waiting to leave. One short stop in Dhaka then we finally land in Kathmandu at 11.15pm. Amrit from Himex Nepal is waiting for us at the airport.

We pile into a 4×4 and head to the Kathmandu guest house where we are staying in Thamel. Long day, so we go straight to bed and sleep !

A big thanks to : Hong Kong Cancer Fund, AXA , Flight Centre, I-Detox, RAW  Sportsworld, Dragon Air, for all your support.

Love, hugs and thanks to our family, friends, Mountain High buddies, Brad & Ali, Lynn Hamam, Sarah Jordan … in fact everyone who knows us because I know you are with us in spirit as we set out on a journey of a lifetime…