Episode 144: The Gates To Paradise

Posted by on Nov 18, 2010 in All Podcast Episodes, HD Episodes, Season 4, Everest Trek 2009 | Comments Off on Episode 144: The Gates To Paradise

No Paradise In Sight. Today was the last day of the trekking portion of our workshop. It’s kind of hard to believe that we’ve made it this far and that tonight we’ll be sleeping in a hotel.

The day started off as all of the trekking mornings have with the last of the Jon & John morning shows and we began walking around 8:30 am. Thilo and I ended up hiking together and it quickly became clear that we were now in very good physical shape! He and I were hiking extremely fast and were able to keep up with the group at large even though we regularly took long rest breaks to enjoy the scenery.

When lunch rolled around the group stopped at a teahouse but Thilo and I decided not to take the pit stop. A quick conversation with Karma showed that we had earned his complete trust as he agreed to let us continue hiking unaccompanied by one of the staff members. I have to admit, that was very special to me.

We burned through all of the terrain that was vaguely familiar since we had seen it on our very first day of trekking. Wow, that seems like a lifetime ago now! We even caught up to and passed our porters. My “personal” porter Passang Dawa and his friend actually hiked with us for several hours. That kept our egos in check because Thilo and I may have been hiking very fast but those two guys were matching our speed while carrying 60-70 pound (30kg) loads in reed baskets on their backs!

It was a very fun day even though we did get completely sick of all of the steps we had to walk up on our way back to Lukla.

After a number of hours of cruising along, Thilo and I caught sight of a familliar gate in the distance. It was the gate to Lukla and the landmark showing the unofficial end of the trek. We rejoiced knowing that we were now only minutes away from our hotel and REAL bathrooms!

How fitting that the hotel’s name is The Hotel Paradise!

Jon Miller

Total Running Time: 38:46

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