Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/09/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Alastair, > I may have caught a bit of sun ;-) I've been in "heavy" training ;-) > should be ok and we start at about 3000 meters!!!! > > I take it you are flying to Lukla then hiking to the Everest base camp area. Last time we did this we spent about ten days trying to fly out of Kathmandu to Lukla. Each day we would check out of our hotel in Kathmandu and go to the airport. Some days we would take off only to return to Kathmandu because of weather conditions in Lukla, other days we would not even leave the airport. Each day they would change the sheets and clean our room at our hotel only to have us come back in the evening. They got pretty tired of this after a week. We finally did make it Lukla, but the delays cut our trip short so that we did not have time to acclimatise properly. Tkis is something you have to watch at these altitudes. My wife got very sick and we had to abort the treck to the the base camp at the last shelter (I forget the name). If you are feeling quite sick from altitude sickness the only thing to do is to walk to lower elevations and take more time to acclimatise. The runway at Lukla is something else. It is on quite a slope right at the edge of a cliff. On take off almost as soon as the plane start moving it is totally committed. The views in the area are just fantastic. I hope you get good weather. The best shots of the mountains are just before sunrise so bring an alarm clock. This is also when it is the coldest.so it takes a bit of discipline to get out of the bag to do some photography. Re equipment you obviously need to keep an eye on the total weight (unless someone else is carying your stuff). I usually take a lightweight tripod. Fast lenses are not required for the scenery. Teles are good to isolate mountains. 21mm/35mm/90mm would be what I would take if I was carying my own equipment. Jacques