[Leica] Nepal: gear

[jbilin at axionet.com (Jacques Bilinski)]

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