Nepal Run Down.
I returned from the Nepal trip nearly two months ago now and I have been more than a little lax in my posting lately. Opon my return, I immediately started a new job at the University of Chiang Mai, I love the job but it is quite a time commitment. The up side is, there is a lot of time off and the University is very good about me taking extra time off when needed. My apologies for the lack of posts lately.
Photographically speaking the trip was a mixed bag, some things went really well others offered more challenges than I had expected. I took a lot of photos during the trip, close to the full 20GB that I brought with me and some of the images I am very happy with while others I missed. I think my biggest let down this trip was of photographing Mt. Everest. The mountain was covered with cloud for most of the trip and from all of the view points that we hiked to. The one exception was on the last day that we were to see Everest.
The original plan was to hike up Kalipatar early in the morning because our guide has said that this offered the best chance to catch Mt.Everest with no cloud cover. We set out at about six thirty but by the time we reached the summit of Katlipatar clouds had completely obscured the view. Not to mention the howling wind that blew through us chilling us to the bone. Despite my earnest desire to stay and wait for better weather and conditions, I simply could not. Our group had to back off to the relative warmth of the valley below. That afternoon we watched the small sliver of Mt.Everest that would have been visible if clouds had not been obscuring it. All afternoon, nothing was visible.
At 7:00 I decided that I would abandon all hope of getting a good shot of Everest and decided to simply spend the remainder of the day in the lodge. Just as the sun was going down and the light was getting good, the small band of cloud that had been hiding Mt.Everest all day, evaporated, leaving the mountain bathed in the last beautiful rays of the day. Unfortunately by this point I was still drinking tea in the lodge, and had not made the hour and a half trip to a higher vantage point where Everest would have been fully visible. The only photos that I was able to get were of the peak of Everest sticking out behind Mt. Nuptste.
I am quite fond of this photo but still wish I had managed to capture the full view of Mt.Everest. A quick browse through flickr or google images and you will see what I mean. The Everest with white fluffy clouds (but not the ones that cover the mountain) and the deep blue saturated skies is one of the images that I had set out to capture this trip. I think to do that I would need a few more days at Gorakshep, just camping and waiting for the right combination of weather, light and place.