*not the actual mountain
I've enrolled in the Himalayan Trust Summit Challenge 2020 as my giving-back gig for this year. The challenge is to climb 8,848 metres - the height of Mt Everest. Sounds impressive but I've got the whole month of March to complete it so I'm fairly confident I can knock this b**stard off!
I visited Nepal in 2018 and it was a very humbling experience for me, as for so many Kiwis who go there. The people of the high mountains are wonderfully warm and welcoming while living in abject poverty by our standards. A high wage in Nepal is about NZ$100 a day, and most people are earning a lot less, the average around NZ$20 per day.
The Himalayan Trust set up by Sir Edmund Hillary works to help the local people get access to healthcare and education - things we take for granted.
I'll be posting my progress as I make some (which will hopefully be on a daily basis), along with some previously un-posted pictures of the beautiful Khumbu region of Nepal, where Everest is located. In the meantime, my fundraising is under way. No donation is too small, I‘d love it if you could find a few bucks to help.
The picture below shows the trail to Everest between Lukla and Phakding. This is still relatively low altitude - a mere 2600 metres. Subsistence crops - mainly tubers - are grown here, as you can see to the right of the picture.
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