I've been working on a slideshow presentation of our trip for the Los Alamos Mountaineers in June 2008 and came up with this Google Earth video of our travels. There is no sound because I intend to narrate the video as it is show during the presentation but if you want to check it out on YouTube, take a peek:
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Josh's photos from the India trip online!
While I've been severely procrastinating in regards to sorting and captioning my photos from our India trip, Josh did an awesome job of getting his photos organized, captioned and online. You can see them all here. He broke the trip photos into three chapters to make going through the photos much easier. Post a comment here and let him know what you think!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
A few of my favorite photos from India
I have over 2.5GB of photos from our India trip that I've been sorting through a bit. I plan to post them in a web album at some point but no doubt that will be a while. But in the meantime, here are a few that I really like or that tell the story a bit...
Monks playing cricket at the Enchey Monastery.
We're huge in India...
Sarah and Sam enduring the long drive from Gangtok to Yuksam.
Our group at the lookout above Dzongri. Kangchenjunga and Pandim are the major peaks in the background. From left to right: Me, Sarah, Sam, Dawa our guide, Josh and Suraj our liaison officer.
Jopuno, 5,936m. We successfully climbed the west ridge, the ridge going from lower left starting on the glacial snow to the summit.
The "A-Bomb" sunset from our 16,000' camp on Tinchenkang.
Josh descending the rock face section on Tinchenkang in a snow storm on our summit attempt day.
Kangchenjunga in the moonlight from our basecamp.
After the storm cleared, Sam descending the west ridge of Jopuno on our summit day.
Our big mountain family at Thangsing camp before we hike out. The group includes Dzo drivers, porters, our cook and his assistant, our liaison officer, guide and us.
Super friendly school girls at the border checkpost of Sikkim and West Bengal.
Monks playing cricket at the Enchey Monastery.
We're huge in India...
Sarah and Sam enduring the long drive from Gangtok to Yuksam.
Our group at the lookout above Dzongri. Kangchenjunga and Pandim are the major peaks in the background. From left to right: Me, Sarah, Sam, Dawa our guide, Josh and Suraj our liaison officer.
Jopuno, 5,936m. We successfully climbed the west ridge, the ridge going from lower left starting on the glacial snow to the summit.
The "A-Bomb" sunset from our 16,000' camp on Tinchenkang.
Josh descending the rock face section on Tinchenkang in a snow storm on our summit attempt day.
Kangchenjunga in the moonlight from our basecamp.
After the storm cleared, Sam descending the west ridge of Jopuno on our summit day.
Our big mountain family at Thangsing camp before we hike out. The group includes Dzo drivers, porters, our cook and his assistant, our liaison officer, guide and us.
Super friendly school girls at the border checkpost of Sikkim and West Bengal.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Ah, the taste of green chile
Hey, we all made it back home safely and without incident! After a couple of long flights (9 hours from Delhi to Frankfurt, 11.5 hours from Frankfurt to Los Angeles), a night in Los Angeles and a short flight to Albuquerque this morning, we were reunited with our fair state of NM this morning around 9am.
The flights were rough for me. First, Air India had an antiquated Air Canada 747 in poor condition that has the least leg room of any jet I've ever been on. Then, despite not having any stomach issues the entire trip, as soon as I got on the jet, I started up with the diarrhea which is still with me even now. On top of that, I came down with a head cold a day before we left for home. It was one miserable trip back!
But, despite a wacked-out stomach, I was eager to get some chile so Allison and I headed straight to The Frontier restaurant where I enjoyed my last bit of gluttony for the trip. From now on, it's diet time and time to shed some of these extra pounds I amassed while playing tourist in India post-expedition.
I'm unpacking and sorting through five weeks of mail, both electronic and postal, and just happy to be back home again. It was an amazing trip with some truly wonderful companions and I'm wildly thankful to have had the opportunity to make this trip.
In a few days I hope to have some photos with captions and a story online and when I do get this up, I'll post the link here.
Thank you Sam, Sarah and Josh for an amazing excursion. It was awesome!
The flights were rough for me. First, Air India had an antiquated Air Canada 747 in poor condition that has the least leg room of any jet I've ever been on. Then, despite not having any stomach issues the entire trip, as soon as I got on the jet, I started up with the diarrhea which is still with me even now. On top of that, I came down with a head cold a day before we left for home. It was one miserable trip back!
But, despite a wacked-out stomach, I was eager to get some chile so Allison and I headed straight to The Frontier restaurant where I enjoyed my last bit of gluttony for the trip. From now on, it's diet time and time to shed some of these extra pounds I amassed while playing tourist in India post-expedition.
I'm unpacking and sorting through five weeks of mail, both electronic and postal, and just happy to be back home again. It was an amazing trip with some truly wonderful companions and I'm wildly thankful to have had the opportunity to make this trip.
In a few days I hope to have some photos with captions and a story online and when I do get this up, I'll post the link here.
Thank you Sam, Sarah and Josh for an amazing excursion. It was awesome!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Delhi Sandwich
We made it successfully to Delhi last night after a nice drive from Darjeeling to the Bagdogra airport yesterday morning. It was sad to say goodbye to Suraj as we'd become good friends in the past month but we'll stay in touch via email and maybe come back to explre North Sikkim sometime.
Today we'll take a taxi (and hopefully an auto-rickshaw!) around Delhi and check out Lodi Gardens at the recommendation of my co-worker Giri. Tomorrow we leave here at 7:30am flight to get back in Los Angeles around 6pm on Saturday night. We stay the night there and leave early Sunday on flight back to ABQ. We're almost home and we are looking forward to being back again.
India has been fantastic and I can't wait to show you all some photos and tell you all the details about this wonderful journey. Thanks for reading and saying hello here!
Jason
Today we'll take a taxi (and hopefully an auto-rickshaw!) around Delhi and check out Lodi Gardens at the recommendation of my co-worker Giri. Tomorrow we leave here at 7:30am flight to get back in Los Angeles around 6pm on Saturday night. We stay the night there and leave early Sunday on flight back to ABQ. We're almost home and we are looking forward to being back again.
India has been fantastic and I can't wait to show you all some photos and tell you all the details about this wonderful journey. Thanks for reading and saying hello here!
Jason
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Happy Birthday Allison!
Hey, today, April 1st, is Allison's birthday! Let's all wish her a happy day!
Thanks!
Jason
Thanks!
Jason
Monday, March 31, 2008
In Darjeeling, ain't no foolin!
Hello all! Jason here. First, thank for all the super awesome comments on the blog so far! We really appreciate everyone saying hello and leaving your thoughts about our trip. Second, let's here it for Allison for all the time she's put into this page and posting all the updates! Allison, the four of us here say...THANK YOU!!!! You're the best.
We arrived in Darjeeling yesterday after spending a night in Pelling, West Sikkim. Pelling is crazy, it's just a bunch of hotels on a hill. Really, just hotels. I don't know how the town is sustained. We couldn't even find a market?!? On our drive from Pelling to Darjeeling we stopped at a holy cave and hot springs along the river and had lunch in a town called Naya Bazaar. As we ascended from 1200' by the river at Naya Bazaar to Darjeeling at 7200', we passed by numerous tea plantations perched improbably on the very steep hillsides. It's mind-boggling how much agriculture is done on hillsides that drop so steeply.
It's been an awesome trip for sure. Here in Darjeeling now for a couple days we'll be doing the tourist bit and will be consuming loads of tea and food. Now's the part of the trip where we get all fat and happy like most tourists. We're SO psyched about how our expedition went! The trek in was fantastic, we summitted one of the peaks and saw some amazing territory. Each morning we'd wake up with a stellar view of Kachenjunga and I was just glad to be alive and in such a wonderful and amazing place. When we left for this trip I figured if we summitted just one peak of the two, I'd consider that total success given we had no knowledge of the routes and difficulty involved. Yahoo!!
It's been fantastic but I'm also looking forward to getting back home to enjoy spring in the Southwest and see everyone back in New Mexico. See you all soon!
Jason
We arrived in Darjeeling yesterday after spending a night in Pelling, West Sikkim. Pelling is crazy, it's just a bunch of hotels on a hill. Really, just hotels. I don't know how the town is sustained. We couldn't even find a market?!? On our drive from Pelling to Darjeeling we stopped at a holy cave and hot springs along the river and had lunch in a town called Naya Bazaar. As we ascended from 1200' by the river at Naya Bazaar to Darjeeling at 7200', we passed by numerous tea plantations perched improbably on the very steep hillsides. It's mind-boggling how much agriculture is done on hillsides that drop so steeply.
It's been an awesome trip for sure. Here in Darjeeling now for a couple days we'll be doing the tourist bit and will be consuming loads of tea and food. Now's the part of the trip where we get all fat and happy like most tourists. We're SO psyched about how our expedition went! The trek in was fantastic, we summitted one of the peaks and saw some amazing territory. Each morning we'd wake up with a stellar view of Kachenjunga and I was just glad to be alive and in such a wonderful and amazing place. When we left for this trip I figured if we summitted just one peak of the two, I'd consider that total success given we had no knowledge of the routes and difficulty involved. Yahoo!!
It's been fantastic but I'm also looking forward to getting back home to enjoy spring in the Southwest and see everyone back in New Mexico. See you all soon!
Jason
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)