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I don't have much to add but my thanks to her and Lakpa for allowing me to join them. They've done a stellar job with the logistics of getting all of the fixed lines, O2, tents, food and supplies to the foot of our route, the permits and me this far. They've a massive accumulated wealth of knowledge I'm slowly beginning to comprehend as my brain adjusts to this time zone. I'm lucky they are sharing it and looking forward to learning more and, hopefully, contributing soon. Chris has informed me that the final summit push on our Annapurna route involves some guess work picking a line through undulating terrain. I've managed to cache terrain data and plot some waypoints for our summits on my watch in order to optimize our route and in case of low visibility conditions. We also have questionable taste in movies and shows so I'm making sure we have Zoolander 2 and The Expanse on a portable wifi disk station I'm taking to base camp. Also, the sat modem is up and running with a new SIM card so I'll be able to post updates and get weather regularly. That is no less than 4 satellite systems (Thuraya, Iridium, GPS, GLONASS) we're using with 4 different devices. I'm glad we have all of these satellites whizzing above our heads and gadgets to talk to them so I can focus on what I do best; putting one foot in front of the other and repeating. A lot.
Today, as we flew in to Pokhara, we caught small glimpses of the Annapurna range through the clouds. I'm in awe of the explorers who came here a decade ago and even considered setting foot on the flanks of these giants and humbled by the fact that our plane was cruising around 20,000' and we were still looking up at the peaks.
After some successful provisioning in Pokhara (purchasing of all of the chocolate in town), we'll finally get some altitude tomorrow. If all goes well, we'll end our day in Mukanath and start to stress our bodies so they'll make more red blood cells.
(Phewa Lake and the World Peace Pagoda)
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