Thame Valley - 12,470 Ft.

A few months back I read an article in the Deseret News about a Nepali man named Apa Sherpa. Apa grew up in a small village in the Himalayas and has climbed to the summit of Mount Everest seventeen times; more times than any other person in the world. Recently Apa moved with his family to Salt Lake City so that his kids could get a better education than they would recieve in Nepal. The article mentioned that Apa works at a mountaineering shop in Salt Lake and that occasionally people will drop by just to chat with him about his many Everest expeditions.

Today was scheduled as an acclimatization day in my itinerary. Hikers who make an ascent too quickly at high altitudes often experience serious cardiovascular or cereberal problems, so it's important to schedule days to acclimatize at high altitudes. Rather than spend the whole day hanging around at the guest house, I hiked with my porter to a village about three hours away from Namche called Thame Valley. The hike to Thame was along one edge of a long, towering canyon. On the other end of the canyon several waterfalls that were each hundreds of feet long crashed down to the raging grey river below. If not for the rainy season then I would have seen massive snowy peaks above the canyon, but unfortunately clouds covered the peaks today.
Once we arrived in Thame my porter suggested that we stop for lunch at a place called The Everest Summiteer Lodge. My porter mentioned that the lodge was owned by a Nepali man who had summitted Everest many times. The walls of the small restaurant inside were covered with framed photos and memorabilia. After spending a few minutes looking things over, I realized that the lodge was owned by Apa Sherpa. I talked to my porter and he said that Thame is Apa's hometown and that after summiting Everest many times and opening the lodge, he moved to the United States with his family.
Lining the walls with the memorabilia were several framed certificates from Guinness World Records. The certificates recognized Apa Sherpa as the man who has summitted Everest more times than anyone else in the world, and there was one certificate for each of his eleventh through seventeeth summits. Next to the Guinness World Records certificates hung a certificate from Alta High School recognizing Pemba Sherpa as an honor roll student (I assume that Pemba is Apa's son).
Wandering into Apa Sherpa's lodge in his hometown in the Himalayas has to be the second most incredible coincidence I've had while traveling, next to meeting Stewart Grow at Macchu Pichu in 2006. I had my porter take a picture of me outside the lodge, as well as one inside the restaurant. When I get back to Salt Lake I'm going to find out where the mountaineering shop is that Apa Sherpa works at. I can't wait to go and have a chat with him and show him a picture of me sitting down to an apple pancake and two fried eggs at his lodge in his hometown of Thame.
After a rainy three-hour walk back to Namche I took a quick nap at Hotel Everest and then headed down to the restaurant for some grub. I ended up talking for several hours with an American couple, Jason and Danielle, who are from Tahoe, California. Jason is a part owner of a chain of ski shops in Tahoe. I talked with him about running four ski shops at different resorts in Tahoe, as well as his exploding business online. Jason and Danielle are on their way down from Base Camp and will spend ten days in Thailand before returning home to the United States.

The two of them told me that the weather has been cloudy and rainy during their whole trek, but the day they climbed Kala Pattar for a view of Everest the skies happened to be crystal clear. They woke up at 4:30 in the morning that day and climbed through a foot of snow to the peak of Kala Pattar and had an incredible view of Everest, as well as Nuptse and Lhotse, for about two hours. I would love to get that lucky when I'm up there. The day they were at Kala Pattar was the same day I flew into Lukla - the day I remembered as being uncharacteristically clear. I'll cross my fingers. Maybe I'll get lucky and there will be one more morning like that just at the right time for me.