This year, my daughters flew down to spend Christmas week with me in Mexico. When they arrived, they had all the typical stories about how annoying flying has become these days. Flight cancellations, delays, crying babies, seatback-kicking toddlers, snoring passengers. When they landed there were no gates available. So they had to clamber down the mobile stairway, walk across the tarmac in the hot sun, and wrestle their carryon bags onto a standing-room-only bus for an uncomfortable ride to the terminal.
At the risk of being a stereotypical parent of my generation, regaling their children with stories of how I had to walk three miles to school in winter snowstorms, uphill both ways, I decided it was time to tell them about my most unforgettable airport experience.
It was back in 1995 when I went to Nepal to work as a volunteer on a wildlife research project. For three weeks, we rode elephants through the lowland jungle of southern Nepal tracking radio-collared animals. After completing my three weeks on the project, I decided I couldn’t come all the way to Nepal and not get a decent photograph of Mount Everest. The problem was, in order to get a good view of the mountain, I would have to travel to the remote Himalayan village of Namche Bazaar (11,300 ft. altitude.) It is the last village on the way to Everest Base Camp (17,600 ft.).
There were two options for getting there. One involved an 8-day trek climbing up and down over five mountain ranges. The other involved flying from Kathmandu to Lukla, a village which had a tiny airport carved into the mountainside at 9,400 feet altitude. From there, I was told, it would be a relatively easy 2-day hike up to Namche Bazaar. I was assured that in Lukla, I could hire a Sherpa porter to carry my pack and make sure I didn’t get lost or fall off the mountain trail. Being a 50-year-old couch potato, I opted for the Lukla flight.
At that time, Nepal Airlines had a small fleet of Canadian-built, twin-engine propeller planes specially designed for take-off and landing on short runways. The runway at Lukla was one of the shortest in the world — 1,730 feet long. The plane could supposedly take off and land using only 1,200 feet of runway. Of course, that was at sea level. Who knows what it could do in the thin air 9,400 feet up.
The plane was called the de Havilland “Twin Otter.” I must admit, I thought the Canadians could have come up with a more suitable name. Eagle, maybe, or Falcon. Instead they chose to name it after an overgrown weasel whose idea of a good time is sliding down muddy river banks and plunging into the water.
The Nepal Airlines version of the plane carried 13 passengers. Of course, any sensible airline would have settled for an even dozen. Hotels in Las Vegas don’t even acknowledge having a 13th floor. This airline didn’t even offer a discount for the poor soul assigned to seat number 13.
To prepare for the trek, I went shopping in a Kathmandu street market. I got a great deal on a pair of off-brand hiking boots and a Chinese-made, mummy-style sleeping bag. I later found out my bargain-basement mummy bag was designed for the average Chinese mummy. It was about eight inches too short for my six- foot-two carcass. Worse yet, it was not filled with soft, fluffy goose down, but with plain old chicken feathers. These provided almost no insulation and had stiff quills that soon poked through the fabric and turned my sleeping bag into a bed of nails.
I spent one evening breaking in the boots by climbing up and down the stairs of my 5-story hotel. But after a few laps, I decided there was no point in getting blisters before I even started my trek. Instead, I retired to the hotel bar where I “carbed up” with popcorn, and balanced my electrolytes with a couple of Margaritas.
The next morning, while waiting for my flight at the Kathmandu airport, I heard an announcement in Nepali that caused dozens of passengers to rush to the flight insurance sales desk. I later learned that the announcement said another “Twin Otter” flight to the trailhead of the Mount Annapurna trekking region had overshot the runway and, like its animal namesake, slid down a muddy embankment into a shallow river. Nobody was hurt, but 13 intrepid hikers began their Annapurna trek with soggy boots and soiled underwear.
I didn’t bother buying flight insurance. Instead, I got the traditional blessing from a Hindu holy man who makes a few rupees by sprinkling flower petals on the heads of departing passengers. That ritual had worked for my six-hour, hair-raising bus ride through the mountains to Kathmandu. Surely, it would be more than sufficient for a half-hour plane ride.
As my flight boarded, I noticed that there was nothing that might be described as a security check. In the US, inspectors were confiscating pen knives and cigarette lighters. On this flight, half the passengers were mountain climbers. They wore hunting knives on their belts. And the backpacks they were stuffing into the overhead bins bristled with steel-spiked crampons and 3-foot-long ice axes. The cargo that was piled behind the seating area included dozens of Coleman lanterns and cook stoves brimful of gasoline. Maybe I should have sprung a few more rupees for a double dose of those flower petals.
As for our destination, only later did I find out that, for more than 20 years, Lukla has held the title of the world’s most dangerous airport. In fact, it could hardly be described as an airport. It was at best a landing strip. There was no radar or air navigation equipment. To determine wind speed and direction, pilots just looked at the strings of Buddhist prayer flags fluttering from every pole and building. At that time, the runway was unpaved and consisted of crushed rock. As my plane’s wheels touched down, rocks flew up and clattered against the belly of the plane. That was definitely not the sound I associated with a safe landing.
Another ominous feature of this airstrip was the makeshift fence along the edges made primarily of crashed airplane parts. These were used in a feeble attempt to keep yaks and goats from grazing along the runway. When a plane was approaching, someone would hand crank an old air raid siren to warn pedestrians to get off the runway and farmers to retrieve their livestock.
The runway was not only very short, but had a 12 percent slope, meaning the bottom was 200 feet lower than the top. That helped slow down landing planes, and accelerate departing planes. But, the lower end was just the edge of a sheer cliff. If your engine stalled on takeoff, you would plummet 1,000 feet into the valley below. The upper end of the runway came to an abrupt end at the vertical face of a mountain. There was no margin for error. A landing pilot could not change his mind and make a second pass. Once committed, the pilot was either going to “stick the landing,” or become part of that scrap-metal fence lining the runway.
The flight from Kathmandu took only half an hour, but weather was unpredictable. Often, if it was clear in Kathmandu, it was foggy in Lukla, and vice versa. Sometimes, a plane would have to turn back mid-flight because clouds had suddenly descended upon Lukla. Flights generally operated only during the early morning hours, because unfavorable crosswinds built up as the sun warmed the surrounding mountains.
Only the most skilled, highly trained pilots were assigned to fly to Lukla. First, they had to complete 100 short-take-off-and-landing flights at other airfields in Nepal. Then, they had to complete ten flights into Lukla with a certified instructor at their side.
I wish I could say the same for the competence of the maintenance staff. I remember in 2009, Nepal Airlines made international news when they were having trouble diagnosing a problem in one of their grounded Boeing 757 jets. In a country that has more religious deities than qualified airplane mechanics, the solution was to sacrifice a goat to the Hindu god of the sky. In case you didn’t know there was such a deity, his snarling red face is part of the company logo painted on every Nepal Airlines plane. Apparently this spiritual offering did the trick, because the report said the plane was put back into service and safely completed a flight from Kathmandu to Hong Kong. I’m not sure how long this unconventional repair lasted. I tried Googling it, but I couldn’t find out how many MPG (miles per goat) you could get with a Boeing 757.
All things considered, I survived my Lukla flights, though the return trip was delayed for five days because of weather. My Mt. Everest photograph has long since been lost among the piles of slide presentations stashed in my attic. When I finally had grandchildren, I regaled them with stories, not about walking three miles to school in a snowstorm, but about having completed my 2-day Himalayan trek when I was 50 years old. They thought I was pretty hot stuff. So did I.
But then, in 2009, a woman friend of mine who was 61 years old, and a cancer survivor to boot, completed a 14-day trek all the way from Lukla to Everest Base Camp (17,600 ft. altitude.) She wasn’t doing it just to get a good picture. She was one of 97 people running in the annual Tenzing/Hillary Mt. Everest Marathon. At that altitude, most people can barely walk. Oxygen levels are half what they are at sea level. She completed the 26-mile run down to Namche Bazaar in just over 10 hours and 42 minutes. Oh, and wouldn’t you know, there was a snowstorm during her trek.
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