Summer vacation is nipping close at our heels, so Inge and I made a special trip into Seoul to find the right pair of fancy purple boots just for the occasion! This time instead of lying on white sandy beaches, sipping exotic fruit juices, and getting ridiculously awesome tans that sent our Korean teachers into a tithy of horror (assah!), we’ve decided to take our vacation to the next level…literally. On July 17th we will begin our 13 day trek from Lukla, Nepal to Everest Base Camp, climbing to a mind altering (literally) 18,000ft. Our fancy new purple boots will stomp no less than two hundred thousand steps upwards, traveling 100 miles round trip and hiking up to 9hrs a day depending on terrain and altitude.
In preparation we’ve been on a mission for the past week to get our boots into tiptop shape for this once-in-a-lifetime, are-you-off-your-rocker(?!) kind of experience! We’ve been taking our boots out for long walks up Korean hills (everything is a hill in comparison to Everest, sniff) and through towns, receiving envious glances from fellow hikers at our oh so trendy, cutting edge hiking attire!
You may not know this but the air at 18,000ft is thin enough to bottle up and send home to your grandmother and your body sometimes doesn’t even realize that it’s still breathing (which is bad news bears either way you look at it)! So in addition to getting our boots in shape I’ve decided our lungs need a good workout too, “hee, whoo, hee!” Just picture it, two purple booted, camera totting dweebs, marching up Korean hills, practicing our Lamaze birthing breathing techniques while counting off “March 123, breath in (“hee”) 123, march 456 breath out (“whoo”) 456!” And that my friend is what we will be doing all the way to the Top of the World!
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