Swinging Bridges
Swinging Bridges During these long walks, I’ve been thinking about bridges. This essay would have appeared here, but my friend Ian and the folks at the Atlantic decided to publish it there: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/swinging-bridges/478980/ For related material, please see the Pointless Essays tab below.
March 11
March 11 Day 11 Muktinath to Kagbeni Even with an altitude drop from 5416m down to 3800m, I still found myself waking up in the middle of the night panting, almost as if I had just run a race. Slept in then spent a pleasant morning drinking coffee and talking with two Aussies and two […]
March 10
March 10 Day 10 High Camp to Muktinath A long cold night — the beds had huge blankets stuffed with something lumpy, heavy and hard like kapok, though they were absolutely necessary as it had to be around 15 degrees Fahrenheit in the room. Obviously I didn’t sleep well because of the temperature but also […]
March 7
March 7 Day 7 Tilicho Base Camp up to Tilicho Lake then to Blue Sheep Hotel The room in the Hotel Moonlight was very cold, but they had huge blankets which, along with my down bag, kept everything but my nose warm. When I went to bed, it was fully misted over and the snow […]
March 6
March 6 Day 6 Manang to Lake Tilicho Base Camp At 7:15 the chocolate pastries came out of the oven and I was there for the first one, along with a cappuccino which made for a decidedly cosmopolitan breakfast. It also led to an early start. Had 15 km with a fair amount of altitude […]
Feb 22
Feb 22 An early morning gong booming, the singing of prayers by my friend, and the crowing of roosters stirred me out of bed. Today’s goal was Kakani, which should have made for a short walk, though I was having trouble reconciling my GPS device with the published Helambu map. On the map, Kakani is […]
Feb 19
Feb 19 The combination of a upper respiratory infection, being out of shape, and altitude changes made for a short hiking day. I took a car from the center of Kathmandu to Sunjarijal, a small town out on the edge of the big city’s sprawl. It was a national holiday, and the traffic was bumper […]