Nothing Ever Goes As Planned…

I want to start out by thanking all of you who have decided to follow me along on this journey. The first few blog posts will be updates leading up to where I am now, so they may seem delayed, especially if you are following along on the IMG website. This blog is intended to share my individual experiences along this journey and I have been attempting to make them as detailed as possible. Kendall will be updating this blog based on extensive journal entries I have been sending her sporadically as I have limited access to internet.

I first want to point out that this isn’t a decision I made one day and left a month later, there was a lot of time and preparation that went into this new adventure. I have received so much support from my family and friends as well as the IMG guides and staff. IMG has been amazing to work with from the very start of my quest. Everyone I have meet has been so professional and has really spent the time to get to know me and my family. The amount of organization required for an expedition of this magnitude is daunting, yet they have streamlined it so well. I will be forever grateful for their guidance through every aspect of this journey.

Journal Entry- 3/29/21

Like everything in life, nothing typically goes according to your game plan. I am on day five in Kathmandu Nepal which means I’m still in quarantine along with 12 other people in Team 2 for the IMG climb/trek. 

I finally got to Kathmandu after initially leaving Toledo approximately 52 hours ago. Flying from Detroit I had a quick stop in Chicago (or at least that was what it was supposed to be) only to be stuck there for 24 hours waiting to clarify my visa with the Nepalese government. I arrived into Kathmandu at 2AM and it took another two hours to get through COVID checks, visa application, security checks, baggage claim, more security checks, and finally transportation to Hotel Manaslu in Kathmandu.

Due to the pandemic, we have to stay in Kathmandu for seven days quarantine. To make sure we minimized any exposure to people from the outside, no one was able to leave the hotel area. Overall, it’s a nice place; a traditional hotel where we did little more than eat, sleep, and spend some time getting to know each other. IMG has two groups here, both of which are a combination of trekkers that are going from Lukla to Everest Base Camp (EBC) and climbers that are trekking from Lukla to EBC and then continuing on to the summit. 

We got our updated COVID test yesterday (after four days here) and now (due to weather inversion which has the Kathmandu Valley in a toxic haze), it looks like we will be taking jeeps up to the Lukla area rather than the helicopter transport that was originally planned. So, instead of leaving Thursday the 31^st, it looks like we will be heading out tomorrow morning, (Wednesday, March 30^th) at 6AM for a nine-hour jeep ride to start our trek to EBC.

There have been very few meetings of the entire group, so I’m still not sure who is climbing the mountain and who is trekking. Quite frankly, I am still trying to figure out everyone’s name at this point. Those that I’ve met so far all seem pretty pleasant; everybody’s just anxious to get started. This quarantine has really been tiresome. We kind of feel like we’re trapped animals in a cage right now. I have been spending my time running up and down the 4 flights of stairs the hotel has every morning. Personally, I’m feeling pretty good and ready to get started. I am just finishing up packing my last bag to go to Lukla tomorrow morning for the trek. 

I am so excited to get this journey started and even more excited to have you all follow along!

Talk soon, 

Kris

The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important. –Bobby Knight