EBC + Mt Everest

[Manfred M]

This is one of the oldest digital images I still have; one taken almost 16 years ago with a Canon Powershot S40 during a trip to China / Tibet. It is still one of my all-time favourites, even though it is not great photographically; Everest Base Camp is below and Mt Everest in the background on an incredibly good day.

I understand the the Chinese government had shut down this place to non-climbers and they can't get closer than a monastery a number of miles / km down the road. Altitude is around 5220m / 17,125ft; the highest I have ever been while standing on the ground.

I did a bit of cleanup and retouching on this image, which I prepared for my website, that is currently under construction.

[ST1]

I can see why you have this is a favourite image Manfred, well done for reviving it.

[mugge]

I can see why it appeals. I tried various crops and I even tried monochrome. No, this is best. Maybe get rid of the three tents in the foreground right corner - maybe.

This is my favorite image. I deliberately did not want the person to be in focus.

Fear not it's just me by Ole Hansen, on Flickr

[mugge]

Left corner

[Wavelength]

Superb image....What is the height of Mount Everest from here?

[Manfred M]

Superb image....What is the height of Mount Everest from here?

The official height of the mountain is 8848m /29.029ft and we were at 5220m / 17,125ft, so the summit of the mountain is approximately 3628m / 11,904 ft higher than we are. Nicely said, we are merely 59% from the top; that's still a long way to go!

[DanK]

A striking image. I can see why you want to have it on your website.

You wrote that you were at 5220m / 17,125ft. I'm impressed that you could pay attention to photography at that altitude. When I finished college, I backpacked up Long's Peak in Colorado--or, to be more precise, I backpacked most of the way up. If I recall, I was somewhere around 13,400 ft/ 4084m up when we stopped for a break. There were three of us: an experienced mountaineer, me, and one of my roommates. My roommate had already started vomiting from altitude sickness. I was doing better--just an elevated pulse rate and a headache. I looked around at the other people who had stopped at the same point and saw other lowlanders looking miserable, many with blue lips from oxygen deprivation. My roommate and I bid the mountaineer farewell and turned around.

[Manfred M]

A striking image. I can see why you want to have it on your website.

You wrote that you were at 5220m / 17,125ft. I'm impressed that you could pay attention to photography at that altitude. When I finished college, I backpacked up Long's Peak in Colorado--or, to be more precise, I backpacked most of the way up. If I recall, I was somewhere around 13,400 ft/ 4084m up when we stopped for a break. There were three of us: an experienced mountaineer, me, and one of my roommates. My roommate had already started vomiting from altitude sickness. I was doing better--just an elevated pulse rate and a headache. I looked around at the other people who had stopped at the same point and saw other lowlanders looking miserable, many with blue lips from oxygen deprivation. My roommate and I bid the mountaineer farewell and turned around.

This was my first trip where I spent a considerable period "at altitude", which is usually defined as being higher than 2400m / 8000 ft. There were more blown images (partially my fault due to being too busy trying to breath and move and not paying enough attention to working the camera). We had been "at altitude" for over a week when we got to EBC, so were well along out way to acclimatizing. We spent a total of 2 weeks in Tibet.

When I count the period we visited in Peru on the Altiplano, Bolivia, Bhutan, Nepal and Ladakh in India, the total time we spent at altitude adds up to around 2 months in total. Some of my favourite travel shots were taken in those places.