December 28, 2000 - December 13, 2001 14 Days in Nepal Turning around...
Here's another picture of Everest. I'm still not a hundred percent sure if that's snow blowing off the top, or clouds, or what. It's really interesting though because whatever it is, it's coming right from the very peak. It's amazing. I think the peak of Mount Everest is at 8848 meters (about 29,000 feet) and we were at a little under 3900 meters (about 13,000 feet). Not too shabby. About two and half miles up in the air. We weren't too far off from the tree line, which is where trees stop growing. So we were up there.
	Here's another good picture of Amadablam. I like the white cloud just floating in the middle. I also like how it shows the contrast between the snow capped Himalayas and the dirt capped hills nearby. I guess you can't even call them hills because they're rather large in their own right. Dirt mountains. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see the Himalayas with the lower mountains nearby. This picture was taken just before we headed back from Tengboche.
Ah yes, my favorite bridge. This was one of the wooden ones. Most of the wooden ones were small, but this one was actually a decent length. It crossed over the roaring river below. It's not just the fact that this was wooden that scared me- it's the fact that like every other step was either missing, or broken, or loose. Notice the prayer flags spanning the valley as well. I was saying my own prayers, hoping that the bridge didn't collaspe. But you have no choice but to cross. There's no other way to other mountain, unless you want to go all the way down and find a way to cross the river. But that would take forever.
	Here's Andrea on the wooden bridge with our other crazy Sherpa in the background. She didn't seem to have any problems with the bridges. But this picture is good because you can see the crudeness of the bridge. The steps are of varying size, varying evenness, varying shape. If you did not watch each step you took, you easily could have fallen through. I crossed this bridge very, very slowly- carefully placing my foot with each step.

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