Hiking into Namche Bazaar

Today's trek was relatively short, 9km with about 750m of altitude gain.  Unfortunately most of that altitude gain occurred over the last 3km of the hike so a lot of work at the end.

We crossed multiple suspended swinging bridges, the last one being the longest and highest.  The wind wasn't blowing much while we were on them but I can imagine how much movement would happen if it was really windy.

Along the way to Namche, we got our first glimpse of Everest off in the distance.  This photo was taken with my 300mm lens and it does show the summit, the south summit and the Hilary step area.  Everything below that is blocked by Lhotse.  So amazing to see this mountain in person.

We are staying in a really nice hotel, called Hotel Namche.  Lots of places to stay but this appears to be one of the nicer choices.  So fortunate to have such a great team of people guiding us and coordinating the details of where to go.

Namche Bazaar is an amazing mecca and is the gateway to the Everest region.  It is a bustling trading village located at 3,500m.  It is in a bowl shaped mountain corner with steps everywhere.  You can get almost anything here (except decent Internet).  For a village with no roads and the only access via porters and yak trains (plus some helicopter), there is a lot of stuff here.