Lukla – Most dangerous airport in the World

8840 meters above sea level … what kind of unexplainable, unimaginable feelings do mountaineers experience on top of Mt. Everest? Issa and I might never find out personally, but at least we could check our own probably more humble emotions and sensations doing the Everest Base Camp-Trek. This was much more realistic for both of us amateur mountaineers and also without the high risk of simply killing ourselves at Chomulungma or Sagarmatha, as Mt. Everest was called in Tibetan or Nepali.
And it has been Issas dream since a long time anyway to see the top of the world with her own eyes and not only through movies and books.

I was lucky enough to already smell the thin air next to the Mt. Everest Base Camp (E.B.C.) and have a glance at her majestic beauty (yes – it’s a female mountain! She can be quite moody you know …). It happened on the neighbouring tibetan side to the North of Nepal during my first journey to Lhasa a few years ago. However I quickly agreed with Issa that it would be admirable to own the “double su(b)mit” and have a short look at the southern E.B.C. in Nepal too. Furthermore I would also complete my personal Kora (= spiritual circumambulation; read more about it here) around Chomulungma (ok … I just made up both reasons by myself, guess I just like hiking!).

View from tibetan E.B.C. to the Mt. Everest North Col in 2014. by Franz. M.

Therefore since our journey would cross Nepal anyway it was without a question that we should dr.avel the lands of the Sherpa, the so called “snow tigers“. These tough and persevering people inhabit the Solokhumbu region and the Sagarmatha National Park which prostrates around the highest peaks of our planet. The Sherpa are world famous guides to every expedition into the great Himalayas, which made their name a synonym for strong and indespensable Porters too. Well, not every expedition – we for example decided to neither take a guide nor a porter with us. We just counted on our experiences in the Austrian Alps and the Slovakian Tatras to be enough for these … hills up there. You will read later on what happened to us!

Searching the Internet for the best ways to trek to E.B.C.

So we started to look for the best ways to organise our tour into the mystical Himalayas and got some useful tips from our friends Jens, René and Raj about the Everest Base Camp-Trek beforehand. During our investigations we often heard and read about the most dangerous airport in the world as well as the amazing flight skills of the pilots who take the risk of landing in legendary Tenzing–Hillary Airport of Lukla. So we had the choice: Either to go to Jiri Bazaar by a long bumpy bus ride and from there trek around 6-7 days into the Solokhumbu valley, or just test our luck and Adrenalin glands. People who know Issa well can guess that our choice was an easy and quick one. So after the last outbursts of monsoon rains had ceized to flood Nepal we found ourselves in the departure hall of the inbound flight terminal of Kathmandu Airport.

Did I already mention that Lukla airport is dangerous? Ahhh – yes, but not Why! So except for the fact that the airstrip basically heads into a straight rock wall on one end and has a steeply angled drop on the other it is also very short and has nearly 12% gradient. Landing conditions are additionally characterized by extremely changy weather with frequent rain, high winds and huge cloud formations which appear out of nowhere preferably right in front of the runway – which is just great since the pilots are dependend on mere eyesight during the landing process in Lukla. For a list of accidents and incidents at Lukla airport you can visit the Wiki- entry here.

View over Lukla airport.

The changy and unpredictable weather has caused flight delays or cancellations ever since 1964. So the first thing we heard at 6 a.m. from the Tara-Air operating counter was that our flight was delayed. The very first machine of the day took off but all the following flights had to stay down until the clouds disappeared (later we met some guys wo were at that first plane … and had to fly back to Kathmandu just before Lukla because of that quick change in weather).

Flying to Lukla implies mostly one thing: Waiting at the Kathmandu airport …

The flight officers invited us to have a look at the screen where they had a live transmission from the cameras at the airstrip … and the live-stream was basically an amorphous white-greyish emptiness – just like the Massala Tea I am drinking right now while I am typing these words (with the difference that my tea is actually something!). So we waited and waited, once in a while a guy appeared who smelled good business and wanted to sell us helicopter fligts for 500$ to Lukla instead, but we waited and kept asking for news and updates from the screen. Until at 12 p.m. suddenly a window in the clouds opened and mountain peaks appeared. The officers smiled and promised us that if the clouds continue to open up in that pace we will be able to fly in about 2h. Well, they didn’t but returned to their Massala Tea state and so we had to postpone our flight to the day after. I asked for the earliest flight and got two seats for 9 a.m. the next day but Issa was unsatisfied and asked me to make more pressure at the counter. So I tried again and magically there appeared two seats for 8:30 a.m.. I don’t know what was driving Issa but she went to the Tara-Air counter herself and got two tickets for 6:15 a.m. – the earliest flight possible and with the best chances to actually take off. Was it just how things work in Nepal or because of her charme and the blonde hair … anyway she saved the day!

Boarding on the small Tara Air- Do 228- aircraft finally started … with a strange feeling though!

First glance at some of the tremendous peaks which will acompany us the next 3 weeks.

Can you imagine how happy we were when we entered the airport shuttle bus which took us to our plane early next morning? And can you imagine how happy we were when we had to wait in the bus while two technicians futilely tried to close and fix the door to the small Tara Air Do 228 aircraft, finally gave up on it and transfered our luggage to another machine? But the peak of our happiness was however when the porters unloaded all our bags again after a while and stuffed them back again into the first aircraft! It seemed that somehow the engineers repaired the unwilling door and with a strange feeling in our bellies we finally took off into the cloudless sky above Kathmandu.

About 40 min after leaving Kathmandu valley and passing the peaks of the Himalayan foothills through the pilots window we discovered the small airstrip of Lukla airport between two rising clouds in front of us. Even though we advanced quite fast it did not get much bigger or longer … it really was that small! And right at the end of the runway rose up the huge rock wall of Mt. Gonggila (5808m). The pilot adjusted his sunglasses, took the steering wheel into both of his hands and pulled down the machine. We felt the breakfast wobbling in our stomachs when he took a few quick and sharp turns to correct the planes position. We felt like a clumsy fly landing on a thin strip of spilled milk when we bumped a few times on the moist pavement of the runway and firmly pulled the breaks. When the aircraft stopped just a few meters from the stones in front of us I realized my fast heart beat, the white knuckles of Issas hand holding on to a handle and the pearls of sweat on the pilots forehead

Happy to be in Lukla, and that in one piece!

Welcome to Lukla, gateway to the Solokhumbu! Everest, we are coming …

View more pictures in the corresponding Foto Gallery here …