TA Loeffler's Adventures that Move

Hey this is TA calling in from Day 22 of the great big walk, which I think today should actually rightly be called the great big climb. We’ve had a big day here on the great big walk climb. We had snow continue to fall all night so by the time morning came around, there was at least a foot, 30 cm maybe a foot and a half of snow on the ground and the crew made the decision that we were going to try move up here to pass camp so it was a big day for everybody. For our trekkers, for the porter, for the folks breaking trail. In fact I think today’s heroes are Lakpa who broke trail a ton of the way who appears to be part (inaudible). Mingma who appears to be part yak, who broke trail and then took over a load for someone who wasn’t feeling well. Chandra who appears to be part snow leopard who can cook up in the storm and also broke trail much of the way and for our trip leader Judah who appears to be part rope because he holds the entire team together. As well as everyone, everyone who carried the load today for us was indeed a hero on today’s epic day.

March was definitely in like a lamb for us and out like a lion. The weather pattern definitely has changed. We were having clear mornings and maybe a little snow in the afternoons. Not sure how long this is going to stay with us but at the moment we are having near constant snow. And it was definitely a type two fun kind of a day. My friend is talking about type two fun, that is the kind of fun that is fun when you’re done. So actually I quite enjoyed today’s climb. We took it at a very steady rhythm, fueled your natural breathing and your stepping. We did have some pretty good steep stuff that was near on mountaineering and we did make it here to pass camp at an elevation of 4545 m for all you odometer fans out there. Marian did 13 172 steps and 89 floors. The floor thing seems a little light for us. Tyler, thanks for checking out that it is 10 feet according to the fitbit site. So that would only be 890 feet when in fact we know we came up 500 m over about 9.5 km. And I had 12 481 steps, 87 floors and 8.25 km. Because of the snow we were dressed in different outfits today so fit bits where in different locations so maybe that affected out numbers. (inaudible)

You all are on the home stretch. We definitely thought about you because sweat is evil and both Marian and I worked very hard today not to sweat. Which was a challenge give how steep uphill we were going. It was about a 6 hour climb and it was snowing so it was very easy to get wet but when we finally crawled into our tent here we actually had discovered that we’d done a good job. So hopefully haven’t been doing any of the evil deed but hello to you as you enter I think almost your last week of school. And thank Heather and your grade 4’s for walking around the gym with us the other day. It is great to hear that you joined us on the great big walk. That elevates our spirits and (inaudible). We have another huge day (inaudible). Going up and over the samba lamba (inaudible). Almost half as much oxygen to my brain as at sea level. (inaudible)

I think I had better stop now while I’m ahead. Thanks again to our great folks who helped us get here and thanks to you for listening in, we love having you along. Take good care. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 12 481 steps, 87 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 13 172 steps, 89 floors

Total Distance for TA: 8.25 km

Total Distance for Marian: 9.5 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling in from Day 21. From an elevation of 4000 m, in a little Karka. A little yak pasture beside the Ding samba khola. We gained about 800m today, to position ourselves to move to our high camp tomorrow in preparation for going over our next path the lamba samba. We had a great day. I had 20 244 steps and 315 floors on this find your fit Friday. 13.38 km. Marian had 19 732, 305 floors and 13.69 km and Camolina had 20 747 for 13.73 km. We started our day, walking behind a bunch of young calves that were being herded out of town to go and graze so I practiced my herding. And then a little while later Marian and I found ourselves walking behind a yak for quite a while, until finally it turned and noticed us and went off the path which is good because you don’t actually want to get too close to the yak. They are a little skittish and they have very big horns.

But walking behind such animals gave me an opportunity to think about gobar and gobar is the Nepali word for dung, or animal poop or the stuff that comes out of the wrong end of the critters. And here in Nepal you see a lot of gobar. What’s interesting is that gobar has a lot of use besides for just sitting on the ground. Some folks here raise livestock so that they can actually have the products from the animal. Milk or meat. Some raise the livestock for fertilizer so they use that gobar to fertilize their garden, so that they have a source of keeping their soil working for growing things. And in Olungchungola what we saw is that they were using gobar for fuel to both cook and heat their homes. On some of the rock walls, you would see gobar plastered into little patties, drying on the sides of the houses and once they are dried they are stacked up like cord wood. And these kerosene get them started in the stoves and they can use them for cooking or heating. It has a distinctive sweet smell and so it is not just poop. It is actually very useful here. Very useful and as a trekker and gobar we actually have to be kind of mindful. The stuff that has been on the ground for awhile is not too bad but you definitely want to avoid an encounter with fresh gobar because if it fills your treads its not a pretty thing.

Hope you are finding your fit here on this find your fit Friday. We are celebrating the fact that we in the project have each gained about 400,000 steps, so that is pretty exciting. We are 4 tenths of the way to our goal of a million steps. We’ve also broken the 200 km mark and today was the second highest number of floors that we’ve climbed on the trip so far. And if anyone who has a spare moment could go to the fit bit website and look at what the definition of floor is, we’d be thrilled and can text that into us because we’re just (inaudible) ten feet when we think about floors but who knows maybe they use 13 or 15 feet, I am not exactly sure. Finding your fit is always a great way to be physically active. Some of us, as always do it through walking like we’re doing here and we hoping you will join us in walking. Others find it through skipping, through ice hockey, soccer or maybe a martial art so hopefully you can find something that is fun and that fits your lifestyle here on this find your fit friday.

Brianne thanks for letting me know that the spot locations are going through. That is great news. Karen thanks for the texts, check your office voicemail for a reply and to everyone else, a big hello to the grade 4’s at Bishop fields elementary school. Hope you’re having fun being explorers in your neighborhood and in your schoolyard and Happy Spring. We’re not sure if it  is spring today or spring tomorrow since we definitely have 4 seasons here today. We’re having snow at the moment. Seems we wake up to sunny blue skies and by about 2 o’clock we’re tucked in and it’s snowing and ideally like we were today, tucked in and out of the snow before it hits. So that is it for find your fit Friday here on the great big walk. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll catch you from tomorrow. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 20 244 steps, 315 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 19 732, 305 floors

Total Distance for TA: 13.38 km

Total Distance for Marian: 13.69 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling in from Day 20 from the great big walk. It is a rest day here so we’ve been doing laundry and getting clean and all those kind of things we do on rest days. At times the tent looks like an absolute disaster area but we’ve calmed down enough to be able to play a little solitaire and give you a shout and tell you about our day. Because it is a rest day, the step counts are significantly down. Marian’s was 4 442 steps with 33 floors and 3 km. Mine was 4 822 with 36 floors and 3 km. Mostly earned on a walkabout downtown and then a visit to the Monastery. The Monastery here is Olangchung Gola is one of the oldest in the region and it was interesting to see the outside of it. Unfortunately the Llama is off soldiering somewhere so we were not able to see the inside. One of the things that we saw for the first time ever actually was prayer wheels made out of animal skins instead of out of metal. So we took lots of pictures and enjoyed visiting the outside and feeling the place in the space of the Monastery. Olangchung Gola is an area that is very well known for its skilled traders. They travel to other parts of Nepal and to India to bring goods back, cloths, grains, sugar and they travel over an ancient trade route to Tibet and they trade for salts, wool and carpets.

We actually watched some young women today making some carpets here and there is a folktale or a folklore about how the village got its name. Olung means wolf, chun is a trader and gola is place. So it is a folklore about how a wolf showed a trader the way to Tibet. Wanted to say a special hello to Immaculate Heart of Mary Elementary school in Corner Brook. I had a great visit out there earlier in the year. And thanks Carla for your question about how this region was similar and different to the Hinku one which we traveled last year. In some ways the answer is the same thing but different. I think the Hinku has a little bit more of a tourism focus that is sort of in some ways why some of the villages are there. Both are herding areas, having Yak karkas and Yak pastures. On the route we took into Kanchenjunga base camp it definitely had a little more of a tourism than where we are now. Much of the trail in the Kanchenjunga conservation area was very well developed. But having now left that we are travelling in a much more remote area. Some of the trails are very rarely used because its less likely for people to go east to west or west to east in Nepal than it is to go North to South just because of the way the mountains and the valleys run.

We’ve faced a lot more landslides here in this particular region. We did have some in the Hinku but the ones we’ve seen here I think have been much more catastrophic. Both are very very beautiful and amazing to traverse and I highly recommend a visit to the Kanchenjunga area and we will now be starting towards the single link over to the Makali Liberu national parking thing and so I will be looking forward to seeing another area and to seeing the head at the end of the hinku we were trying to see last year.

Thanks and well going for the texts. Always great to hear from folks and we’re now 20 days and counting without a shower so we do get washy washy. A little bowl of warm water in the morning and at the end of our day to try to clean up a little bit. So we’re doing fine in that regard. Life here is very comfortable. Our little yellow abode is our home now. We’ve got it pretty organized and we have a routine of where everything goes and today we’ve heard 4 seasons. We woke up to a brisk spring morning which quickly turned into a beautiful summer day which was great for getting laundry washed and dry. And then it kind of got gusty and fall like and now of course it is winter and snowing. So just like home in Newfoundland and Labrador, 4 seasons in one day. It is great to rest as we climbed up to the Monastery, we could feel a little bit of the fatigue in our legs and its good to give them a break and to give our staff a bit of a break. And tomorrow we head out further and deeper into the Nepal wilderness. Thanks for following along and have a great day and hope you take a great big walk today yourself.

Total Steps for TA: 4 822, 36 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 4 442 steps, 33 floors

Total Distance for TA: 3 km

Total Distance for Marian: 3 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling in from Day 19. From Olangchung Gola Nepal at an elevation of about 3 200 m and it indeed was a great big day on the great big walk. We set some records for us so far. Records for number of steps and for distance. Marian had 31 327 steps and 352 floors and a distance of 21.74 km. I had 32 345 and 255 floors. Distance of 21.75 km and Cam had 32 078 steps and 21.23 km so that’s pretty exciting. It was a big day for us. We woke up to a snow covered wonderland. We actually had the urge to sing some Christmas carols. The sea was absolutely gorgeous this morning. Brilliant white. We saw the mountains we didn’t see yesterday as we came down and as we got all packed up and got the snow off everything, we walked down through the coniferous forest. It had huge huge trees. Trees that would’ve taken six folks to (inaudible) and it felt like in Japan when someone is not feeling well either mentally or physically, sometimes they might prescribe forest bathing and I felt as though I was forest bathing there just surrounded by these large pines covered in moss, rhododendrons, some little flowers all covered in snow. The snow was being altered and shaken of the things as we walked down.

We dropped about a thousand meters to the river we were going to then follow down. Of course that was Nepali flat, undulating up and down and up and down and then we came down to the next alley and then had to gain 500 m back up to get to Olangchung Gola. So truly a Nepali flat kind of a day where we went up and down and up and down. But you know when rivers form the background of the foundation of the highway system that is what is the reality. Rivers run downhill and we have to contour around, find our way in and out of different things. So it was a pretty cool day for us.

I wanted to wish a happy birthday to Shawn. Marian and I are sending our love to you and hope all is well. We want to send regards to Floyd. Thanks for the tweet, glad to know you and the (inaudible) are doing well. And I just wanted to say as we head into this next section that is quite remote for us. The weather seems to be changing, we are not getting as much sun so if you do not hear from us no worries. It just means that we are not able to keep enough energy in our podcasting system. Hope you’re all go out for a big walk and record your steps with us on the great big walk, heart and stroke foundation walk group or on the facebook group and hope you’ve had a great day like us and thanks so much for coming along. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 32 345 steps, 255 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 31 327 steps, 352 floors

Total Distance for TA: 21.75 km

Total Distance for Marian: 21.74 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling in from Day 18 of the great big walk. Or in Nepali Din otera. We’re at a place called Nasa Karka, so another Karka, another parking lot for yaks. It is our second wood in the campsite in a row. We’re at an elevation of 3707 m. And Today was a big celebratory day here for us because we crossed our first path. We crossed the nangola. La is a Tibetan word for path and Nango means above the house. So this is the above the house path. This particular path allows us to save about 4 days of walking if we went south and went around the bottom. So we had about a 700 m gain up to the path. It was quite warm and sunny till we hit the path wonderful strings of prayer flags flying at the path as is often the case. Mingma added a new string for good luck for the trip and there was the most gorgeous mountain that we saw.

The sky had been foggy all last night and then sunny in the morning and foggy and sunny and foggy and sunny and it cleared just for us to see this most gorgeous snow covered Himalayan peak as we came through the path and then it closed in basically for the rest of the day. There was quite a bit of snow on the far side of the path. Points some of us were falling to our waists as we making our way down. Some of the porters made sleds out of their baskets or out of their bags and dragged them or even carried them through the spots. It was a little bit tricky at points because the snow is over a bunch of boulders. So you could drop into a fairly deep hole if you were not careful.

So we’re here. We got here in good time. Less snow than in past years so we are grateful for that. Marian had 20 536 steps and 195 floors. Distance of 14.25 km. I had 20 946 steps, 194 floors, 13.8 km and Cam had 20 794 steps and a distance of 13.75 km. Kind of fun, our running total steps for the project is over 340 000 at this point. Just wanted to say thank you again from the Memorial University of Newfoundland office of engagement for making these audio pod casts possible from the expedition. And I wanted to thank Kelly for sending in her good news. Congrats, glad to hear from you that you’ve had good news there and Silvia for your texts today. We enjoy getting the encouragement and yes again Cam led the way up to the path. Brianne can you text me and let me know that you are receiving the spot locations. The spots are seeming kind of funky the last couple days and so I’m not sure that that is coming through. And finally wanted to, well not quite finally, almost finally remind anyone, any teachers and schools that you’re more than welcome to jump on board the great big walk and if you write my Comms person, Brianne, from my website you can get instructions on how you can text our SAT phone directly and ask us great questions about what we’re seeing or experiencing or what we’re learning about being here on this great big walk in Nepal.

We did end up celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. We realized after I did the podcast last night with the whole team listening that it was St. Patrick’s Day. We decided that our teammate Ray is really leprechaun. All that green coloring finally made sense and we played a bunch of music from Newfoundland folk to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at 4 100 m above sea level. So that was a great taste of home and where we were camped last night and even where we were camped today. (inaudible) and there is a little bit of Labrador tea so we can be reminded about home when we are very very far from home. Snowing now, sometimes raining, sometimes our camp looks like a laundry party broke out. We’re trying to get everything that got wet today dried out and looking forward to a yummy dinner once again to refuel. We’ve got another really big day tomorrow to take us into olangchung gola. Probably 8 or 8 and a half hours of actual walking time and then it will be, Yahoo!, day 19 a rest day. So looking forward to getting off the legs. This was our 7th day of big walking in a row, but you can definitely tell we’re a little more acclimatized than the last time we paid a visit to 4 700 m. So all is well here. As you can tell a little bit tired, but thrilled and excited and feeling great and feel privileged to be taking this great big walk and having you coming with us. Thanks and have a great day!

Total Steps for TA: 20, 946 steps, 194 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 20, 536 steps, 195 floors

Total Distance for TA: 13.8 km

Total Distance for Marian: 14.25 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey happy day 16 from the great big walk here in Ghunsa at an elevation of 3595 m above sea level. You can see that we’ve dropped another 600 m or so and I can even walk and talk and maybe even chew gum at the same time. We had a very nice walk down today. I had 20 712 steps, 68 floors so it was a little bit undulating. And a distance of 13.69 km. Marian had 20 312 steps, 58 floors, 14.1km. Camolina tried out a new pocket for her fitbit and had 19 557 steps and a distance of 13 km. So all in all its wonderful to be back in the thick air. We’ve had kind of a mini rest day because we had finished our walking portion by noon. We got to have pizza for lunch, mushroom pizza we jumped into that. Our appetites are definitely back on since we’re down here at 3500 or 3600m above sea level. We gave out a lot of prayers today as we had to cross through the landslide once again. When you undertake something like this, travelling in remote areas there is always going to be risks but our team was doing its best to manage the risk with spotters to watch for rocks coming down, radios on both sides of the landslides, keeping the group all together should something happen and having folks being able to help folks find the way across.

So everyone got across safely and we give many thanks for that. We actually learned that there was someone injured in that landslide area last week that required rescue so we’re very glad to be on this side of it. With our mini rest day we were reunited with some of the belongings we left here. We did some laundry and we’re preparing for our first pass crossing that will happen the day after tomorrow. We go over the nuangola. So we’re learning about going up and down and up and down and up and down. Reviewing all of the pictures from our Kanchenjunga base camp Nangola was pretty amazing, it was seriously gorgeous up there. Turns out I hadn’t recognized it that yesterday was a step record for the great big walk, 31 355 steps was a record, and was another pretty good sized number of steps today. We’ve actually, Marian and I have each broken 300 000 steps for the project so that walking is going well and we hope it’s going well for you as well.

I wanted to say happy ski strip to my good buddy Karen, and thanks for sharing your good news. Congratulations that is amazing. And I wanted to say hi to Cam’s mom and sister, glad to know we’ve made the top 5 for iPad updates in the morning. And that might be it for this sunny Sunday, it is delightful to be here, a privilege to be here and I don’t think there has ever been a day when I have been in Nepal where I haven’t been humbled by the strength, both the emotional strength and physical strength of its people and their generosity. So its a wonderful privilege to be here and I look forward to breaking new trail tomorrow for me and taking in the sights and sounds of every moment of every day of every step of the great big walk. Thanks and have a great Sunday.

Total Steps for TA: 20, 712 steps, 68 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 20 312 steps, 58 floors

Total Distance for TA: 13.69 km

Total Distance for Marian: 14.1 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling in from Kampuchea again, we’re back down. It seems like a lifetime ago since we were here. Even though it was 48 hours ago. I wasn’t particularly tired till i sat down. Now I am and I think all of us are. It was quite the day. Marian has 30 787 steps, 55 floors and a fit bit distance of 21. 27 km. I had 31 365 steps, 42 floors, 20. 91 km and Cam had 30 879 steps and a fit bit distance of 21 km. When we measured it on the map, the map gave us a distance of about 27. So it’s anybody’s guess how far we walked but we were on our feet for close to 7 hours. Losing about 1000 meters. So you can see that I can talk without stopping today. So that’s pretty exciting and when we came downhill we even on occasions sang a bit.

We had a magical night last night. The moon was almost full. So when getting up to empty the pee bottle and I will talk about pee bottles in a future update. But when I got up to empty ours, the moonlight was awesome. Kanchenjunga was just illuminated and I wanted to stay out except that it was probably about -15 so I couldn’t stay out for too long but it was cool to see all the stars and the moonlight on the mountains. It was truly a Himalayan moment. Kind of an interesting thing about sleeping up that high because we do get that quite cold temperatures, you get frost inside your tents and it means that all electronics have to be in your sleeping bag with you so SAT phones, cell phones, i Pods, camera batteries, anything that you want to have work that’s electronic has to find its way into your bag, as does your water bottle because anything left outside will freeze and then it doesn’t work nearly as well. Pee bottle doesn’t live in the pee bottle but it leaves near you so that it doesn’t freeze because it is hard to empty a frozen pee bottle and other things sometimes you can get away with putting them between you.

So its pretty challenging, if you roll over you kind of have to kind of re-position everything so you’re not sleeping with a lump in your back. One of the things that was remarkable about being in the Kanchenjunga base camp was the silence. There was especially in the middle of the night and in the early morning, no human made noise, no planes, really the only human made noises are voices and our chefs and cooks using their kerosene stoves but when those were all shut down for the night it just got wonderfully, awe strikingly quiet.

This morning we were pretty excited to see some snow leopard tracks in the snow and some more blue sheep. So we got to see some more legendary wildlife of the Kanchenjunga area, although we didn’t actually get to see a snow leopard we did get to see some tracks and that was pretty amazing.

So a pretty big day to cover two days distance on the way down. Everyone is doing well, getting stronger by the day. Definitely feet were a bit tired. Cam was dancing over the landslide areas with ease these days. We’re all boulder hopping and talus slope hopping much much better each and everyday. Tomorrow we’re back to ghunsa and that will give us hopefully a little bit of time to catch up, get some batteries recharged, everything all dried out from being up high. When you sleep up high in the super cold, anytime you exhale, you’re letting moisture out and any time you make a little bit of sweat so all that can collect in your sleeping bag. So it is nice to get some sun to dry that out every couple of days. So we’re having a great time as always on the great big walk. Happy Saturday to all of you out there. Hope you got out for a bit of a walk just like us and we will catch you from tomorrow. Take care. Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 31 365 steps, 42 floors,

Total Steps for Marian: 30 787 steps, 55 floors

Total Distance for TA: 20.91 km

Total Distance for Marian: 21.27 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling you from Kanchenjunga base camp on Friday find your fit or actually as I usually say, find your fit Friday. We actually found our fit quite a bit today as we wandered up here to our highest elevation on this first section. We’re thrilled to be here at KVC, the official starting point for our great Himalayan trail walk. The great big walk. Marian had 14 599 steps today at a distance of 10.13 km and 149 floors. I had 16 308 steps, 156 floors, 10.7 km. Cam had 16 181 steps and 10.7 km for her. So we’re definitely continuing to feel the elevation so everyone had beaten their headaches by morning and now of course our goal since we’re at a new elevation again is to drink and eat and drink and eat.

I wanted to send a happy birthday greeting to the Xander man. Hopefully having a great time celebrating today and Silvia thanks so much for your text, we got them. There’s a little fuzzy bit so ill sort of wait for the fuzzy bit to pass, there its gone. So thanks so much for those texts, we love texts so Silvia keep sending them. Cam sends her love and kisses back to all of you including Josh and she was thrilled to hear that you guys were following along. We saw a blue sheep skull, yesterday and today we saw the mammals to which those skulls belong. We saw them on the hillside grazing and we actually heard that there was a snow leopard kill of a blue sheep near one of the stone huts last night so that’s kind of exciting. Oh another fuzzy bit, fuzzy bit fuzzy bit, fuzzy bit. So we were hoping to see a snow leopard today but of course they are very elusive and its unusual to see one in the day time. So we got to see Kanchenjunga as we first pulled into camp. It’s snowing now, overcast and we’re hoping we don’t get hammered too hard tonight so we were thrilled to see the world’s third highest peak at 8 586 m. It’s considered one of the toughest and most dangerous of the 8 000 m peaks to climb. It was first climbed in 1958 by British climbers Joe Brown and Joe Bands. Out of respects to local custom in (inaudible), the summit is considered sacred by folks there. They actually stopped a few feet below the actual summit. Kanchenjunga in Tibetan means the following. Kan means snow, chen means great, ju means treasure and nga means five. So take it all together it means the five treasures of the great snows.So this could refer to the 5 summits, the 5 glaciers that come off the mountain or 5 treasures of God. This last interpretation is actually considered the most common. And those treasures are gold, silver, gems, grains and religious texts. From the sanskrit, there is another translation. Kanchen means golds, junga means the river that flows nearby so it could mean the river that shines like gold.

So it’s find your fit Friday, pretty exciting thing for us here is both Marian and I have passed the quarter of a million steps on this project so far. The recommended daily step-age is about 10 000 steps. So we’re hoping that you’re out there stepping with us and are able to reap some of those health benefits that you get from stepping 10 000 steps per day. We’re having a great time. It’s kind of fun to count sometimes. I am a big fan of setting goals and one of the goals on this great big walk was to make a million steps. So it’s pretty exciting yesterday to add up and realize that we’re a quarter of the way to that goal. So hope you’re finding your fit today, sometimes its easier to find your fit with a buddy. So grab a buddy, go for a walk, log your steps on the great big walk website and we will catch you from Saturday tomorrow. Fingers crossed that we don’t get hammered by a storm tonight. Thanks and take care. Bye!

Total Steps for TA:  16 308 steps, 156 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 14 599 steps, 149 floors

Total Distance for TA: 10.7 km

Total Distance for Marian: 10.13 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling from Day 13. Terra Din in Nepali of the great big walk. Calling from Lennar at 4780m above sea level and we have had another great big walk today. We gained another approximately 730m or so. Over about 14 and a half km. So we’re definitely feeling the altitude and feeling like we went for a big walk today. Wanted to say a special hello to the holy cross elementary grade 4. I had a great visit with them before coming on out to Nepal this time. We are camped in a most gorgeous beautiful place. We are surrounded by high peaks, glaciers, lots and lots of rocks. We traded the wayside shrubs of last night for knee high shrubs of (inaudible). And something that looks a lot like Labrador T, so we’re reminded of home once again. We saw Kanchenjunga again today and we will get another glimpse or we’re camped right below it, tomorrow when we get to base camp tomorrow. And our color palette is definitely reducing in that way that it does in the high altitude alpine environment. The sky is blue blue blue the snow and ice is white white white. And the rocks are brown and white and grey. We’re camped again in (inaudible) this is a grouping of 5 or 6 stone huts that gets used by yak herders in the summertime when the grass that we see here which is brown and still snow covered in places turns green in the summertime.

The high places do come at a cost and that cost right now hypoxia or low oxygen or some people call it altitude. One of my colleagues at the school of human kinetics and recreation at Memorial University Dr. Fabien Basset is a cardio respiratory physiologist and he actually studies the effects of hypoxia on exercise and on metabolism. He has helped me understand what happens to the human body at altitude and also has helped with my training. It is very much a miracle, when we get Kanchenjunga base camp tomorrow we will be existing on half as much oxygen up here as you all are at sea level there in St. John’s or in Newfoundland or wherever you might be in relation to sea level and so because we’ve come up relatively quickly we are all feeling it a bit at the moment and we have sort of slight frontal headaches and a little bit of reduced appetite and so we have two jobs at the moment, drink and breathe and drink and breathe and drink and breathe, which of course then leads to removing that drink. So we’re peeing a lot which is a part of the process, part of the biochemical changes that happen to our bodies and hoping that we all can continue to stay slightly ahead of the demand of altitude on our bodies and enjoy our walk tomorrow to Kanchenjunga base camp.

I have to catch my breath. Today as we walked up at one point we joked that we could only do one thing at a time. We can walk, we could have a drink or we could pee but you can’t do all three at once for sure and even asking two a time is a bit much. I said I would tell you about our daily routine. We generally get up at about 6am and start packing our tents belongings. At 6:30 we have some tea and a little bit of washing water to get ready for our day. We have breakfast between 7:15 and 7:30. Packs are on and we start walking at 8. Lunch is anywhere between 10:30 and 12:30 depending on where the lunch spot is for the crew to cook lunch. We try to digest for a little bit because you always know its uphill right after lunch. Then we’ll walk, we’ve been making great time on the trip so far so usually we will reach camp at about 3pm. Again a little bit of washing, tea and cookies for hydration and calories at about 4 and supper about 6:30. And I know this will amaze all of you grade 4s and 5s out there. We actually go to bed at about 8pm. So we probably go to bed before you do. When it’s cold and dark here at night so there is not much to do but crawl into your sleeping bay. Today Marian had 19 471 steps and 228 floors. I had 16 846 steps, 142 floors. I am going to try a different location for my fitbit tomorrow thinking maybe mine is getting a hit or something by my hit belt. Camolina had 19 497 steps. So again you’re always invited to grab a pedometer, grab a fitbit or use Gmaps pedometer and join our great big walk walking group. And get out there and have a great big walk of your own. Thanks and have a great day!

Total Steps for TA: 16 846 steps, 142 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 9 471 steps and 228 floors

Total Distance for TA: 14.5 km

Total Distance for Marian: 14.5 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Namaste, from 4050 meters on the Great Big walk. we’re here in Kangpachen and we had a lovely day of walking uphill. we walked somewhere between 15 and 16 km. gained about 700m and currently its snowing like it usually does. We’ve been waking up to clear skies with beautiful sun during the day and come about 2:30, 3 o’clock it gets overcast and down below it was raining and up here we’re getting sort of a haily kind of a snow so its nice we’ve had some tea and we’re all kind of tucked in. So let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. On our walk today we actually saw a new kind of tree for us in Nepal which was a larch or a lark, and as far as i know they are the only deciduous conifers. They lose their leaves. So they reminded us of home because there is lots of larch’s at home. We also saw old man’s beard which is a laiken that grows on conifer trees in (inaudible) and Mariann noticed that she thought the old man’s beard looked like prayer flags flying from those. Up here now at 4050 meters we’ve left the trees behind now there is only sort of low bushes, and we are surrounded by high peaks and lots and lots of rocks and this reminded me of a passage from the kanchenjunga conservation area brochures that i wanted to read to you. It says: “The kanchenjunga conservation area comprises of 41.2% rocks and the Nepali word for rocks is dunga.

22.8% snow and glaciers 16.1% forest 10% shrub 9.3% pastry land and .5 agricultural land and .1% lake and landslide area.” Because of its unique features the government of Nepal along with support from the World Wildlife Federation in Nepal declared this area as a gift to the earth in 1997. It definitely is a gift to the travelling tourist. We came as we walked today through many yak pasturing areas. They are called karkas and Kangpachen exists as a spring summer and fall pasturing village. It is not inhabited the year round because it is too high to grow crops and very cold in winter and even here cold in the middle of march. We also had to traverse a fairly serious landslide section today where we needed to move steadily while stepping lightly and keeping an eye out for falling rocks. This was a challenge on a daily we are moving to a new elevation for the first time. You can probably hear just that little bit of breathlessness. I have to catch my breath to keep speaking and that is just because we have moved from 3500 meters up here to 4050 meters.

After that section Camolina made it to camp in record time, walking off the adrenaline from such a challenging crossing. Judah had burned some junaproo at lunch as an offering for our safe passage through that section. Lunch was awesome as usual. We had vegetables noodle soup, green beans and carrots small wieners and sauce and butter toast. Breakfast almost always has porridge, yesterday it had rice pudding, omelettes, usually some kind of egg and some kind of bread. This morning it was pancakes. Dinner last night was equally delectable. We had a starter of mushroom soup, cauliflower fritters, pasta with sauce, eggplants and if you can believe it we had cake for dessert with a lovely custard frosting and maraschino cherry.One of the things that we were joking about today was (inaudible) it seems we always pause for lunch at an area where it is good for the cooking and kitchen crew to be able to cook and that always seems to be at the base of a very steep hill and that was definitely true today but we are getting wiser at managing our hydration levels and just having just the right amount of food to make sure that we have just the right amount of energy to keep walking but not too full to go uphill.

Today Marian had 21532 steps and 296 floors and I had 19528 steps and I had 212 floors which is a little bit light for the day. So lets think maybe I was about the same. And good news is we had camolina wearing a pedometer today as well and she wore the little green fitbit and she had 23 226 so we had another walker to the great big walk. So we also extend that same invitation to you. We hope that you will join us on our great big walk facebook page or our great big walk heart and stroke page where you too can contribute your steps to the group effort of getting everyone out to a great big or great big small walk. Hope you’re having a great day and we will catch you from tomorrow. Bye!

Total Steps for TA:  19528 steps, 212 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 21532 steps, 296 floors

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling in from Day 11 of the Great Big Walk from Ghunsa once again. It was a rest day today so we didn’t have to pack up camp. I’m not sure I said the distance from yesterday which was 15 km walk yesterday. And one of the things I wanted to mention about the cultural group is your surname is your cultural group. So if you belong to the sherpa cultural group, that becomes your surname.  So kind of an interesting thing.

Today was rest day so not so much walking for us. I managed 6411 steps and 13 floors and 4.24 km. Marian did 5772 steps, also 13 floors and around 4km as well. We walked around town and did get a little bit of steps in to stretch out our legs. Mr Paterson’s grade 5 class asked us about where our food comes from. Some of came with the head cook and his kitchen crew from Kathmandu. our head cook’s name is Chandra. So he brought some food from Kathmandu and he also purchases food from villages along the way. Vegetables and rice and staples and some food will come in on resupply when we have other incoming staff come to meet us as we go through. We pick up our water each day in the village that we are travelling through and the crew boils it for us to make sure it is safe for us to drink. Mrs. Scourge’s Grade 4 class wanted to know how many pairs of sneakers I have. So I have one pair of sneakers, one pair of trekking boots, one pair of mountaineering boots and as of today I have a brand new pair of knitted right here in Nepal slippers for the tent because my feet were cold when I was just hanging out in the tent and I bought those out here in Ghunsa.

We had quite a great rest day today. Our day began with a puzha which is a blessing ceremony. The local llama came and did some chanting of prayers and there was incense burning, some junaproo was burned, we had tibetan butter tea. There was Tibetan cookies as an offering and we all received kotas which are the white base scarves for removal of obstacles and for safe journey on the way of our Great Big Walk. After the puzha we walked down to the local school and it turns out we visited during the time when the grade one’s and the grade sixes went to school. And as it was early in the morning, the stone school was quite cold still so the students were actually having school in the school yard. The grade ones were on a mat working on their alphabet. Learning to write their Nepali alphabet and the grade sixes were working on algebra and on English. So it was interesting to see what they were working on and to see how they worked with their teachers.

After lunch we visited the kashi troli gampa. A gampa is another word for a monastery and there were some local monks there chanting and studying the dharma which is the teachings of the Buddha. This month they are concentrating on the teachings of (inaudible) and we were offered some milk tea by the nuns. It’s a very old gampa and is quite famous in this region. So that was also interesting to see.

Much of today we’ve heard lots of pounding and chopping in the yard next to where we are sleeping, there is a house being built and it is amazing to see how quickly it is going up. The owner had been collecting materials and preparing beams but today there is almost like a barn raising crew, this is a house raising crew and we’ve seen the post go in and the floors go on and we will be leaving tomorrow here for 5 days and we are certain when we come back there will be a house already finished.

We all were serenaded by the village dogs last night . Lots and lots and lots of barking and barking and barking. Everyone here has dog to protect their livestock and sometimes to protect their crops.  They are wonderful Tibetan mastiffs and there has been a puppy that lives in our yard so we have named him Malcolm and he is the cutest darn thing and we all want to bundle him up and hide him in our back packs.

We had snow up here at this elevation of 3595 meters. Early in the trip in the late afternoon we would get some rain and the clouds would come in. Up here we get snow and a little bit of hail, but usually our mornings are quite sunny. Definitely a colder night and things outside the tent definitely froze last night and as we head up over the next five days to kanchenjunga base camp we will definitely be getting colder and colder and i will tell you more about that as we go. So hope you had a great day and tomorrow we’re back at it and we will be telling you about how many steps we’re taking on the great big walk tomorrow and hope you found sometime today to take a great big walk or even a great short walk. hope you get out and get active today, talk to you from tomorrow. Thanks bye.

Total Steps for TA: 6411 steps, 13 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 5772 steps, 13 floors

Total Distance for TA: 4.24 km

Total Distance for Marian: 4 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA calling in from day ten of the great big walk. We’re here in ghunsa and we’ve had another great day of walking here in Nepal. We were basically paralleling the ghunsa khola, so the river that we’ve been travelling by the other day. Sometimes right next to it, other times up above it. Had to go across a couple landslide areas, that were also kind of exciting. Say a little prayer before (inaudible) across. Started out in bamboo forest again and then the fur came in as well as (inaudible) and there is always lot’s of Nepal’s national tree the rhododendron. I wanted to say a big hello to Holy Trinity Elementary. The grade 4’s there are studying exploration and I had a great visit with them right before we left for Nepal. And I wanted to remind any other schools that missed getting signed up ahead of the trip. You can go to the school section of my website taloeffler.com and there is instructions there on how you can contact the communications managers so that you can text in questions to our phone.

Same goes to Sylvia Mahoney, Carolina says hi to you. You can also use that same message and learn how to test your sister here if you life. She is doing great, she is doing fabulous, she’s learning lots and rocking this walk. Today I had 21 901 steps and climbed 305 floors. Marian had 22 001 steps and climbed 308 floors and for those of that live in St. John’s that’s almost 7 signal hills. So definitely a day for us going up hill. We’re at a record of the trip so far of almost 3600 meters. So we are feeling the altitude just a wee bit. We will be drinking a lot, hydrating a lot and allowing our bodies to make the miraculous changes that they can do to allow us to exist with much less oxygen in our system. We paused for a sombre moment at the memorial for 26 people killed in a helicopter crash in 2006. It was a bunch of conservationists, both Nepali and international coming to celebrate the new management arrangement for the kinchinjunga conservation association. So along with the memorial plaques they also have set aside some serf forest to be held in perpetuity without human interference as a (inaudible) so we paused there and paid our respects.

And in terms of people that live in the kanchenjunga conservation area, there is approximately a thousand people living and we just had four of them in our vestibule probably aged four to six, saying hello, asking for pens and pictures. There is about 35 villages in the KCA and we will have visited about 6 to 8 of them before we leave the kinchinjunga area. And it’s a very culturally diverse area with lots of different ethnic groups including shupra people, limbu people, rai, gurung, tamang, saki, damai, kami, bohan and some folks that have made it over the passage from tibet. We made it passed through forte today which is a Tibetan settlement and that is where we had our lunch and saw lots of fresh prayer flags and witnessed one of the men who lives there doing a bit of the ritual, burning juhapura and raising a new prayer flag, asking for blessings and help for overcoming obstacles. So another great day here at the great big walk. Thanks Kelly for the words of encouragement. Glad to hear things are going well and as always you can post questions for us in the comments section of the website or text them in. So thanks for following along, have a great day and we will catch you from tomorrow. Bye!

Total Steps for TA:  21 901 steps, 305 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 22 001 steps, 308 floors

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.

Hey this is TA and Marian calling in from the great big walk. Another great day of walking here, about five hours of the great big walk today. I’ve travelled somewhere in the vicinity of about 10 km and gained about 800 meters. I came in at 17 319 steps and 174 floors. Marian had 17 660 steps and 263 floors which seems to fit our elevation curve a little bit better so let’s call today 263 floor. And definitely a day where we started to feel our legs a little bit. I felt like a had a built in inclinometer today that my body knew instantly when the slope went up. Definitely the morning climb of 400 meters felt like a little bit of a grunt. But we sort of stuck our heads down, it was in the sun so it was pretty sweaty. And then after that we had sort of what Judah calls Nepali flat. Undulating, up down, up down as we made our way back down to the ghunsa khola. Had some lunch which was some rice and some fried cabbage with some carrots. Then we had some spam. Pretty exciting day to have spam. And I ate bread, like a chapati kind of a thing. So pretty tasty lunch. I forgot to tell you, the other night we had a very exciting dinner. We had pizza! And it was delicious. We’ve been treated lately. We had deep fried bananas as a dessert, so we are definitely eating well which is great since we are using so much energy going up and down hills. Which is our code word now Nepali flat, which is anything but.

We made our way through lot’s of bamboo forest today. And its been amazing to see the different use of bamboo here by folks. They split it and weave it into walls. Sometimes its woven into floor mats. We’ve also seen it used as roofs on houses. Used as fences for livestock. Split and soaked with water to make it into something soft enough to tie pieces together. And also as plumbing or creating aqua ducks to make water flow from either a creak or from a tap. So very interesting, I’m actually tearing a piece of bamboo. I am going to use it as a steady cam for my gopro. So it’s a pretty ingenious, well not ingenious, it’s an amazing wood product from the forest.

We’re still continuing here in kanchenjunga conservation area. And i know we are here in gagya tonight and there is a sign telling us about making sure we take good care of the red panda. And so I consulted our brochure and learned that there is 23 species of mammals that they know of here and they estimate maybe as many as 58. And I know we saw an article that said just before we left to come here they actually had found a new species of cat called a palace cat when they were looking for snow leopards. Here in this area there is as many as 253 species of birds, snow leopard, red panda, the Himalayan black bear, (inaudible), grey wolf and those are sort of the more endangered mammals. But there is also common leopard, blue sheep and common langur. And I actually don’t know what a common langur is, so I’m hoping someone will text us and let us know what a langur is. We haven’t had a chance to ask Judah yet. We ask him almost everything. So we haven’t seen much wildlife yet, maybe if we quite some evening we will get a chance. We saw some dzo go by today. A couple of (inaudible). Just born dzo went by today, but hoping to catch a glimpse of some of the wildlife that kanchenjunga is famous for. I think everyday for the next little while I will introduce you a little bit more things about kanchenjunga conservation area because it is an absolutely gorgeous place that we are travelling through.

Always a reminder that you are invited to join the great big walk walking group. You can share your steps with us. If you don’t have a pedometer, you can use a website called gmaps pedometer. You can just go in there and mark your route and it will tell you how far you went and there is another converter that will tell you from distance how many steps that is. So even if you don’t have a pedometer, please join the group with us and enter your steps and together we are going to pretty quickly make it to a million steps which is one of our goals. Thanks Karen for the texts, always great to receive encouragement and indeed we are finding ourselves starting to get into the rhythm of the walk, how the days go and already time is already starting to go faster. And in an upcoming blog post I will definitely describe to you what our daily rhythm looks like. So hope you had a great Sunday, we are thinking about all of you out there. Those of you that can, we love to get texts and wishing you a great big walk wherever you might be walking. Thanks! Bye

Total Steps for TA: 17 319 steps and 174 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 17 660 steps and 263 floors

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.