Busy bees packing, the duffles get filled up by all our climbing & mountaineering gear. Glenn, Xav and I are leaving today. Florence is walking back and considering taking a few days trek on the Annapurna circuit crossing thorong-la pass.

It’s 830am when we get out of the tent for our last breakfast. The mood is light and all 3 of us are looking forward to the helicopter ride of our life around 7-8000m mountains!

We take final group pictures with towering Himlung behind us.

At 1230 lunch is served. And soon after we can hear some helicopter sounds echoing in the valley. We rush out of the tent, look up and see a yellow helicopter flying down the wrong side of the mountain. A few minutes later and a satellite phone call from Junga and the Eurocopter B3 is back in sight.

Over lunch we heard that Purba (head Sherpa) wanted to fly with us back to KTM. Nobody told us officially and we confront Junga and Purba to ask what is the reason and why they have not asked us. We are fine to take Purba if he has an emergency but would have preferred to be informed. I guess they did not consider us and it’s one more bad point for Makalu Adventure (the local agents from adventure peaks) seems like these guys totally ignore us and do their thing without considering that we might have a say in this expedition that we are funding 100%.

We hop on the helicopter – and, in passing, save us 5 days of trekking – all our duffle bad and backpacks after the helicopter is at max weight for takeoff at this very high altitude. Purba stands next to the helicopter and is unable to get on. We feel very sorry for him.

The next 45′ are memorable. The scenery is breathtaking, we are flying through the Phu valley and can spot the way we came in during the trek to base camp. We land in a small village to pick up the remaining kerosene that was dropped off on the way in for excess weight reasons. We fill up under the glares of amazed locals who has rarely seen such a yellow beast and are back in the air.