One of the high points of our Nepal trip was a turbo prop flight along the Himalaya mountains. We were up before dawn for a ride to the airport where after plenty of waiting and three cursory pat downs we boarded the plane. The flight was only 30 minutes or so and even at our highest altitude we were looking up at Everest. Very cool.
The plane had two rows of seats so every seat had a window. On the way west along the range one person had a mountain view and on the way back the other did. On departure there was still was a cloud layer (that later dispersed) which the mountain tops certainly exceeded but it was hard to capture a sense of the scale of the mountains.
Now I’m mostly a flat lander from the midwest and there certainly aren’t many mountains around where we live now but I have visited a few ranges and certainly flown over many. The striking thing about the Himalayas was how abrupt they were. From 4500ft (where Kathmandu is at) they rise another 20,000 – 25,000ft over a fairly short distance.
