Mt. Everest has a long history of being pursued by the adventurous. There's no question of why people want a glimpse of the world's highest point. Unlike man-made structures that always seem to be outdone, this Mountain will always be the biggest. As a matter of fact, it's still growing about 2.4 inches a year. 
We didn't really have the time to hike up to base camp and if we did have the time, we probably would have opted for one of the other treks around the area. Since we were in Nepal, we really couldn't pass up seeing Mt. Everest. 
So, we rented our 1000 fill down suits, oxygen tanks, crampons, glacier glasses and set off to plant a World Effect flag at the summit. How hard can it be? We're now experts with crampons after out glacier trek in Patagonia. Okay, back to reality; we decided to avoid losing a percentage of our digits and possibly our noses and went with the scenic flight on Buddha Air in t-shirts and flip flops. This flight runs, weather permitting, 2 times a day out of Kathmandu.
It turns out taking photos out of a little scratched airplane window is not ideal. So we just took it a little further and made our bad photos look yet a little more beat up, added vignetting and faded colors... and there you have it, vintage photos. My friend Denny who who was a mountaineer had these great vintage mountain photos in his office that I really liked. I used his photos as inspiration to tweak these photos in something a little more fun. 
Our goal was to get a glimpse of the world's highest peak, which we did, but the highlight was seeing an entire range of the Himalayas. We took off in cloud cover worried we wouldn't see much. We then broke through the blanket of clouds to find crystal clear blue skies and towering white mountains. These were easily the most spectacular mountains I have ever seen. The scale of this range is unbelievable, a small mountain here is still 20,000 ft. My personal favorite mountain was Machapuchare, which has an absolutely beautiful peak. This mountain is sacred and unclimbed. 
I know this is kind of a wimpy way to see the Himalayas, but if you're pressed for time it's the way to go. Even if you have the time to do something like the Annapurna Circuit, I still think getting a bird's eye view of all the peaks is something you will never forget, we would recommend this flight to anyone. 
