The Lhotse expedition we had was quite the highlight of my decades of mountaineering. From the Lukla airport it was a 4 day to trek to the base of Ama Dablam for an acclimatization climb, probably the most technical and rugged mountain I've ever summited (view of peak in photo 1) which we had a relatively quick 6 days to summit (summit view is pic 2) and 2 days to decend, and then we made it to Everest Basecamp for a few days to acclimatize and wait for better weather. Most of the route up Lhotse is the same as the route up everest until they split off at about 25000' at the lhotse high camp, which it took us 6 days from Everest Basecamp to reach the Lhotse High camp, which we stayed at for 3 days to acclimatize and wait for a summit push window, and on our 25th day we reached the summit of the world's 4th tallest peak, from there it was a 7 day decent back to the airport. The Himalayas are drop dead beautiful, if you ever have the opportunity to visit, mountaineering or not, visit Nepal!

Another torrential downpour underway here in snoqualmie. Just amazing how much more rainfall they get up here compared to places like Seattle and Tacoma. Worked 11 hours up here yesterday, 13 so far today and will probably do another 12 hour shift tomorrow.

Wasn't 73-74 a giant turd?

Wow. Over twice as much as I've gotten just a few miles down the road (0.51"). Some kind of shadowing effect obviously comes into play at my location, but it must be quite localized and I have no idea how it works. Corvallis is the only Willamette Valley location I could find that got less rain than I did out of this event. Why they (and I) should be shadowed when other WV locations are not is beyond me.

Thanks for the story! I love the Port Angeles, Sequim, Victoria area. I’m not sure if you knew about its unique microclimate before you moved there but it gets less rain compared to everywhere else west of the Cascades due to the Olympic Rain Shadow. At the same as you mentioned it can get lots of snowfall if the setup is right. December 1996 is another example. If I was from BC I would probably live in Victoria.