Airports upon a hill, part one

The tarmac at the Lukla airport, elevation 9,400'.  It can only be accessed in fine weather as there is no radar (in the planes or the airports).  It is bounded on both sides by cliffs- one to crash into, one to fall off of, and there is literally no buffer for either.  It was built at a 12% slope, not due to the (immense) difficulties of engineering an airstrip on the side of a mountain previously accessible only by a 6-day walk from the nearest paved road, but intentionally- planes need the downhill to achieve take-off speed, and the uphill to slow down fast enough to stop before the cliff wall.

Apparently a show on the History Channel titled Most Extreme Airports (historical!) rated Lukla the most dangerous in the world.  But I have to say, given the challenges of the environment and the volume of (impatient, lazy) tourists that come through there, I think the safety record is actually pretty impressive.

Although I am amused by the fact that the runway was initially graded by a few days of villagers running back and forth, packing down the earth with their bare feet.