Lukla — the runway every Everest trekker has to survive first

Before any trekker sets foot on the trail to Everest Base Camp, they typically have to survive Lukla first. Tenzing-Hillary Airport sits at 2,845 metres, its single asphalt runway just 527 metres long and sloping at nearly 12 percent — aircraft land uphill to help them stop, and take off downhill to help them get airborne, because there simply isn't room for a conventional runway on this Himalayan mountain shelf. A sheer wall sits at one end, a steep drop into the valley at the other, and pilots get essentially one attempt: there's no room to abort a landing partway through. Renamed in 2008 to honour Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first two men to summit Everest in 1953, the airport now carries over 30,000 trekkers a year through what is widely regarded as the most demanding commercial airstrip on Earth.

Down in the valley, Kathmandu tells a different kind of high-stakes story. The city's seven UNESCO-listed monument zones, including the Durbar Squares of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur and the stupas of Swayambhunath and Boudhanath, were inscribed as a single World Heritage property in 1979 — the same year Sagarmatha National Park, home to Everest itself, was also listed. Both sites suffered heavily in the devastating magnitude-7.8 earthquake of 25 April 2015, which damaged 447 monuments across the valley, destroyed dozens completely, and severely affected the Everest region's own infrastructure — a reminder that both of Nepal's great World Heritage landscapes, mountain and city alike, sit on genuinely unstable ground.

What the six cameras show

Nepal beyond the webcams

Sagarmatha National Park: the Everest region's UNESCO-listed park, home to the world's highest peak and the Sherpa communities who live within it.

Kathmandu Durbar Square: the historic royal palace complex at the heart of the Kathmandu Valley's seven monument zones.

Swayambhunath: the hilltop Buddhist stupa overlooking Kathmandu, nicknamed the "Monkey Temple."

When to watch

Early morning: for the clearest mountain visibility and the first Lukla flights of the day, before afternoon clouds typically roll in.

Getting there: Lukla is reached by a short flight from Kathmandu, and serves as the starting point for treks into the Everest region, Solukhumbu District, Nepal.