Everest Base Camp Part II

After staying in Lobuche, at 4910 meters, we set off on day 8 for the Everest Base Camp day!

The walking was cold and pretty bleak. After stopping in at our tea house, in Gorak Shep (5140 meters) for lunch we continued to walk along a pathway skirted by mountains over increasingly rockier terrain.

Before too long we could see EBC in the distance.

The track became narrower but was an easy ascent.

Before too long we arrived! Grey, uneventful and with no sight whatsoever of Everest!

It is so strange to arrive at EBC as there is nothing to see.

Only very few yellow expedition tents were there as it was very early in the climbing season. It takes 8 days to hike to the Nepali Everest Base Camp, just over the ridge you can drive to the Tibetan Everest BC! (5600 meters)

Not quite a flag on the summit but we were both very proud to have got here. A long-held dream fulfilled. An incredible journey, we were both very tired after little sleep, very cold and fairly weak after not being able to eat much more than a couple of chocolate bars for the last few days. The trekking to EBC is not difficult, no really extreme level of fitness is required. It is how your body reacts to being at altitude for 8 days that determines how well you get there. Many people turn back. In fact we had to pair up with another group as their guide had to return before EBC! We knew what to expect from altitude, having been up to this height before, but you can never prepare for the feeling of such a lack of Oxygen. The best way to describe it is that walking on the flat feels as though you are walking up a steep hill, and walking up a steep hill feels like you are walking up an extremely steep hill (in terms of breathing that is - your legs feel fine)!

The only marker to signify we had made it, Everest Base Camp at 5365 meters.

Of course the temperature means the visit is brief!

A celebratory hot chocolate.

Back in the tea house the exhausted bodies huddled round the only stove are tell-tale of the day.

The following day was a trek up a mountain called Kala Pattar (5545 meters). Being higher than EBC and on the other side of the valley means it is the best place to actually see Everest. Everest is the one at the back, slightly darker with what looks like a white spot on it. Kenny had had a shocking nights sleep (we think he had a tooth abscess) so stayed behind in bed. I set off for the long uphill walk once again with little sleep and little food but armed with my almost bloody minded sense of determination and continued up and up.

I did however have the wondrous sight of Everest to keep me going, which I did have to stop to look at frequently, and which did give me shivers every time I saw it.
It was hard work. I was so tired. When I go running at home with my dad, he sometimes tells me that when you feel like you cannot keep going (for me often after just a mile or 2!) instead of focusing on the bits that hurt focus on the bits that do not. (It really works, I know quite a few people who are reading this and keen runners, so try it next time.) Walking up Kala Pattar, my lungs felt like they were going to explode and I had one of those awful altitude headaches at the top of my neck but, hey, my feet and legs felt fine.

Boy oh boy the hike was worth it! Just to the left of the bend in the glacier is Base Camp and Everest is ............... well ................... the highest one!

Me and Everest. The best feeling ever!

After collecting Kenny from the tea house we decided to walk lower down as his tooth really was playing up and both of us needed some easier sleep. As you can see it snowed.

Kenny looking a little miserable.

It is amazing how quickly you can go back down again! The feeling of getting more and more oxygen is like a tonic and the scenery helps a lot too.

A man and the mountains.

Just before one of the bigger descents.

The mountains become higher above us, and things start to grow again.

Soon we could see the valley once more.

We came across so many Yak trains all carrying summit expedition kit.

Being further down the mountain certainly had the effect on returning my energy and sense of humour. I had read 'Between A Rock And A Hard Place', the book behind the movie '127 Hours', where Aron Ralston traps his hand while in a remote canyon, and has to drink his own wee. Don't worry guys, mine is Mango flavored cordial to disguise the taste of the water purification tablets.

Back in Namche setting off for our last days trekking, it was snowing again.

So behind me were 2 porters carrying boxes of bottles of beer, Kenny reckons they have between 70-80 kgs on their backs! (They each had 6 cases of Pepsi, each case containing 12 litres of the stuff. You do the maths! - K)

Back in the valley bottom and the snow turns to rain.

Nearly back in Lukla! The Rhododendron is the national flower of Nepal and there are lots of them in the valley floor which were just coming into bloom as we arrived.

We made it - thanks to our team. Upendra (our guide), Valkrishna (our porter) and of course me & Kenny. It feels good, and warmer!!!!

When I look at this now it is so obvious how little sleep we got. Tired but very, very happy.

Happy, that is, until I realised that I still had the extreme flight out of Lukla to contend with the follow day.

Kenny took this out of the plane window as I sat with my eyes closed praying to whatever god I thought might protect me at the time.

Finally very relieved to be back in Kathmandu, ready for a glass of wine and a bed.
(By the way, this is the high-tech baggage claim at Kathmandu Domestic Arrivals terminal - K)

Everest beer & Kenny - well deserved!

With it all successfully over it feels strange. I already have forgotten how cold it was. I have forgotten how horrid the toilets and how hard the beds were. I have forgotten how difficult to was to breath sometimes and how many times I woke in a night. I have even forgotten how smelly we were after no showers for 2 weeks.

But, I will never forget how truely magnificiently beautiful the mountains were and how spine tingelingly excited I felt being so close to Everest, the top of the world.