The whole adventure started with a flight from Kathmandu to Lukla. Up until about five years ago when I was last in Nepal, most Everest treks began in a town called Jiri, which is at the end of the last road into the Khumbu area. Unfortunately, Maoist activity became quite intense on the week-long Jiri to Lukla trail, so it was closed to trekkers. It has since been reopened, but most trekkers still choose to fly into Lukla, as we did. We flew with Yeti Airlines in an 18-seater Twin Otter aircraft that appeared to be about 50 years old. The flight was less than 40 minutes as we climbed out of the Kathmandu valley and into the Himalayas. It was thrilling to see the mountains come into view, and somewhat terrifying to miss them by what seemed like inches with our wingtips. But nothing could have prepared us for the landing strip when it came into view through the cockpit window. It is about 2200’ long, starts on the edge of a cliff, ramps upwards at about a 5 degree angle and ends in a brick wall against a mountainside. We had about 5 seconds to come to a complete stop (fortunately with gravity on our side) before we rammed into the mountainside.
Due to the fact that Lukla clouds in sometime mid-morning, and visibility is essential for landing there, there are no hard-and-fast flight schedules on this route. Flights start taking off from Kathmandu as soon as the Lukla air traffic controllers give them the go-ahead, and just keep flying back and forth between the two destinations until weather conditions force them to stop. People can get stuck in Lukla for days waiting for the clouds to clear. Turn-around time in Lukla is less than 5 minutes and it’s beautiful to watch (Pearson Airport could learn a thing or two here). The luggage is unloaded and the new luggage loaded before the 18 passengers have disembarked and the new passengers are herded on board in double-time. The take-off is almost as dramatic as the landing, when the plane guns its engines at the top of the runway and then races down the tarmac. It doesn’t so much take off as the ground just falls away from under it.
The first thing you notice on deplaning (after you’ve dislodged your heart from your throat and reintroduced it to your chest) is the hoard of Sherpas herded in behind the airport fence. All of them are looking for employment from the trekkers disembarking from the planes. First, a quick word about Sherpas/sherpas. The term Sherpa refers to a tribe who live in the Khumbu region and is generally used as a last name for anyone belonging to this tribe. They originate in Tibet, and live very much the way Tibetans still do. I loved this about my stay in this region – it felt very Tibet-like from the costumes to the food to the compassionate, generous and gentle nature of the people. Over time, the term sherpa has evolved to describe the job that many of these people do in support of trekkers and climbers. This role includes virtually everything from guiding to serving food to hand-holding and more. I’ll use the term Sherpa when referring to the tribe and the term sherpa when referring to the job. Porters are a different thing and they simply carry stuff up and down the mountain – an absolutely back-breaking job. Most of them are Sherpas but few of them become sherpas (or aspire to).
Our guide, Supreet, deposited us in a nearby guesthouse with a thermos of tea while he went to out hire our staff from the group of anxious Sherpas huddled at the airport. He claims this is the hardest part of his job as he wishes he could employ everyone. He seems like a very fair man, and does his best to spread the wealth among as many of the men as he can. He came back with four sherpas for us: Nima, Nawong, Renji and Rezin. (I’m guessing that I’m really far off the spelling of these names but it’s the best I can do.) He also secured six porters (whose names I can’t even guess at – we didn’t see much of these guys) one of whom hoped to become a sherpa and helped “the boys” out in camp so that he could learn the ropes. Once we were sorted out, we set off on our trek.
I won't give a detailed list of the trekkers - as I mentioned earlier it was a large group of 14. The bulk were from Australia, with a few Brits, one American, a Singaporean and me. Ages ranged from 24 to 60-something and we were equally split between men and women. Careers included social worker, software designer, dietician, wine exporter, maximum security prison guard (a woman!!!), financial analyst, and navy officer. We had a couple of bird and flower experts who kept us on top of all the beautiful things along the trail. Everyone got along very well and we all felt lucky to have such a good group. There were several pairings over the course of the trek which amused our guide to no end. By the end of the trip he was calling it the "Romancing the Himalaya" trek.
This was one of the only treks I’ve ever done that doubled-back on itself from time to time. I was a bit concerned about the boredom factor at first as I didn’t see the point in going over the same territory more than once. However, given that this was the very end of the trekking season and I had been warned that clouds would likely prevent any decent views at this time of year, it was actually a blessing that we got a couple of chances for good weather in all the crucial spots. The trail was shaped roughly like a Y. Lukla is at the bottom of the “stem”. We trekked up to Namche Bazaar which is at the junction of the three paths. We then hiked up the left hand part of the V to Gokyo, turned around and came back down towards the junction. Just before Namche, we crossed to the other side of the V and went back up to Everest Base Camp at the top of the right side of the V. We came back down the right side of the V to Namche and then back to Lukla.
The hike from Lukla all the way up to Gokyo seemed very slow to me. We only hiked for about 3-4 hours per day, which is much less than I was used to. The reason for this is that the altitude gain along this trail was substantial, and the company wants to ensure that the trekkers don’t gain more than 400 metres per day. Each day we would arrive at our destination in time for lunch. After lunch we’d hike up a nearby ridge to help with the acclimatisation process. The key is to hike high and sleep low, so Supreet made sure that we always climbed higher than where we were sleeping. In addition, we had a “rest day” in Namche to help acclimatise. Don’t be fooled – a rest day still involved a day hike.
Namche is great town. I had heard so much about it and was thrilled to finally visit it. Traditionally it is a crossroads and the spot when people from all over the area come to bring their goods to market on the weekend. Now it is more of a trekker’s paradise where you can get everything from a hot shower to an awesome apple strudel to a Gortex jacket. I did notice that most of the towns along the trekking route seemed to exist solely to support the trekking community, which was a little disappointing. This differed quite dramatically from the Annapurna area where the towns had been there for hundreds of years and the trekking lodges were late additions that coexisted with the locals’ homes, monasteries and farms.
We didn’t camp on this trek, but rather took advantage of the multitude of lodges which have sprung up along the way. These were very primitive, had paper-thin walls (sometimes literally) and provided no privacy. Every once in a while we were treated to an indoor toilet (usually squat) but for the most part there were outhouses with no running water. Still, it was much more luxurious than camping, as we had beds with foam mattresses and a stove in the common areas. Our sherpas brought us each a basin of washing water each morning so that we could take a sponge bath. This was a much easier exercise in the lodge that it had been in the tents on my previous treks.
The sherpas, or “the boys” as we called them, were a great bunch of men. They are generally a shy lot and definitely opened up to the men on the trek much more than the women. It was a bit frustrating to not be able to learn more about their lives from them, and I soon gave up after I kept getting nothing but one-word answers. They warmed up a bit over time and we even developed a few running jokes along the way. They really got into some horsing around with the guys towards the end of the trip.
We were lucky to have a full moon and clear skies in Namche. A bunch of us went out in the late evening to see the moon lighting up the snow-covered mountains and the village below us. It was really beautiful. C.S., a trekker from Singapore was our resident photographer and he got some really fabulous shots of this. We’re all hoping he’ll share them with us.
From Namche we headed north towards Gokyo. We were lucky enough to see some rhododendrons in bloom, although many of the flowers were destroyed by the late snows. There were some really pretty stretches of trail along here - I was particularly fond of the summer pastures (not yet in use) with their stone walls and stone barns set against the white mountains. The weather came and went and we had sporadic views of the mountains when the cloud cover lifted.
When we arrived in the small village of Manla (one lodge, two houses and a stupa) I took my iPod out to a field to listen to some music and sing out loud among the mountains. To my dismay, my iPod quit on me and started making some frightful banging noises. It was very disappointing to have lost it. A couple of days later, Craig's iPod (the same model as mine) also quit on him with the same symptoms. We tried everything to revive them, all to no avail. The good news is that when we got back to Lukla at the end of the trek, we tried again and they both started without a hiccup. Turns out that iPods don't work over about 4000 metres ASL. The iPod Nanos were fine - apparently they have no moving parts and therefore aren't affected.
We passed another town along the way to Gokyo called Machermo (sounds Italian, doesn't it?), which housed a medical clinic staffed by volunteer western doctors. They provide services to trekkers and locals and we attended a talk on altitude sickness there. They were able to measure our pulse and blood oxygen content which was a fun exercise. I did surprisingly well, although my pulse was about 20 beats per minute faster than at home, which fortunately is standard for that altitude.
Before too long we had moved above the tree line and the terrain changed dramatically. First there was scrub and low bushes, then very little growth at all. The terrain took on the look of a moonscape. At about this point we came to the first of the five Gokyo lakes. Shortly thereafter we came to the town of Gokyo where we would stay two nights. This is a pretty little town on the shore of a beautiful lake with mountains towering over it. We all took a shower here, which was a fabulous luxury after five days. The shower was an interesting process. The boys would heat up water on a stove (looks like a wood stove but they burn yak dung as there was no wood around). Someone would climb up on the roof with a bucket of hot water and dump it into another bucket on the roof. You'd turn on the tap and away you went. Depending on how long you were in there, the guy might have to climb the roof a few times to replenish your water supply.
The next morning we awoke to fresh snow which made everything look so pretty and clean. It really hardly qualified as snow and melted as soon as the sun rose, but it was a thrill for some of the Aussies who had never seen it before. We got up early to climb Gokyo Ri, a hill right beside town. This was a tough climb - we gained over 600 metres in a couple of hours and the top is at 5360 metres ASL. The views are supposed to be spectacular here but we had a bit of cloud cover. It was still really lovely but we didn't get to see Everest or Lhotse as we had hoped. The lake was very still and the mountains were reflected beautifully on its surface. One of the boys brought us tea and biscuits up there and we sat for a while enjoying the views.
The next major point of interest was the Thyangboche monastery which is just above Namche on the eastern side of the V. This is one of only two monasteries that we visited and is the most important in the area. This is where climbers traditionally stop to receive blessings on their way to Everest and we were fortunate enough to have Supreet arrange for us to meet the Abbott. He blessed our katas (scarves) and placed them around our necks - it was really a special thing for me. We also got to sit in on the afternoon prayers with the monks. It's so soothing to just close your eyes and relax to the rhythm of the chanting.
Thyangboche is a very cool place and I really loved being there. The only downside is that once again we didn't get clear views of Everest, Lhotse or Ama Dablam - the three main mountains to be seen from this vantage point. This is another one of those places where the Buddhists look after their strays, and the dogs kept me up all night with their barking. In addition, there was one member of our trekking team who's voice carried much further than he recognized. He invariably got up an hour or more before our official wake up call and boomed out "good morning gentlemen" to whoever he could find awake at that hour (usually the guy who has to light the fire to heat our washing water, I assume). Inevitably that would be it for me - I was up and there was no going back to sleep. He was a lovely man but I wanted to wring his neck every morning at about 5:00. In Themboche the dogs stopped barking somewhere around 4:00 and I had just gotten to sleep when David belted out his wakeup call from out on the balcony of the lodge. Needless to say, I was a little cranky that day. As we walked out of town I stopped to wake up all the dogs who were now sleeping in the field. I don't think they got the connection.
When we left Thyangboche we stopped to visit a nunnery which is just down the hill, which was a pleasant and novel experience for me. They live much the same way as the monks do and are equally respected. Later in the day we stopped at Pengboche which houses the oldest monastery in the region. It's not really used anymore, but is still looked after and I was able to light a butter lamp there.
A day or so later we walked through the camp of Bear Grylls. This is a crazy Brit who is always pulling all kinds of stunts. At this time he was preparing to fly a microlight over Mt. Everest, which would mean he'd go twice as high as the current world record. There was lots of hustle and bustle in his camp as preparations were made and media crews prepared to record the event.
Once through his camp we continued to walk across alpine meadows, kind of like from the opening scene from "The Sound of Music". I have to mention a few words about our trekking style here, as it continues to stymie me even five days after the trek ended. On all my previous treks, the group would naturally find its own pace. As a general rule, the faster walkers would go at the front, the slowest ones at the back and everyone else would spread out in between. There would be a guide at the front of the column and a sweep guide at the back basically bracketing the trekkers in between them. If there was someone walking on your heels, you would step aside so that they could pass and everyone got to go at their own pace. Maybe it's just me, but this seems really logical, and it always happened naturally without anyone having to discuss it.
On this trek, the slowest trekkers walked at the front of the column and the lead guide adjusted his pace to them. The rest of us fell in behind them with no choice but to go at the pace they set. Everyone walked with their nose an inch away from the shoulders of the person ahead of them, like a gaggle of geese. The four extra sherpas brought up the rear in a gaggle of their own - a total waste of resources. It drove me nuts. Here we were in the middle of the Himalayas and I had less than a foot of space between me and the people ahead and behind me. Given that we didn't naturally fall into a more sensible order, one would think that the guide could have done it for us, by suggesting that the faster walkers go ahead but he never did. On a couple of occasions he offered to let the two fastest people go ahead with a sherpa, but given that they were both 30-year-old athletes, there was no way any of the rest of us could have kept up with them, so we were stuck back in the pack. I was much more bothered by the proximity of the people than by the speed at which we walked, but both were irritating. If one person stopped unexpectedly, the whole column would bump into each other like something out of a cartoon. It was truly bizarre.
I bring this up at this point in the story because they didn't even break ranks when we were on this alpine meadow. There were obviously times on the trek when the trail is narrow and there is no choice but to walk single-file. However on the meadow we could have all walked side-by-side with our arms outstretched and still had plenty of room to spare, but they still all walked one behind the other with about six inches separating them.
My saving grace was that Supreet recognized my need for space and the fact that I wanted to stop to look around or take photos without disturbing the rest of the trekkers. He gave me one of the sherpas to keep with me and told me to take as much time and space as I needed. This was a godsend. The only downside was that I had to hang back from the group in order to get this space which meant I still couldn't walk at a comfortable pace. When I did, I would catch up to the group and then I'd have to stop walking for a while to let them get ahead of me again. Anyway, I guess it's a small complaint, and it certainly wasn't a huge issue, but I still can't figure out why he didn't pull the slow people from the front of the column.
So back to the trek. Shortly after lunch on this day, we arrived at the top of a small pass to find the memorials to all the climbers who have lost their lives on Everest and the surrounding mountains. It is a really neat place - not eerie as you might imagine, but beautiful and peaceful. There is a whole garden of stupas, some bearing plaques, others carved rocks and all of them strung with prayer flags and katas. We spent a bit of time here, reading the memorials and reflecting on the fate of these men and women. We were sitting in a cloud, so as we looked around we could just see these shadowy outlines of monuments everywhere. It was quite mysterious looking.
We spent that night in a place called Lobuje which was reputed to be a real hell-hole but I found not much different than the other villages we had stayed in other than the rooms had dirt floors instead of wooden ones. Apparently when the climbing teams are passing through it gets filled way beyond capacity and it can be pretty gross. We awoke the next morning to quite a bit of fresh snow and it was still falling. This was disappointing as we were headed for Base Camp that day and were hoping for some views. The Aussies loved the snow but found it quite cold. I didn't.
We walked for about five hours to base camp, stopping for tea along the way. We couldn't see our hands in front of our faces. The American, Rebecca, and I asked and were given a sherpa to go ahead of the pack (it was the only time that I was able to do this). We made good time although the up hills were still killing us both at this altitude. We rounded a corner and suddenly there was a glacier in our path. I stopped Nima and asked him if this was the famous Khumbu glacier. He said "yes it is, and that's base camp" as he pointed ahead of us. It was a very exciting moment. We virtually ran the rest of the way up to base camp. I had smuggled up a small shampoo bottle with Bailey's in it, so we all toasted our arrival. I understood why Supreet had forbidden us to drink alchohol - this small drink just about flattened us both. We found the much-touted bakery tent and had a slice of apple pie and a mug of hot chocolate while we waited for the others. Shortly after they arrived, the snow stopped like magic, the sky cleared and the views presented themselves. It was awesome. We looked back at the trail and realized that we had been walking alongside the glacier for hours without knowing it. You can't actually see Everest from the base camp (it is hidden by another mountain) but you can see the famous Khumbu icefall rising up behind camp as well as Nuptse, Lola and the South Col. Lotse his also hidden by Nuptse from this vantage point. Supreet pointed out all the various passages that various climbers had used and we even saw some people coming down the icefall. It was all just so cool.
Due to the weather, there hadn't been any summit attempts this season by the time we got there. Base camp was a bustling place, and when the weather opened up you could feel the excitement start to rise as the climbers began to make their preparations. A couple of teams started their summit attempts the next day and summited successfully within a day or two of our visit to base camp. We were definitely right in among all the climbers, but also respected the fact that we had to keep our distance from them. They can't risk getting sick and are almost paranoid about interaction with trekkers who bring germs and illness with them to camp. It's neat to see all the flags from the various climbing groups flying near the tents or attached to their roofs. I found the Canadian team and took a photo of the maple leaf on their tent (which David the Aussie referred to as the "thistle").
On the walk back to the lodge, we were able to enjoy all the fabulous views that we had missed on the way in. It was so spectacular and after we had climbed out from base camp a bit we could actually see the south peak of Everest. It actually looked smaller than the closer mountains but it was Everest just the same. This was a very long day, but so worthwhile and just full of wonders. It was a very early night to bed that night.
The next morning we woke to crystal clear skies again - another blessing. We climbed a mountain near the lodge called Kalapatar. At 5545 metres ASL, this was the highest point of our trek and it almost killed me. I'm not sure what my problem was, but I just couldn't get my breath or find my stride that day. I finally made it up to the peak, but was certainly the last by a long shot. On the way up I saw an avalanche across the valley on Nuptse which was pretty cool. The views from the top of Kalapatar were probably the most spectacular I've ever seen. We could see Lola, Everest, Nuptse, Ama Dablam and a ton more that I can't name at the moment. It was 360 degrees of the world's highest peaks. It was just indescribable.
When we came down off Kalapatar, we packed our bags and hiked down to a town call Pheriche. On the downward trail we would cover the same distance in one day that we would take 2-3 days to cover on the way up. Now that we were on the way down, we were allowed to drink so we had a few celebratory beers in Pheriche at the local snooker hall. We had some good laughs not least of which were at Rebecca's expense as she picked up a pool cue (majorette's baton?) for the first time.
The next morning as we were getting ready to start our trek, we heard engine noises overhead and looked up to see the microlights take off of the hill right over our lodge. We were staying right below Bear Grylls's campsite and today was his big day. We watched as he and his partner sailed higher and higher into the sky above the mountains. We later read in his press release that he had successfully flown over Mt. Everest. Given that we all witnessed this event, I can tell you with some certainty that this is a real stretch and a bit of a symantics game. We assumed that flying over Everest meant starting on one side of it and ending up on the other. What actually happened is that he flew higher than Everest and was able to look down on it from somewhere to the side of it, but he certainly didn't fly over it. I think it would be less misleading to say that he flew above it. Anyway, it was kind of cool to be there when that was going on - I have some great photos of the microlight above the mountains (although Everest wasn't in view from our vantage point in the valley).
We walked down to Namche Bazaar that day and had one heckuva party there. We took our sherpas with us to the local snooker hall and drank the place dry. We danced and laughed and generally had a good time. The boys totally left their shyness someplace behind the bar and were a blast. We had bought a t-shirt earlier in the day which we all signed and put up in the bar, alongside hundreds of others from various trekking and climbing expeditions.
The next day's walk was a bit rough due to pounding heads and heaving stomachs but fortunately it was virtually all downhill and we made it in one piece, if a bit bedraggled. We had our final party with the porters here, so they joined us after we had finished dinner. It was our turn to pamper them, so we served them their dinner and chang (home-made liquor) and then we all sang for each other and danced a bit in the small dining room. I wish we had a bit more energy for them but we were all a bit of a mess from the night before. They were very shy, but nice guys and appreciative of our tips and attempts at interaction.
The next day it was back to Lukla and one more night of drinking in the lodge. We were presented with a cake that was iced with the words "Romancing the Himalaya" - one more dig at the couples which had formed over the past three weeks. (I don't think I have to spell this out, but I watched the coupling from the sidelines.)
The next morning we watched the clouds and waited for the clearing that would signal that planes were flying. We caught Yeti Airlines departure number 2 out of Lukla at about 7:00 and arrived back in Kathmandu shortly thereafter. It was nice to be back into the heat again, and it's also nice to be able to climb a set of stairs without huffing and puffing.
So that's the trek in a nutshell. I'll blog a bit more about Kathmandu and my future plans, but right now I need a rest from the keyboard and I have to pick up my laundry.
