Ever since I was nine, when I was first given my real dose of an adventurous life, I can remember wanting to go to Mt. Everest. When I told doubting adults about this dream, they’d ask why. In my head I could see an older version of me in a huge down coat and hiking boots, trekking through enormous mountains and talking to Sherpas. This month, I was that older version of me.
(Everest center, Lohtse right)
On the twelfth of September my Dad and I left Pokhara on a bus headed to Kathmandu. About four hours in to the supposed seven-hour drive, the truck drivers of Nepal started a strike by parking their trucks along the one and only highway that we were trying to drive through. Three hours later we had barely gone a mile. Being stuck on an air conditioning-less bus in 90-degree heat was not exactly how I wanted to start off this adventure. Nevertheless, we reached Kathmandu after eleven painful hours and the next day we were at the airport, boarding our plane to the most dangerous airport in the world. The village of Lukla is perched on a ledge right in the middle of a steep cliff-like mountain. Logically, since there’s not enough space for a full-length runway, the strip is slanted uphill pretty drastically. Needless to say, landing on the edge of a cliff with a mountain right in front of you is terrifying but awesome.
(runway in Lukla)
Most of the towns in the Sagarmatha (Everest) region look a lot like Lukla, except most are smaller. The towns are mostly made up of different and fairly identical stone guesthouses and smaller stone houses with yards guarded by stone walls for yak grazing and gardening. The three main sources of income for Nepali’s living in the mountains are portering (carry goods on their back from Lukla, where the last airport is, to wherever ordered), housing hikers and farming so the only things that make up the villages are the necessities to make money doing those things. This makes the villages very small and rudimentary since everything has to be carried in by porter or yak. As we were hiking along, we saw porters carrying the most amazing things. We saw men, old and young, carrying washing machines, a sick woman, ten pieces of plywood, fifty-five gallon drums of kerosene, and more. We even saw one young boy with a giant basket of yak poop. Really makes you stop complaining and watch in awe. As if the load’s weight wasn’t enough, the terrain made the job seem near impossible. In the lower villages, the trail is more like a road that sometimes would stop and turn into steep, slippery and narrow stone steps. On our way back down, one of the bridges had collapsed because of a landslide so there was an incredibly steep, muddy, barely existent trail formed that went up and over the new cliff. We stood and waited as a group of Sherpas helped a young porter carrying an unbelievable load of plywood navigate over an especially nonexistent area right on the cliffs edge. It looked impossible but the young porter finally made it across. We all clapped.
(monastery in Tengboche)
Since everything is carried in, prices are three times higher in the mountains than in Pokhara. At the higher villages, a Twix can cost up to 400 rupees, which is about $5. It seems ridiculous, but once you see the effort it takes to get that Twix up to 16,000 feet from 9,000, you know it’s that high of a price for a good reason. Without a porter to carry our bags or a guide to lead us to the right trail, the cost of our trip was much lower than most. REI advertises the trip at $2,100, not including food, which was definitely the better half of the total money we spent. My dad and I spent around $700 each for two weeks, including housing, plane tickets, food, and hiking permits. The larger part of that total was spent on food, second was transportation and last was room (usually less than $3 a night) a night for a double room without a bathroom). The trip cost only a little lower than we had expected, but we made it that way. Compared to the complete backcountry trekking that I’m used to, this trip was quite luxurious with beds and “toilets” (most bathrooms were outhouses with holes in the ground). There were definitely some people up there that weren’t budgeting by watching food prices and getting fancier rooms with attached bathrooms, there were also others who spent much less than us.
Even though this trip was more luxurious than what I’m used to, there were definitely some moments where I didn’t exactly feel like a princess. There were two lowest of the low moments on my trip that made me doubt my abilities, question my sanity and pray for time to speed up. The first was the night we spent in Monju. It was our first night sleeping in the high altitude of the Himalayas and we felt it. That day we had decided to skip through Phakding and stay the night in a village that had the same altitude as where we had started that day (Lukla), which would have been fine but both my Dad and I were unknowingly dehydrated and knowingly exhausted. My Dad woke up sweating despite the freezing temperature, went outside to cool off and threw up. As he came back in, I woke up and felt like I was suffocating. Since I’m prone to panic attacks, I would wake up several times hyperventilating and not be able to stop because I was so stressed. Finally, morning came and we were both still alive so we hiked on. The next worst moment on the trek was Shomar. Once again we had skipped past a village that we were supposed to stay in (Pangboche) and once again, we felt it. For hours my head felt like it would split in half from the pressure. Altitude sickness exhausts you to a point that you just want to sleep for days, but we knew that walking up higher and acclimatizing there was better for us so we hiked to the top of the village and walked back and forth along the path for almost an hour. As we went back to our room, I felt good enough to eat and sleep, but my Dad didn’t. He had a headache all night but finally went away in the morning. That night we also stayed in our least favorite lodge of any on our trip. It was bitterly cold in the common room where you eat your meals. Finally they put some yak patties in the stove heater (there aren’t any trees up there so that’s their fuel source) and it warmed up to where we were more comfortable. Sadly, the plywood square rooms don’t have the luxury of heating so it was hard keeping warm at night even with our -10 degree sleeping bags and fleece pants.
Even though these two moments were uncomfortable and frustrating, my Dad and I never once seriously talked about backing down except to say if we have to we will. It wasn’t even long after these two days that we learned that garlic soup is the cure for everything from an old Nepali woman we complained to one night. After we got out of the less impressive lower hills where frustration and exhaustion built was where I had my two most amazing moments. The first was the earthquake. This would have on the terrible moment list but just the enormity of the movements and sounds made it amazing. We were staying the night in Periche, just above 13,000 feet, playing cards with a couple we had met in Monju and eventually hiked most our trip with. All of a sudden I hear the owner of the lodge saying “shaky, shaky, shaky, shake”. I started to feel the common rocking back and forth. My first thoughts were, “what the heck, why are people trying to move the lodge?” I had thought that people were rocking the room like we used to rock the floating dock on the pond by my grandparents cabin in Vermont right before we jumped off. Then it got bigger. And bigger. After about 10 whole seconds I finally realized it was an earthquake. I quickly got under the table and waited. After about thirty seconds, it slowed down to where you I could barely feel it and we got out. My dad and I looked at each other and started laughing but quickly stopped when we saw the Nepalis’ and couples faces. Later, we went outside to see the damage and we saw several walls of houses and lodges had fallen down. Our own lodge had a part of the roof cave in, but everyone was completely fine, only shaken up (pun intended). The excitement of the moment and surety that I knew I’d be fine the whole time made it one of the top moments of my life. It wasn’t till after that I thought about rock falls and avalanches crushing us. The next most amazing most is a close tie between reaching Everest Base Camp and summiting Kala Pathar, but summiting wins. We woke up on the 23rd at 3:30 am and started hiking at 4 from Gorak Shep, the last village on the trek. Immediately, it was a steep ascent. At about 5:00 or 5:30 the sun started to rise and revealed the enormous mountains right in front of us. The sky turned an amazing cotton candy pink and blue and the peaks were so close we felt like we could touch them. We sat and waited for the show to be over and eventually started hiking to the summit. Although it only took us two hours to reach the peak, it was the longest two hours of my life. Each step was laborious and each breath was half-filled. At 18,000 feet there is only half the amount of oxygen as sea level, where I live, so it was hard work getting up the steep and completely rocky slope. Climbers attempting to summit have to sleep at nearly 18k feet for almost a month before they can start ascending higher. There was actually only three teams at Base Camp when we were there because it was the off season for summiting, one was a Japanese climber attempting to solo summit, without oxygen, and not in the right season…could he make it any harder for himself? We got to the summit at 6:05 and it was covered in ice so movement was limited. It was absolutely incredible up there. We had a 360 degree view from the top with full views of Lohtse and Ama Dablam. Fortunately, the entire sky was clear except for a single cloud right in front of Everest. We did catch a glimpse of the peak a few times though. All the mountains just towered over us. Everywhere we looked, the peaks were right there in our faces. After a celebratory Twix and a few pictures, we headed back down to Gorak Shep for a much needed breakfast. Later that day, we continued all the way to Periche. It was incredible watching the terrain change in one day from moon-like to low bush, and the next day back into the tropical forest.
(damage from earthquake)
(base camp sign)
(summit of Kala Pathar)
Some mornings in the Sagarmatha range were a lot like that morning. Beautiful clear skies with the sun touching the peaks as it rose, but most days in the lower were fairly overcast, if not completely foggy. The mornings with beautiful sunrises made all the work worth it, times a billion. We talked to a lot of locals about the weather and what we got from them was that by early October, the skies were most likely to be clear every day. This is also when the crowds of tourists start to pile in to the little villages. At first we were a little miffed about the weather, but when we got closer to October and started to see the amount of people starting their trek, we completely changed our minds. My Dad and I agree that mid or early September is the best time to go if ever. Either way, you will get views of the mountains and beating the crowds is always vital. The experience is so much more pure when there aren’t large amounts of people crowding around and cramping the lodges. We also had impeccable timing with meeting people and getting views. We met a lot of amazing people while we were trekking and ended up hiking the last half and most the way down with a couple from London and a man from Singapore. My Dad and I taught them and a few Sherpas the great (card) game of Spite and Malice, which we played in big tournaments almost every night (this was our one and only source of entertainment for two weeks, so we took it very seriously, with prizes and everything). When it came to the views, whenever it was most important to get one, we got one. There were some days we could barely see a hundred yards in front of us, but it left some mystery to it and made the clear days just that much more special.
Overall, I had an incredible time. It was hard work and exhausting, but it was an amazing opportunity that I will always remember and inspire me every time I hike. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to tell people about my experiences and prove those doubting adults wrong. I envisioned this trip a long time ago and I was just stubborn enough to make it happen. Anyone can complete the dream they’ve created, they’ve just got to work around the altitude and keep hiking.
(monastery in Tengboche)
(Everest left, Lohtse center)
(angel statue on summit of Kala Pathar)
Day 1: Lukla (9,320 ft) to Monju (9,320 ft)
Day 2: Monju (9,320 ft) to Namche (11,290 ft)
Day 3: Acclimatization Day in Namche (11,290 ft): Day Hike to Thame (12,470 ft)
Day 4: Namche (11,290 ft) to Tengboche (12,670 ft)
Day 5: Tengboche (12,670 ft) to Shomare (13,160 ft)
Day 6: Shomare (13,160 ft) to Periche (13,910 ft)
Day 7: Acclimatization Day in Periche (13,910 ft): Day Hike to Chhukhung (15,520 ft)
Day 8: Periche (13,910 ft) to Thokla/Doughla (15,160 ft)
Day 9: Thokla/Doughla (15,160 ft) to Lobuche (16,100 ft)
Day 10: Lobuche (16,100 ft) to Gorak Shep (16,900 ft) - Day hike to Everest Base Camp (17,600 ft)
Day 11: Gorak Shep (16,900 ft) to Kala Pathar (18,200 ft) to Periche (for the night) (13,910 ft)
Day 12: Periche (13,910 ft) to Namche (11,290 ft)
Day 13: Namche (11,290 ft) to Lukla (9,320 ft)
