The month I spent ambulating around the Mt. Everest region of Nepal was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Even though I was often huffing along at a snail’s pace, I remember the trip as a whirlwind of otherworldly landscapes, quick-forged friendships, and friendly locals. The only motor vehicles I saw that month were the planes flying tourists overhead, and the helicopters evacuating sick people from high altitude. There was nothing to do but walk, eat, and sleep, and yet this might have been the most exciting and entertaining month yet. Below I recount my journey, VISUALLY.
Above: This was probably the best photo I took the whole trip. 1 – hour exposure as the moon set and the stars came out over Phortse, a UNESCO World Heritage Village. I’m just going to put this here so it will show as the thumbnail image on the main blog page
Above: Mike and I get ready to go! Depart from Jiri, the last place with asphalt for a whole month!
At the lower elevations, and for the first week to ten days or so, the weather was fine, vegetation plentiful, and villages abounded. Here are some guys building a Nepali style house! Made of rocks from the river chopped into bricks, one person said it cost about $10,000 to build such a house. Kind of a lot, no?
Mike putters around the banks of a river.
I test out the waterproofness of the secondhand boots I got in Kathmandu. The crystal clear water you see here came from a glacier way higher on up the mountain, which you’ll see in just a moment.
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The trail was also really easy to follow, as it was marked with bright orange spray painted circles. There are villages everywhere at the lower elevations, so without these markings, it would be quite easy to get lost. The lady in the photo above knows the way. This is basically like a highway for her, she probably commutes by this route several times a week. But I think talking on your phone while walking is probably safer than doing it while driving.
Blam! Another beautiful pastoral landscape.
Left: Frist nice sunset, and right: first view of Everest! Although the photographer here cut Everest out of the frame, so you’ll just have to trust that it was there.
Second nice sunset!
for me to poop on! (Thanks to www.threeruleride.com for this wonderful image.)
There were stupas everywhere. In villages, on top of mountain passes, etc. Imagine how much effort it must’ve taken to haul all the rocks for this thing up here! We’re at 3,500m!
Me standing under Everest, Mike jumping over it.
About this time the blisters started getting really bad. Mine didn’t harden over until the trek was over, and Mike had to pop his several times along the way. My heels are still hard as a rock now though.
The landscapes get more dramatic! The nepalis farm these mountains to the max, most of the time by terracing the mountainsides like you see above. I think most of the terraces have been around for generations, but in some of the more out of the way, higher areas, we saw new terraces under construction. Not to sound like a broken record, but can you imagine the gargantuan effort all of this took? On foot? Without machinery???
Above: A traditional nepali apron hangs to dry with mountains in the background.
Prayers written in Tibetan sit on a ledge outside of a temple, or gompa.
This is what most of the villages looked like. They tended to be really nice, at least along the trekking route. I’m sure the tourist dollars had a lot to do with that. It was about here that things started getting absurdly expensive. Like $5-6 for a meal that would cost $1.50 in Kathmandu. But hey if getting ripped off is what I have to do to get to base camp, then so be it. Actually considering how hard it is to transport goods around up here, I don’t feel like $5 is too terribly unreasonable.
Above and below: Prayers (Om mani padme hum) carved in Tibetan into a rock face.
Om mani padme hum, YO. (Courtesy www.threeruleride.com)
Now we arrive at Lukla, which is basically an airstrip (I think the highest in the world) with some buildings around it. Built by Edmond Hillary after his historic Everest ascent, he intended Lukla to serve the surrounding Nepali villages, and reportedly was disappointed when it turned out to enable hordes of tourists to bypass the long trek in and flood the area.
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We spent a lot of time like this, curled up in our sleeping bags reading, listening to podcasts, or talking and drinking chang, the local rice beer. It’s a lot like Korean makgeolli, which if you know me at all, you know I am a big fan of.
This is the most I ever got excited about Nepali food, BECAUSE THERE IS A SNICKERS BAR INSIDE OF THIS CALZONE. Deep fried Snicker’s bar! (www.threeruleride.com)
I thought this was an awesome view!
But then there was this!
Panorama! The particularly sharp looking mountain in the middle is Amadablam, and as you might imagine, is one of the hardest mountains in the world to climb.
Above: We came up over a pass to Tengboche, and look what we found – a monastery with tantric paintings on one of its structures. Do ladies really like this sort of thing?
We are going Away from Namche.
Above and below: Yak skulls and prayer stones. You can see how much reverence for / fear of this forbidding place the locals must’ve had.
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Above: At high altitude it’s sunny a lot, and there are lots of good UV rays to damage your skin, but you can also harness them to boil water, like these solar cookers are in the process of doing! I know, I can’t believe they actually work either, but they’re all over the place up here, so they must right?
Oh and we met this other shaky somewhere along the way. Dr. Lucas is an anesthesiologist from the Czech Republic, taking some time off to explore the world. He quickly proved himself a worthy shaky, farting and snoring like the best of them, and he had many a great tale about operating room bloopers in the Czech Republic.
Don’t fall in, Chris. Don’t fall in.
More shakies! Above and below: Me, Mike, Lucas, and Javier (from Guatemala).
I was really feeling the altitude up here. Above you see me ready to hurl and/or pass out. Or maybe I’m getting cerebral edema and my brain is going to explode.
And then I think this was when I spotted the Yeti. (www.threeruleride.com)
This is how we spent a lot of our sedentary time – huddling around the stove at the lodge trying desperately to keep warm while the temperature outside plummeted to –20 degrees Celsius. Often when we woke up in the morning and went in for breakfast, the thermometer in the dining hall would still read –5 degrees! Usually the hardest part of the day was putting on my boots and enduring numb toes for the first hour of the hike.
Now we’re in the “death zone” literally. Along this stretch of barren wasteland we had to weave our way through cairns, gravestones, and rocks with engravings marking the demises of dozens of adventurers.
Then the moonscape really took shape.
The only living things up here are the short grass and lichen covering the rocky soil, the yaks that eat them…and several species of birds, bugs, etc.…actually considering how inhospitable it was for us lowly humans, there was quite a plethora of life having a big party up here.
And we made it to Kala Patar! The highest mountain you can legally climb without a permit! Actually, once we got to the base of Kala Patar, it was basically just an hour and a half shuffle up to the top of what looked like a small hill. Once at the top, Lucas celebrated Czech Christmas (they do their thing on Dec 24th, what the rational world calls “Christmas Eve”) by making all the people up there with us sing Christmas carols in their native tongues. I think we got English, Czech, French, and German before it was time to descend. And I’m pretty sure the Czech song was just about Santa drinking Budvar.
Look mom! No hands! At 5600m / 18500ft, and even though it only took an hour and a half to get to the top, KPT was no joke. At the top there is 50% of the amount of oxygen there is at sea level, so every 5 steps or so I was stopping to hyperventilate. And when I got to the summit, a tiny outcropping of boulders that only a few can be on at any one time, I almost keeled over and rolled back down when I tried to stand up too fast.
But it was all totally worth it, for the views, sensations, camaraderie. But as soon as the sun set, I just started running back down, because even with a t-shirt, long underwear shirt, flannel shirt, windbreaker, puffy down coat, and rain jacket on top, I was still getting frighteningly cold.
The next day, real Christmas, we celebrated at Everest Base Camp! Actually, there is some controversy as to whether or not this is the “real” base camp or not. There were prayer flags, cairns, and even a sign that said “base camp.”
But Lucas kept insisting that the “real” base camp was some 2 km up the glacier, closer to Khumbu Ice Falls, which you can see in the background above. Maybe this was just the old base camp, and over the years it had flowed down-glacier to become the place where tourists take their photos? At any rate, December is not when Everest summit attempts are made, so there were no campers to be found at either location.
Oh and Lukas remembered to wear his Christmas undies.
After base camp, we hiked back down the valley about 4x as fast as we came up, and with our newly acclimated circulatory system producing wayyyy more red blood cells than before, we made really good time, and began heading up the next valley over to a place called Gokyo, where we were told we could get an even BETTER view of the big E. First it was more snowy wastelands, up the stairway to heaven…
…past this frozen lake (that brown mountain behind the lake is our destination)
And up the side of Gokyo Ri, which is slightly shorter than Kala Patar, but probably harder to climb, as you have to bush whack it (although there are no bushes?) up a slope that can sometimes exceed 45 degrees.
BUT once again, it was worth it for THIS. I completely forgot I was on planet Earth for many moments, and it seemed that a world with cities, cars, houses, puppies, etc. must only exist in another solar system.
Anyway there’s Everest again. Doesn’t look so big anymore when you’re already 2/3 of the way up, right?
Then we sacrificed Mike to both the Tibetan and Nepali versions of the mountain goddess that lives on Everest, Chomolungma, and Sagarmatha. Hope he was delicious.
That’s it folks! As crazy as all this looks, unless you are on your death bed, you can probably find a way to get to Everest Base Camp. If you are in relatively good shape, you can do what we did on the cheap, or you can fly in and out, costing more money but saving time and energy. You can also pay a person to carry all your stuff for you, if you feel like you won’t make it otherwise. If you’re Donald Trump, you can even hire a helicopter to fly you to base camp, so it’s within just about everyone’s reach. Happy trails!
