SUPER LONG Trip Report: Everest Base Camp trek

[jordylee]

OK, so I think I am finally recovered enough, rested enough, and motivated enough to do a post about my trip. It will probably be an insanely long one! Apparently I am only allowed 3 attachments, but you can see the pics from our trip here

We flew into Kathmandu and spent the first two days getting things sorted like permits, deciding when we wanted to start our trek, and picking up a few final bits of gear (mainly trekking poles, which we were sooooo glad to have). We found a travel agent (whose office was tucked upstairs in the back of a scarf shop and looked super sketch) who we found recommended online to buy plane tickets to Lukla. You can't buy plane tickets online or directly through the airport, so you are pretty much required to use some sort of sketchy looking travel agency if you're doing it on your own without a tour group. Our tickets were literally handwritten on a piece of carbon copy paper, so I was a little wary. The pollution and air quality was a bitch and I had a sore throat and cough pretty much immediately, so I was anxious to head to the mountains. Before we left we visited a few temples, ate a lot of food, went to some markets, and did some general people watching. It was Diwali (festival of lights) so we enjoyed watching everyone decorating the outsides of their homes/shops and getting everything ready for the celebration. Also, this is where I will tell you we are huge dorks and brought our own pulse oximeter so we got our baseline stats before heading up to altitude. I'll put the stats at the end.

Anyway, on to the good stuff. We got to the airport in Kathmandu for our 8:30am flight into Lukla. Remember those handwritten tickets on carbon copy paper from our good friend at the sketchy travel agency? I started to get a little skeptical when there was nobody at the airline's check in area until about 10 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave. We showed them our ticket, and they told us to sit down and wait. So we waited. And waited. We checked back a few times, and they said to wait. Eventually they let us through into the gate area where we waited some more. On the screen, it said our 8:30 flight was on time, but it was now 10:30. Eventually around 11:30, the lady from the check in area came and got DH and I and said it was time to go. We walked out to the plane with one other person (a local from Lukla) and got in. The lady told us that we were lucky, our plane was only 3 days old! The flight itself was uneventful. It is only a 25 minute flight, but the runway in Lukla is literally a 460m strip with a 12% grade that falls off the edge of the mountain on one side and goes straight into a wall of mountain on the other. So that part was a little unnerving, to say the least. We stopped for some lunch before setting out on our trek.

The first day, we walked from Lukla to Monjo. Since we got such a late start, we had the trail pretty much to ourselves for much of the afternoon. Because of my complete lack of research, I found out that the trek includes several really long, really high suspension bridges and I am afraid of heights. Fun stuff! I nearly had a panic attack on the first one, I was nervous about the second, but after that I crossed them like a champ. When we reached Monjo, we picked a place to stay, got some dinner, and went to bed pretty much immediately. We were both wiped from such a long day.

The next morning we made our ascent into Namche, the last real civilization and place to get supplies. The walk up was a bitch, with tons and tons of switchbacks. This is where I will say that our original plan was to do the trek by ourselves with no guide or porter. I felt weird about paying someone to carry my shit, and we had seen people carrying literally insane loads that seemed inhumane. Well, about 3 hours in, I told my H "when we get there, we're getting a porter". He was agreeable, but still wasn't keen on it. We finally made it and asked the lady working at our teahouse if she knew somewhere we could hire a porter. She told us that it would be really difficult to find someone, but she would try. 10 minutes later, Puna arrived and he was our new companion for the rest of the trip. We combined the "heavy" stuff (our bags weren't actually heavy... mine was 10kg and DH's was 13kg) into one bag for Puna, then DH and I divvied up the lighter stuff for ourselves. Puna ended up carrying ~15kg and we paid him a very generous rate of $20/day (most pay $12-15, but I didn't feel right about it). We went over our plan using (and by "went over" I mean pointed at a list of villiages - his english was extremely limited) and set up a meeting time two days later. We spent an extra day acclimitizing, getting cash from the ATM (which was a several hour ordeal), and resting up. 

This is already insanely long, so I won't go through every single day or anything. But we hiked for ~4hrs/day for the most part. Our accomodations were $2/night, with the stipulation that we must eat their food. We slept in anything ranging from a room that was covered in carpet (including the walls and ceiling) with a private toilet to a plywood shed containing nothing but a wooden bed with a 1in foam mattress and a shared plywood box with a hole dug in the ground to squat over. Many places had no running water, so showering was few and far between. We discovered partway through that if you asked the kitchen, they would give you a bucket of warm water to wash off with for a dollar or two. We were vegetarian for the duration of the trip, because any meat up there had to be flown in from Kathmandu to Lukla then walked by a human up the mountain, unrefrigerated. We ate a shit ton of dumplings/eggs/rice, and played about a million games of cards. It was really really cold, and the only heat came from yak dung-burning stoves in the dining area (so we generally went to bed shortly after dinner each night)

During the actual hiking, we saw some of the most amazing landscapes I have ever seen. I was amazed at how clean the trail was, despite the fact that it is so heavily touristed. I was also surprised by how hard it was. I've done a lot of hiking, but it was the hardest thing I've done. I got sick with a cold midway through, and that plus the altitude really took the wind out of me. Toward the highest elevation, I couldn't sleep much and basically felt like the most out of shape person ever. But we made it. All the way to everest base camp, at 17,598 feet. Base camp itself was just a pile of rocks with a lot of prayer flags and a sign, but it's about the journey more than the destination. On our way back down, we made great time and actually ended up staying a few extra nights in Namche because we had extra days. 

After we flew back to Kathmandu, we had a few days before heading to China for the "relaxing" part of our trip. I think I'll save that for a different post on a different day. If you've made it all the way through this post, you deserve a medal!

On to the heartrate/O2 stat info. These were taken resting, first thing in the morning after waking up.

Sea level: HR 55 / O2 98%
2800m - Monjo: HR 69 / O2 93%
3440m - Namche: HR 69 / O2 89% (day 1)
3440m - Namche: HR 83 / O2 97% (day 2)
3880m - Tenboche: HR 85 / O2 88%
4530m - Dingboche: HR 93 / O2 85%
5000m - Labuche: HR 102 / O2 85%
5184m - Gorakshep: HR 103 / O2 74% (I felt like shiiiiit this day; thankfully it was our highest night sleeping)
4240m - Periche: HR 80 / O2 88% 
3440m - Namche: HR 75 / O2 91%
3440m - Namche: HR 71 / O2 92%
2610m - Phakding: HR 63/ O2 97%
1400m - Kathmandu: HR 56/ O2 98%

[InBetweenDays]

LOVE this post! What an amazing trip. I've been enthralled with Nepal for years - my sister went there on her honeymoon and named their first dog Namche She too talked about the runway in Lukla - I think she said because it was so short they used the incline to their advantage. So you landed going uphill and took off going downhill?

Loved your photos too. Absolutely stunning. Your photos of Everest are so surreal.

And as a data nerd your O2 stats are interesting. Especially how quickly it seems you acclimated in Namche.

[kams]

Oh my gosh, your pictures are breathtaking.

What an incredible trip! Thanks for sharing your experience.

[thom]

Very,very, very cool. What an amazing trip you got to share together.

I also find the data interesting.

[juliabug]

What an amazing adventure! Beautiful photos, too. Thanks for sharing.

[andrealynn]

That's an awesome trip! The pics are very cool.

[gt7301b]

What an amazing trip. We have some family friends who worked in Nepal for several years and they have the most amazing stories.

[clseale]

I'm so jealous! Thanks for sharing with us. It sounds/looks amazing!

[hannahb]

Looks amazing!

[2doxies]

Oh my gosh, those pictures. Thanks for sharing them and the details of your trip, I'd love to read about the "relaxing" part sometime

[chitownbelle]

Jordy, you are a badass! The photos are amazing and I can't imagine ever being ballsy enough to take a trek like that. Hope it was a memorable one!! Love the photo of you with the base camp sign, definitely one for the books.

[sadlebred]

What an amazing trip! I really enjoyed the photos!

[libbygrl109]

Your photos are beautiful! It looks like such an amazing trip. Thanks for sharing.

[emilyj]

Such a cool trip! Your pictures are incredible!

[shauni27]

those pictures are incredible! What an amazing experience!

[bullygirl979]

jordylee, awesome post! It's funny...reading it I was all "yup, yup. I had the same thing" and I have so many of the same pics that you have! Glad you enjoyed the trip. It was a crazy experience! Did you see my rock at Base Camp? lol.

[bostonmichelle]

That is an amazing trip! I am so jealous. Adding another trip to my yet never ending bucket list of trips.

[adcobe]

How cool! Looks like you guys had a great time! Your pictures are breathtaking!

[ktzmoh]

So cool! Thanks for posting this! And us china buffs definitely want to read the next recap

[Deleted]

Looks like an incredible experience, thank you for sharing!

[sassystace]

Wow! Amazing trip and pictures. I admire your ability to just go and do stuff like this--I'm a chicken.

[tuggyruns]

Your pictures are incredible and so inspiring! Wow, just wow!

[shorewife]

What an amazing experience! I was just in Hawaii at the top of a few volcanoes (10,000 feet and 13,800 feet) and I definitely felt winded and dizzy so it is really cool for me to see your HR and O2 data that shows what's actually going on.

[lauren170]

So amazing.

[skwcm80]

That looks awesome! Thanks for sharing.

[hellonurse]

Thank you for sharing! I think Nepal will be added to my travel bucket list.