We had 8 days to prepare for the crowds. If you don't want to walk from Jiri (or Shivalaya), you can fly in to Lukla and save 8 days. This is what the majority of the trekkers do. Basically, our there were two parts of our trek. The quite green terraces from Jiri to Surke and the crowded trek from Lukla to Base Camp. There are many options in extending the trek around Base Camp. But for those in a time constraint EBC can be done in as little as 12 days.
Everest Base Camp is, of course, the busiest trek in the Himalayas. Everest, even just Base Camp, calls to many people. Us included. As soon a we got on the path from Lukla, we were bombarded with hundreds of people. The whole trail completely changed. Where our Jiri trail hit the Lukla trail we turned the corner and literally ran into hundreds of people. There were giant guided groups of 10-20 along the way. Following them were their porters and yaks with loaded with all of their gear. We are on the trail to EBC and it's all business from here. We got in line and started climbing go to the base of the world's highest peak.
We flew past everyone. Not only did we have our legs but we have also acclimatised to 11,500ft. From here on out we are steadily climbing and had to acclimatize properly. We cut our long 8 hour days to shorter 4 hours days as we climbed higher in altitude. Once we got Namche Baazar, everyone was pretty much on the same schedule.
At the Sagamartha(Everest) National Park entrance, we read that the average number of visitors for the month of October was over 8,000. The average for November was half at 4,000. Even though it felt busy to us, we were at the tail end of peak season. It is starting to get cold in Novemer but he skys are clear and we have to share the trail with fewer people. Our timing was perfect.
We climbed from green terraces towards the barren alpine of the glacial Khumbu Valley. It was unreal that we were walking on a glacier for days. We heard the muffled sounds of avalances around us and were almost hit by falling rocks. It was an amazing feeling to be surrounded by world's highest peaks.
The last town before Base Camp is Gorak Shep. It is also at the base of Kala Phatar. It was a haul to get there. It was getting colder and the altitude was slowed us down. In the higher altitudes the Tea Houses seem to be made with less material. The rooms have zero insulation and the bucket flush toilets are frozen in the mornings. Dozens of us huddled around the stove in the dining area. In the higher altitudes there is no wood for fire so our stoves were fueled by yak dung. We tried to ignore the fact that the person who filled the stove with dung was usually also our cook. On one of our coldest night close to at about 17,500ft., it was 40 degrees when we went to bed and we woke up to a chilly 26 degrees inside our rooms. Even though we all got used to the cold, I remember telling Parker that this is not normal.
From Lebouche we made it to Gorak Shep by lunch. We dropped off our packs, ate and took a quick nap before trekking two hour and 1,000ft to EBC. Base camp is on a deserted bed of rocks. Since it was not summit season (May) there were no tents up. We shared Base Camp with several dozen others. We waited our turn for our picture op with a rock that someone scribbled "Everest base Camp" on. Everest Base Camp itself is anti-climactic but it was still pretty awesome to be there knowing that this is where all the craziness starts. The Khumbu Ice Fall to Camp I was pretty impressive.
The next day we climbed from Gorak Shep to the top of Kala Phatar. Many people who are short on time skip EBC for the views on top of KP. And for good reason. Kala Phatar is an easy but slow walk up to 18,500 ft. This is the highest any of us have ever gone. There is half the oxygen at Base Camp and Kala Phatar than at sea level. We took very slow half steps. Sometimes after a water break we felt good and started walking up with normal strides. The altitude quickly stopped us and we had to take a minute or two to catch our breath. On Kala Phatar we were rewarded by one of the best view of Everest and a stunning 360 of the Himalayas. This was absolutely a highlight in our trek.
After Base Camp and Kala Phatar we started our way back. We took the loop back to Gokyo via Cho la Pass towards the glacial lakes. It was a steep assent and decent with a lot of shouldering and scrambling. On top we walked on a magnificent glacier at over 18,000 ft. with sheer drops to a cold bottomless pit. On the way to Gokyo we also walked on another glacier. We were clouded in and a walked through light snowfall. We felt like we were on the moon. Parker thought we were lost and felt like were were in a twilight zone.
After Gokyo we started making our decent back to lower altitude. We also heard that there have not been flights our of Lukla back to Kathmandu in five days. This made us nervous because Jason and Melissa had an international flight to catch. We treated ourselves to a proper room and hot showers in Namche. Our first proper shower in 20 days. Then we were off to Lukla where we got on a waiting list for a flight back. We waited for four days in the tiny airport.
We were all fortunate that we did not get altitude sickness. We were above 14,000 ft. for a week. We felt the normal affects of altitude headache, short of breath, lack of sleep and some loss of appetite. We consider ourselves lucky because we saw a lot of people in world of hurt up there. We saw medical choppers everyday and witnessed 6 people get evacuated in one day . One of the guys we met had to be evacuated by a donkey to get to lower altitude. One trekker broke his leg attempting Cho la Pass. Trekkers on there way down were telling us of their altitude sickness, etc. Evacuations and altitude related stories were the topic of conversation around the dung filled stove in the tea houses.
Overall it a was a successful trek. We had a few inconveinces. Melissa and Jason had food poisoning but walked through it. My dry altitude cough turned into an infection but we found a clinic. We dodged rock falls and avalanches. And survived the cold and altitude. The Everest Base Camp Trek is not an easy one. No matter what time of year it is always cold. Altitude must also be taken seriously. But we all would highly recommend the trek. The Himalayas are magnificent and worth all the effort. This was Jason and Melissa's first trek and they rocked it. Amazingly, the four of us ate every meal together for a month and still like each other. Our friendships survived the ultimate test. We shared an incredible experience that none of us will ever forget.
Jason and Melissa, Thanks for visiting us!
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