NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [1850]
The Everest Base Camp trek is the most extreme, life-altering experience you can imagine. It will challenge you on every level: physically, emotionally and culturally, and will force you to call on reserves of strength, character and integrity that you ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp trek, lessons learned
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [819]
The roar of aero engines early in the morning was a welcome wakeup call: conditions were good for flying. We mustered at the airport terminal and Gopal worked his usual magic and checked our heavy luggage without penalty onto Tara Flight 5, in the second ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp trek, lukla flight
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [958]
We dressed grimly this morning. On Everest 13 Sherpas confirmed dead with several unaccounted for and some injured following the avalanche. All Nepalis, dead and injured in the service of Western dreamers and playboys. See my earlier comments on Western ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp trek, lukla, namche bazaar
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [1849]
The second of three very hard days’ trekking, today doing what took 2 days outbound. Nominally, the going gets easier since you're losing altitude with the benefits of warmer, thicker air, but that's where the advantages end. In Nepal trekking ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp trek, namche bazar, pheriche
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [2071]
Early Morning Day 16. Trek to Kala Patthar and Everest Views
I dropped out of the Kala Patthar hike so I have no account of that. In the night my throat, which had been raw for a couple of days, flared up to a full blown pharyngitis and a cough ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp trek, gorek shep, kala patthar, pheriche
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [866]
Today’s trek started on thin peat beds on the flank of the Khumbu Glacier. The magnificent peak of Pumori to the front left and the massive and imposing Nuptse, spawning clouds to the right, dominate the view. Everest can't be seen, hidden by Nuptse's ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp, gorek shep, icefall, khumbu glacier, nuptse
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [2792]
There's not much to do after eating dinner and we're usually whacked anyway so rarely stay up beyond 9pm. Going to bed is a special ordeal because the lodges are unheated and uninsulated so everything in the bedrooms is at ambient temperature, i.e. frozen.... Read more >
Tags: death on everest, dugla, everest base camp trek. dengboche, lobuche, thugla
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [2325]
"Rest" day is a misnomer. On these days you're supposed to hike high, to approximately your next destination altitude. I failed to do this in Namche so was doubly determined to do so today.
True to predictions, the day dawned bright and clear. Dengboche's ... Read more >
Tags: dengboche, everest base camp trek, island peak, serpinicool
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [1314]
Today we stepped up to high altitude, over 4,000 metres for the first time; the beginning of a 5-day push to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar peak.
I always find the first 20 minutes of trekking extremely hard at altitude. I feel like a rusty diesel ... Read more >
Tags: deboche, dingboche, everest base camp trek
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [3014] | Comments [1]
I slept 10 hours last night; the best of the entire trek so far. I invented a 'cure' for my condition. [1] I reasoned that if my body wasn't detecting CO 2 in my body, I needed to create some, so slept with a scarf over my face and my ... Read more >
Tags: deboche, everest base camp, namche
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [718]
I spent the night completely sleeplessly, gasping for breath every 30 seconds. It was worse than that. All night I had the terrifying feeling I was suffocating, drowning, the feeling you get if you dive too long under water and are fighting to get to ... Read more >
Tags: cheyne-stokes, everest base camp trek, namche
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [1246]
We awoke to a bright day in the spectacular Dudh Khosi valley that had been obscured yesterday afternoon by cloud and smoke haze. The valley is lined with towering black rock massifs streaked with ice, too steep for snow to stick, contrasted by brilliant ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp trek, namche bazaar, phakding
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [792]
Gerard and Nick were to arrive at about 9.00, which gave us the luxury of a lie in and a late start. We we're wakened early by the roar of the first wave of early flights landing, taxiing and leaving via the 500 metre runway. They appear from the south ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp, lukla, phakding
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [2563]
It rained hard in the night and we woke to a sparkling day with Numbur peak and a few others showing tantalisingly over the ridge tops of the immense Dudh Khosi river valley. The village boasts a monastery and stupa on the point of the ridge, on the ... Read more >
Tags: bupsa, everest base camp trek, lukla
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [1151]
We managed to get away by 7.30, and the level street of Nunthala quickly gave way to the inevitable boulder field, the track of packed, fractured flagstones that is so very difficult to walk on. If the repeated effort is not enough, each step is a different ... Read more >
Tags: bupsa, everest base camp trek, nunthala
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [2838]
We woke to a view of Numbur peak like a shark's tooth overlooking the Junbesi valley, at 6,950 m, the highest Himalayan peak we'd seen thus far.
The furthest but not the longest day, 9 hours with lunch, starting with a very pleasant walk through the ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp trek, junbesi, nunthala
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [1289]
A Walk in the Primordial Forest
Early start today since we had several obstacles ahead: a cold, cloudy day, a 1,000 metre climb followed by a 500 metres drop to Junbesi. We started upward immediately on a rough trail. Again the mountainside was ... Read more >
Tags: everest base camp trek, junbesi., sete
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [920]
This really is No Country for Old Men!
I was too exhausted to write this yesterday. Trying now, though with another exhausting day behind me.
Overnight the rain had cleared and given us a dazzling day, having dissolved the shrouding smoke haze.... Read more >
Tags: bhanda, everest base camp, sete, trek
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [2219]
Today, trekking of the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other variety started in earnest. We woke surprisingly unscathed from our bus ordeal the day before and after breakfast the porters Ram and Nima divided our belongings, leaving us with our lightweight day ... Read more >
Tags: bhanda, everest base camp trek, shivalaya
NEPAL | Saturday, 31 May 2014 | Views [5324] | Comments [1]
On the map the road to Shivalaya winds east and north from Kathmandu approximately 220 km. Look closely and you'll see hairpins and switchbacks, but these gross changes of direction only hint at the true nature of the road. It should also be marked ... Read more >
Tags: bus to jiri, everest base camp, kathmandu, shivalaya
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