Nepal 2014

Everest Base Camp Trek. Thoughts and Reflections

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 19:10:00 GMT

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 probably have not accessed before. If you approach it with an open mind and leave your everyday life behind you, the trek will probably provide some of the most wonderful moments of your life.

Emotionally the return to Lukla (end of trek) felt similar to me to the 2006 walk into the Plaza de Compostela in Santiago de Compostela in Spain after long days on the Camino; a mixture of pride of achievement, relief at the release from self-imposed effort, a happy-sad / laugh-cry emotion; a strong feeling of immense privilege to have been permitted to pass among the giants of Nature unhindered; privileged to have witnessed the nobility, strength and character of the Nepalis in spite of the inconceivable privations they endure; to have been in the presence of the gods with godly people made strong by their desperate circumstances, unbending, uncomplaining, not blaming or resentful; and to have a small inkling, finally, of why people climb mountains.

As for lessons I learned on the boulder fields, the impossibly rocky ascents, challenging descents and the cold, thin air:

Hiking in very rough terrain is an exercise in mindfulness. Every step is made with deliberation and care. You must focus to avoid the twist, the stumble, the fall that could spell disaster.
At altitude you are present with every part of your body; your breath, your muscles, your vision, your sense of time and place. It is a rare opportunity to feel your body as a complete entity, not as separate, selfish and competing parts.
When faced by obstacles to your intended path, take them one step at a time. Haste and impatience won't get you through them in better condition or faster.
When faced with a seemingly impossible task you will find a way if you take it slowly and keep your balance.
You are capable of much more than you think you are. Nothing we do in our everyday life brings us close to our limits of achievement despite what we think.
We give up too easily. We must believe we are stronger, healthier, younger and more capable.

When I recall some of the settlements I saw on ridges a thousand metres above us, I am still in awe of the industry, the perseverance, the dedication, the love, the honesty that drives these amazing mountain people to construct their homes, their lives and their families' futures painstakingly, patiently, lovingly, one stone at a time. Building retaining walls for their tiny strip terraces to plant small crops of millet and barley, spinach and kale; carrying every rock and then cutting and shaping them to construct their houses; harvesting the wood to shape their windows and doors.

We do not know what labour is. We have no experience of true love.

Can you imagine having your children learn to walk on rough cobbles, where your patios and terraces drop metres to the next level without guard rails, where there is no surface that is level, no running water, no heating, primitive sanitation and an unvarying diet of rice, lentil dal and vegetables. Can you imagine yourself then, with these privations, smiling and welcoming strangers to pass through your space as honoured guests?

We have no idea how fortunate we are, and we are oblivious to how selfish we are.

Day 19. Everest Base Camp Trek. Lukla to Kathmandu

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 19:05:00 GMT

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 wave of the morning. The waiting area was filled with nervous trekkers aware the airport could shut at a moment's notice.

When we finally launched down the ski ramp runway and the formidable cliffs fell away, we had a chance to review some of the route we had so painfully traversed nearly 3 weeks prior. I was struck by realising I had no idea of the scale of the landscape we passed through: the immensity of the valleys, the towering, jagged peaks, the densely terraced and settled slopes and the intricate spider's web network of rough tracks connecting everything, all built by manual labour.

Approaching Kathmandu it was a surprise to see the little LEGO-like multi-storey buildings instead of cut stone bungalows, and to realise that we hadn't seen a wheeled vehicle in nearly 3 weeks. No carts, barrows, bicycles, motorcycles or autos could function on the tracks we used. The main commercial routes into the Khumbu hinterland are the exclusive domain of porters, drovers and their pack animals.

The next couple of days in Kathmandu were characterised by eat-sleep-eat-sleep, exhaustion in the extreme. A few flights of stairs left us breathless; there weren't enough hours in the day to satisfy our need for sleep. I'm told extreme athletes suffer a physical collapse following a major event. Shivalaya - Lukla - Base Camp - Lukla will forever be our ultimate marathon.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to record my thanks, appreciation and love to my fellow trekkers: my brother Geoff, my sons Nick and Gerard and old friend David. Without your cajoling and encouragement I would have given up at the first hill.

I'd also like to record my gratitude and respect for the true heroes of this venture, our guide Gopal Thapa, and our two stalwart porters Ram and Nima. You'd think that to have made this trip dozens of time before with flabby Westerners would be enough for anyone, but you cared for and guided us as though we were your first charges. That is nothing short of admirable.

Day 18. Everest Base Camp Trek. Namche Bazaar to Lukla

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 19:01:00 GMT

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 excess...

We all feel a kinship with the victims although we are just another version of Western excess, pressing poor people with little opportunity into our service. If Everest were in Colorado or the Swiss Alps, there would be no Sherpas to make our dreams come true...

We made grim preparations also because the descent from Namche is brutal (recalling the ascent) and there were many rough kilometres ahead through the villages along the Dudh Khosi river gorge before the final ascent into Lukla.

Overnight all our injuries from the previous days had worsened so bruised toes were taped and blisters were drained and padded and we set off in a silent chorus of pain, each step punctuated by a grimace.

I recall nothing exceptional of the walk other than quietly ticking off the hours knowing that eventually after 8 or so, the trek would be over. 2 hours trek before Lukla it began to rain in a solid downpour. We sheltered a while until we agreed we were avoiding one evil while delaying the other, so to hell with it, get wet and get the ascent over.

At Lukla Gate we congratulated each other, thanked Gopal and our porter, Ram, and headed to The Nest lodge for R&R. The following morning was also to be an early start for the airport so we repacked and prepared for our flight to low altitude and 30^oC degrees temperature, a wardrobe challenge since at 6.30am it would likely be close to freezing at Lukla airport.

We consumed 8,000 rupees of beer and popcorn between us in celebration that night, inviting both Gopal and Ram to join in our celebration, taking turns to voice a summary of our feelings and experiences in the past weeks.

Here are mine:

As for lessons I learned on the boulder fields, the impossibly rocky ascents, challenging descents and the cold, thin air:

Hiking in very rough terrain is an exercise in mindfulness. Every step is made with deliberation and care. You must focus to avoid the twist, the stumble, the fall that could spell disaster.
At altitude you are present with every part of your body; your breath, your muscles, your vision, your sense of time and place. It is a rare opportunity to feel your body as a complete entity, not as separate, selfish and competing parts.
When faced by obstacles to your intended path, take them one step at a time. Haste and impatience won't get you through them in better condition or faster.
When faced with a seemingly impossible task you will find a way if you take it slowly and keep your balance.
You are capable of much more than you think you are. Nothing we do in our everyday life brings us close to our limits of achievement despite what we think.
We give up too easily. We must believe we are stronger, healthier, younger and more capable.

We do not know what labour is. We have no experience of true love.

We have no idea how fortunate we are, and we are oblivious to how selfish we are.

Day 17. Everest Base Camp Trek. Pheriche to Namche Bazaar

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 18:56:00 GMT

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 nothing is easy; there is no such thing as level and every knee-crunching downhill is followed by a lung-searing uphill.

It's strange to see a track in reverse because you rarely look behind you when walking so the views are fresh and the hard-won trails are unfamiliar. You're also travelling the same ground at a different time of day, in different light and weather.

We had forgotten the steep descent (now ascent) from Tengboche to Deboche that we’d covered a week prior in dim light and snow. It was a reminder that just because you've been to EBC, you are not the master of the terrain or the altitude. The ascent left us breathless and dazed and ready for a stop in Tengboche.

We recovered for a while in brilliant sunshine at the monastery that we'd bypassed on the outward trek. One of the three biggest in Nepal, and the oldest, it is a modern reconstruction sitting in the ridge top with unlimited views of Everest and other major peaks; a place of simple, natural beauty.

You may have noticed the recurrence of "boche" as the last syllables in these Himalayan names. I understood it to mean "place" and at the entrance to the monastery is a large rock with what looks like a footprint in it. "Teng" we were told is footprint hence "The Place of the Footprint".

The monastery's principal ceremonial room was brightly decorated in murals from the life of the Bodhisattva, gongs, silk pennants, huge brass alpenhorns, high seats for the principal monks and rows of cushioned benches for the acolytes and novices.

We didn't stay long. This was to be our longest and hardest day.

The descent from Tengboche was in blazing, direct high altitude sunshine. We'd been lucky with our ascent the week prior as the snow and lowering light were powerful incentives to get it over with.

This stretch of trail was like the high water mark on a beach sprinkled with stranded flotsam and exotic sea creatures. We passed dozens of trekkers struggling with the ascent in the heat: An elderly man was dressed as if for a summer picnic in an English garden, floral gardening hat, open cotton shirt revealing a milk-white chest and absurd red shorts and simple tennis shoes; a girl in the most colourful, stylish hiking clothing including pink boots, wired to her noisy iPod; Mr. Cool climbing and casually reading from his Kindle while those around expired from effort; a fit-looking man obviously unsympathetic to his tubby, flushed partner who was beached like a whale on the shore. Many others looked like potential altitude or fitness victims.

How many of them will make it, we wondered, and did we also look as callow, or are we simply judging them through the painful memory of our own experiences?

You do wonder what people think they're doing in these dangerous regions so obviously unprepared: Don't they research the basic requirements of clothing and fitness, the dangers of taking things lightly at this altitude? Is the exotic so dull that they have to shut it out by escaping into the pages of a novel, or drown their hearing with the banalities of the Top Forty?

Doesn't the name “Himalaya” provoke a reaction of awe and wonder and make you want to look up, breathe and absorb? How can the highest mountains on Earth be uninteresting? Are we so insulated by our comfortable lives we are unappreciative of “outside”? Are our senses so deadened by overload that we have no appreciation of reality? Is our modern reality limited to fleeting images on monitor screens and half-heard words?

At Tengboche we learned of the unfolding tragedy on Everest: up to 60 people caught by a collapse in the icefall below Camp 1. Numbers were uncertain since no one keeps a count of the porters coming and going; no one knows how many Sherpas are out surveying new routes or portering or constructing campsites or whether Western climbers were involved.

Gopal exchanged news with every team of Nepalis we ran into. Gradually the numbers were refined: up to 16 people missing with several injured and more who escaped unscathed. Gopal and Ram are sad because they have many friends on those expedition teams.

I was in a semi-fever by lunchtime, with over 5 hours to go to Namche; throat on fire, lungs yielding yellow-green mucus in painful paroxysms. Through my daze I was nevertheless astonished by the scale and dimension of the landscape we traversed. We'd descend to a fragile suspension bridge over a milky torrent of glacial water, and an hour later we'd notice the river as a scratch in the immense depths of the valley whose side we'd just ascended in a grim, unrelenting climb. Even then we were only a fraction of the way up the slope that towered over us with tiny hamlets and homesteads dotted the slope impossibly high above us, linked by a lacework of rough paths.

How we looked forward to the "yellow brick road" section of well-maintained track near Namche. I had promised myself to donate to the public-spirited Sherpa whose project this was, but he wasn't there when we finally reached the unfamiliarly level and wide section.

We all staggered painfully into Namche Bazaar, exhausted and battered by a 9-hour day in which we'd covered 3 days of the original ascent. We attended to bruised toes and blisters before showering and feeding.

The first shower in 10 days was a magical renewal. The first beer and nameless "steak" in 2 weeks never tasted better. We were a cheerful team but everyone was prudently asleep early. There is another huge day following this.

Day 16. Everest Base Camp Trek. Gorek Shep, Kala Patthar, Pheriche

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 18:52:00 GMT

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 had developed. Having just recovered from pneumonia before coming to Nepal, I elected not to risk another episode.^[1]

The others left about 4.30am. It was a very cold, clear morning with a setting moon, 2 days past full; perfect conditions for climbing in the dark. I had been restless so got up anyway and sat in the lodge dining room. From about 7.00am early starters returned from the 5,550 m peak in various stages of exhaustion and defeat, excitement and elation. People came in with their water bottles blocks of ice, grey with cold and exertion, clapping frozen hands. With wind-chill the temperature was close to -15oC. The oxygen concentration at 5,550 m (18,200ft) is 10.9% or 50% of sea level concentration and categorised as "extreme". I'd estimate that up to half of those attempting Kala Patthar failed to complete it. I regret I didn't attempt it but I was sickening fast.

Kala Patthar gives the best, unobstructed view of the principal peaks including Everest. At this time of the year, clear mornings quickly deteriorate as the mountain weather pattern sets in. As you're looking directly eastwards into the sunrise the light is adverse, so predawn is the best time, hence the early start.

Geoff, Gerard, Nick and David, who'd come in exhausted and elated related tales of grit and exhilaration. It was intensely cold. Hands were locking on climbing sticks, fingers were too numb to operate cameras, cameras and phones were spontaneously shutting off as battery power vanished, water bottles froze in backpacks. They passed one trekker who was convinced he was getting frostbite and others who could go no further. Gopal, our ever-fresh guide, helped by carrying abandoned sticks, backpacks and cameras and pushing with both hands from behind. He took a gallery of pictures with my camera.

Later Day 16. Gorek Shep to Pheriche, and the Long Way Home

We made an early start on return from Kala Patthar because the return journey to Lukla started immediately; 3 days to retread what had taken 7 days on the outward leg of the trek. "It's all downhill," doesn't fool anyone because we know all those welcome downhills we enjoyed on the way here will become uphills in the reverse direction.

The return journey began with familiar winded feeling starting off at very high altitude, but was replaced by a feeling of optimism as the terrain gradually declined. Notable for today was to branch off the path to Dingboche into the long, deep glaciated valley to Pheriche. The long-gone glacier had left classic roche mouton residue; rounded, white and black rocks looking from a distance like flocks of sheep scattered in the bitter grass and juniper. Shaggy-coated yaks and their calves grazed in the tumble of moraine rocks. It was a scene from the last Ice Age.

It was a long, hard hike. The friendly, helping wind of yesterday had become a hard fist in the face; the chill sucking the heat from our bodies. Hard sleet was falling. Rescue helicopters buzzed overhead several times, landing victims at the Himalayan Rescue Association casualty transit station in Pheriche. We found lodging at the last lodge in the settlement.

Here, settled in the Pumori Hotel at 4,240 m (14,000 ft.) we quickly found our beds and passed out for a couple of hours, untroubled by the thin air which has been such an adversary during the past few days. We all look forward to a complete night's sleep.

---

A complete night's sleep ended for me around 2am as Cheyne-Stokes respiration kicked in, leaving me twitching, wakeful and gasping for air. A couple of deep breaths repays the oxygen debt but 30 seconds later another instalment is required by the body to maintain a viable blood oxygen level, so sleep is impossible. I'm writing this paragraph at 3am, swaddled in blankets, propped up in bed. It's bitterly cold in the room.

^[1] On return to Australia, I had a relapse of pneumonia.

Day 15. Everest Base Camp Trek. Lobuche to Gorek Shep and Base Camp

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 18:37:00 GMT

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 mass. On either side of the trail, steep moraine walls with the palest of growth of short bladed grass that soon peters out. You're walking on powdered rock, gravel, rock spoil and rubble fields of an old glacier bed. To the right blue glacier ice can be seen through a covering of insulating gravel and rock. Khumbu, the largest in the world, grinding inexorably downslope. It's level is perhaps 50-100 metres lower than it was at its peak; global warming reducing the ice feeds yearly.

Huge slabs and tongues of ice cling to the sides of Nuptse seeming to defy gravity. They fracture in parallel striations in slow motion icefalls forming the feeder glaciers to the Khumbu, Everest's glacier.

We caught our first glimpse of Base Camp a couple of hours into the hike, perhaps 6 km away, but hours yet on foot. The going was very rough over the tumbled boulders and rocks, and at over 5,000 m (16,400ft), very tiring but the wind was at our backs like a cool helping hand.

We reached Gorek Shep in mid morning and elected to have an early lunch to give us time to reach Base Camp and return. Gorek Shep is a dismal collection of battered lodges and a few microwave antennae. A dry lake bed provides a natural paddock for yaks that do the heavyweight carriage from here to EBC. Our lodge was depressingly cold and dark, foreshadowing a frigid night. Upstairs the underside of the corrugated roofing can be clearly seen from the bedrooms and the attempt at double-glazing is defeated by wide gaps in the window frames. The room is little more than a wooden tent and probably more draughty than canvas.

The hike to Base Camp was an agonising scramble over more rubble in a thick stream of yaks, porters and trekkers in both directions, stumbling like drunken sailors on the rounded rock. The valley closed in to form a vast arena with peaks in Tibet forming the left side and end, and Everest and Nuptse to the right. Finally we descended to the glacier and picked our way to a chorten with streamers of prayer flags, the designated spot for 2014 for Everest Base Camp. It has to be moved each year because the apparent rubble beneath our feet is actually the moving ice of the Khumbu Glacier. It is actually 2km higher than it was when Hilary and Tensing summited, such is the effect of global warming.

We had a few minutes of elation and celebration, took photos and stared up the Khumbu Icefall to the Western Cym where preparations are underway for 2014 summit attempts. We wandered a little further into the encampment of expeditions preparing for the few weeks beginning in May when summit attempts are viable; before the monsoon snows and avalanches. I suffered my first fall, slipping on the ice, fortunately with no damage.

The trek back to Gorek Shep was a nightmare of round, loose rocks, cold wind and breathlessness. The lodge dining room that night was the liveliest we have been in, packed with excited hikers, or perhaps they’re hikers overcompensating to cover the joyless prospect of a bitterly cold night, dreary lodge food and frozen, overflowing toilets.

Diversion on lodge standards

Food and toilets are two things the Nepalis could target and make a giant leap in quality of the EBC experience. To be fair, everything we touched on this journey, fair or foul, has been painstakingly transported by teams of whipped animals or manhandled by tough porters in a relay of custody that would defy understanding; so to expect anything approaching Western standards is churlish.

However, every lodge menu is the same predictable array of Nepali staples or Western approximations, everything fried in ghee. Some do a good job in quality and presentation, whereas the same menu in different hands is a repetitious succession of greasy foodstuffs fried beyond recognition. High altitude exertion kills appetite, (fortunately here in Nepal). Had we been trekking in the Swiss Alps, I'm sure we'd look forward to dinner, rather than dread it.

As for toilets... Many lodges have made concessions towards Western style sit-ups, but the porcelain bowl is where the similarity ends. Seats may or may not exist. Flushing almost invariably requires a jugful of water from a big bucket, which results in water everywhere, and often an incomplete flush. And no one has solved the problem of freezing. If the bucket and jug aren't locked in an ice block, then the 'U' bend is, and all contributions to the porcelain bowl remain where deposited in a frozen fecal sculpture. Fortunately, little food intake equals even less excreted, so there is a tiny relief from this retch-inducing ordeal.

One gets the idea that the Nepalis are making a best guess at what the West requires without good guidance. An ideal graduate engineering project: Design a toilet that will function in Nepali lodge subzero conditions. It would do more good to Nepal's image and sanitation than a new heart-lung machine at Kathmandu General.

But there's no photo op in a new loo, compared to high tech surgical apparatus, is there? What's forgotten in the photo op world is that to function, high tech requires trained operators, skilled maintenance technicians, sensitive calibrations, critical gases, clean room conditions, stable power supply, etc., and most of these aren't available in third world countries, so the gesture is wasted and the high tech value is lost.

Hey, Donor World! Let's start with Nepal's biggest tourist draw and revenue earner, the Himalayas, and target toilets and train and encourage the cooks.

Day 14. Everest Base Camp Trek. Dengboche to Lobuche

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 18:35:00 GMT

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. We wake up with a thick layer of ice on the inside of the bedroom windows and water bottles frozen.

I go to bed with layers on and peel them off in the night, no easy thing in a sleeping bag that encases you like a mummy sarcophagus. At these high elevations my night wear consists of socks, merino long johns, merino base layer, merino top layer, woolly hat, sleeping bag silk liner. It takes a few minutes for things to warm up then the top layer goes.

I sleep normally for the first couple or three hours, then the long hours of sleeplessness begin, with the Cheyne-Stokes suffocation coming in waves, I estimate twice a minute. That usually translates into 4-6 hours of waves of pain originating in my legs and arms before spreading to my back and abdomen. Spasms wrack my body and I'm fighting for breath while huge, malevolent hands hold me under water. By 4am today I was practically in tears at the thought of at least three more nights of this torture. It's a terrifying and very painful experience. My body is telling me I'm in danger and to descend immediately. I'm ignoring it and it's punishing me.

As a result this morning I felt rotten and almost gave up at the start, utterly depleted, no energy, empty tank and no will power. After an hour of straggling behind the group as they pressed toward the finish line, I did revive thanks to drinking a litre of rehydration mixture.

We changed valleys from Dengboche to the Khumbu. It was not a particularly hard day, much stumbling through ice-polished boulder fields and old moraine and everyone was moving slowly. Any effort at 4,900 m (16,400ft) results in gulping for air like goldfish: too close to suffocation for my enjoyment.

The day's views up the Khumbu Valley were particularly dramatic. Panoramas of peaks set around glaciated valleys and dominating peaks like Taboche to our left, Lobuche ahead and the gradually revealed west flank of Nuptse, sheilding Everest from our view. We are deep along the track of the Khumbu Glacier and Lobuche, where we rest tonight, is next to the active glacier, a tongue of blue ice protected by an insulating layer of rubble.

There were a few trains of pack yaks and others browsing on very mean vegetation. The dwarf juniper has receded and the only thing left is a wiry, dry stubble, just beginning its annual growth spurt. Somehow the yaks find this a delicious snack.

At Dugla, the only food stop (which we skipped) I crossed paths for the third time with a solo Australian hiker I’d spoken to before. At first I didn't recognize him. He looked bloated and ill and his guide was applying Tiger Balm to his forehead. He said he had a severe headache so I asked him if he was taking Diamox, the only known preventive for AMS, acute mountain sickness.

He said his guide had told him there was no need. Alarmed, I gave him a handful of my supply with strict instructions to use immediately and daily henceforth, while Gopal berated his guide for dangerously unsafe advice. Bloating and headache are early signs of a condition that can become fatal in a few hours. Water retention can lead to swelling of the brain and fluid on the lungs and result in rapid death. Sherpas don't need Diamox. Westerners can die without it.^[1]

I met the young Bombay party again today who reported that two if their number were being evacuated that morning by helicopter due to onset of acute mountain sickness. So far none of us has any AMS symptoms though we are all suffering poor sleep due to shortness of breath and Cheyne-Stokes. None of us, that is, except Nick who started with the advantage of living at 2,000 metres in California so the altitude change is not as dramatic as it is for us.

We've come across a few solo trekkers and others who have a porter only. Highly risky in my opinion as our guide is certified, has much experience, is well known and knows his way around well, and in an emergency would have the authority and contacts to summon help or rescue, whereas a porter or poor guide would not have either, nor the credibility to summon emergency responders.

Just past Dugla, half way into the day's walk there is a bleak and windy ridgetop which is dotted with cairns and memorials to the hundreds of Sherpas and climbers who have perished in their attempts to- or to enable others to summit. It's a forlorn place and we were invited to wander and pay our respects. I left with a slight feeling of futility: all that effort and struggle and pain and expense for the bragging rights to have summited Everest.

Why do they climb it? - “Because it’s there” is the reply attributed to George Mallory and still much quoted, but it doesn’t explain the madness that must possess people who want to do this. And what does it achieve? - Unfortunately, in many cases, tragedy or disappointment.

One of the Dugla memorials is inscribed with the motto: "Per ardua ad astra." (“Through adversity to the stars.”), the motto of air forces and more appropriate to an interplanetary enterprise than scaling a mountain. One memorial cairn is dedicated to a trekker who died on the way to Base Camp. What to say about that except possibly an avoidable tragedy or another traveller without Diamox?

I felt saddened by the inequality of the deaths. Far more Nepalis have perished than climbers. Summiteers died for personal reasons; the Sherpas, porters, Icefall Doctors and guides who aided them died serving the personal ambitions of a few wealthy Westerners, with nothing but monetary reward in store for them.

To concede my own hypocrisy, we are only one day away from our objective: Everest Base Camp at 5,365 m. Why do this? To tread in the footsteps of the great (and foolhardy)? For the bragging rights? For the personal sense of achieving something very challenging? To see the "Third Pole" of the World?

May I say they have my absolute respect at being able to put up with extremely hostile, life-threatening conditions in the service of their ambitions. Living for up to 2 months in deeply frozen conditions where everything that supports life has to be maintained regardless, where no surface is level or stable, where one minute of skin exposure to the ambient conditions could result in frostbite, amputation or worse. I complain in this record of my own privations. I know nothing of true privation. Hail the Conquerors!

^[1] I met him again the following day. He thanked me profusely. The Diamox cleared his headache and bloating and he was feeling better than he had in days (his words). It might have turned out badly for him. He might have been aboard one of the many rescue helicopter flights we see daily, or worse, dead. As he was going to trek for a further 10 days I gave him some more of my supply.

Day 13. Everest Base Camp Trek. Dengboche Rest Day

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 18:33:00 GMT

"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 location is spectacular and must be one of the most beautiful, wild places on Earth. A vast, steep glaciated valley, with a couple of active glaciers coming off Ama Dablam and further up the valley, their terminal moraines falling at a steep angle into the valley. Immediately behind the lodge the valley rises steeply to over 5,000 m, a rugged slope dotted with stupas, chortens (piles of stones) and prayer flags. As we climbed the valley opened out to reveal some of the most stunning views of the entire trip so far. It was a perfect morning with brilliant visibility, a photographers delight.

Looking back the way we'd come, the peaks we'd been awed by were now dwarfed by vast new vistas including Island Peak, Serpinicool, Peak 38, Lhotse Shar, Lhotse, the awesome Chhukung glacier at Ambulapcha with its dramatic ice fall, among many, many others. We will be leaving this valley tomorrow to get around Nuptse, which is obscuring our view of Everest from here.

We climbed until the clouds drew in, the wind increased to a burning cold and it started to snow at about 11am. Approximately 5,000 m up gave us a knee-testing descent that saw us in the (hardly warmer) lodge in time for lunch. There followed the usual battle with cold: Do you huddle in your sleeping bag, sleep or stay up and do something?

Dengboche is tiny, very basic with one rough road only. To get anywhere off that road you have to scramble over potato fields and dry stone walls. We made a rather expensive and unproductive visit to the "Wi-Fi Hut" followed by a very satisfactory visit to the entirely incongruous but nevertheless excellent Mama's Bakery for chocolate cake and tea. Both enterprises are absolute monopolies, but by now, nearly 2 weeks into this trip, we'll pay just about anything for either.

Tonight the lodge is full. A large Chinese party has trekked in a day behind us. I have often noticed that Chinese travellers abroad will only eat in Chinese restaurants, so what do they do while trekking? Answer: They bring their own food and have the restaurant prepare it to their liking! Well, a large group can afford to; smaller ones travel as we do.

So ... the noise upstairs tonight will be bad. I have the cabin opposite the loos so I will be awakened with every bowel or bladder movement: creak-squeak-clomp-clomp-tinkle-fart-splash-clomp-clomp-squeak-creak. And lodger one sets another off in a dreary lavatorial symphony until all are satisfied. Earplugs are already positioned near my pillow.

Day 12. Everest Base Camp Trek. Deboche to Dingboche

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 18:27:00 GMT

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 tractor stuck in a muddy field, reluctantly turning over, farting black smoke and refusing to run smoothly. However, it's very gratifying once started to feel myself moving easily at this altitude, taking the inclines and declines in my stride. I never thought I'd say this but I'm glad we did the walk in from Shivalaya, in spite of the pain and suffering incurred. It certainly conditioned us to the discipline of getting up, getting going and keeping going long after we would normally have given up.

Little was left of yesterday's snow at the lower levels; some icy patches and a frosting in sheltered places, but the peaks were sublimely beautiful with a fresh dusting of snow.

We keep running into groups on the same schedule as ours; they're resting as we pass or vice versa and we share lunch stops or lodges. I have doubts about some of their fitness and capabilities. I'd have laid money on the group of young Bombay urbanites not making it thus far, but they're keeping pace, step for step, cheerful and optimistic.

We get alternately intrigued and annoyed by some gregarious groups that we overhear chattering mindlessly about their everyday lives and work while walking in Paradise. We are a sombre group by comparison with our everyday lives a distant memory. Our commentary circles around wildlife, geology, ecology and philosophy. More often than not we're in our own world of effort and focus: step-step-breath-step-step-breath, carefully choosing where our feet are placed. The thin air at altitude is quite noticeable and a small change in incline or effort will trigger a new cadence of stepping and breathing.

We started off in a forest of copper beech, juniper and pine but as we gained altitude this quickly receded and we passed the tree line. All that was left was ground-hugging juniper and some tough, gorse-like shrubs.

The stone-fenced potato fields and yak paddocks of Pangboche provided a change to the barren landscape. This is home of many of the Sherpas that constitute the backbone of Everest summit attempts. I had a passing conversation with an Everest expedition organiser who said that as many as 120 Sherpas can be employed on a summit bid, each with a specific role. There are those that porter all supplies to Base Camp, “Icefall doctors” find and secure routes through the ice falls and snow fields, fixing ladders and ropes. Other groups establish the higher camps and porter all items there, then retire, and so on until the final assault camp is established. Clearly, few Westerners have summited unsupported by these hardy mountain people.

We had lunch in Shomare, nothing of note other than that the outside loos were frozen, warning us of what's to come! The afternoon winds had picked up, cutting through our merino layers and sucking heat from our bodies so we donned windproofs and pressed on with the wind a cool helping hand at our backs. Two massive glaciated valleys converge at Dengboche, mostly lost in the shrouding late afternoon cloud as we approached. Tomorrow, we were assured, will be bright and clear.

We checked into the newly-opened Good Luck Lodge. What a contrast to some of the lodges we've stayed in! The fittings are updated and proprietor/manager is a Kathmandu chef so the food is delicious. We feel very fortunate that we have a rest day here tomorrow. We'll be in comfortable surroundings with great food, bunkering up for the last run at our objective!

Day 11. Everest Base Camp Trek. Namche to Deboche

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:56:00 GMT

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 CO₂ in my body, I needed to create some, so slept with a scarf over my face and my face half inside my sleeping bag. Magic! If it weren’t for the Diamox, the altitude sickness preventive that is also a diuretic (meaning trips to the loo in the night), I would have recorded 10 hours unbroken.

We woke to a threatening day. Instead if the clear air we were accustomed to, visibility was lowering and a niggling wind was blowing from the South and wild clouds were worrying the lower peaks. The upper peaks were obscured.

The trek began with a sharp ascent from Namche, then a long stretch of comparatively level, wide and beautifully maintained track. We soon discovered why: a local Sherpa had generously taken on the 'public duty' of creating and maintaining a good trail and set up a post on the route advertising this and collecting donations.

An easy walk for 2 and 1/2 hours followed, losing height for lunch near the suspension bridge at Punkli Tenga. Large numbers of trekkers were gathering for the assault on Tengboche. Gopal warned us that Tengboche would be crowded and noisy so we set our destination as Deboche, 30 minutes beyond the top of the ridge, which would also give us a head start in the morning.

Lunch by now is a rest-and-recuperate event, an hour of respite from effort. Hot soup, hot lemon and honey, half a litre of water and a few minutes’ nap if you can manage it.

As we lunched it started to snow, little dry kibbles at first, with flakes getting bigger and wetter as we ascended. We faced another 600 m hard climb in 2 km which we handled with ease, but getting colder and wetter. By the time we reached the stupa and monastery that dominates the settlement of Tengboche, the snow was sticking to the juniper, pine and copper beech and carpeting the ground, smoothing the rough cobbles and creating a bright winter scene. Most hikers called it a day here but we pressed on, putting off visiting the fabled monastery until our return when hopefully the timing and weather will be in our favour.

A sharp descent through a winter landscape brought us to the Ama Dablam Lodge in Deboche. I had the strong feeling that the head start we had gained by walking to on Deboche had been at the expense of comfort in Tengboche. Sure enough, this lodge is rudimentary and absolutely freezing. After huddling around feeble heat of the yak dung stove in the dining room, we had a hot drink, dinner and went straight to bed.

A Diversion on Lodges:

Lodge setups in Nepal defy reasonable explanation. Designed to service the trekker traffic, they consist of stone buildings with rough pine or plywood interiors. Their open door policy is literal: the front door is wide open and the interior is largely unheated. Today, for the first time the dining room of a lodge had a pot bellied stove fired by yak dung and even then, due to the open doors and drafts through the rough window frames, the interior temperature was barely above the temperature outside.

Huge, steep stairs take you to the bedrooms upstairs. Protected by a roughly fitting door with an unwieldy padlock, the bedroom reveals one to three hard plywood beds with a thin foam mattress covered by a sheet and a hard, pillow that smells of wet dogs. There is little hanging space so you make use of nails and wood splinters to hang your sweat-soaked clothing and change into a dry set, roll out your sleeping bag and slip in, hoping to warm up and hopefully nap.

However, everything is wooden and trekkers in boots on dead legs stamp up the stairs and along the corridors, clattering locks, squeaking hinges, dropping backpacks and talking in booming voices. The toilets are shared and are universally squalid. They are squat- or broken Western versions, invariably surrounded by puddles of unclassifiable liquid, leaking plumbing and a deep flush bucket with a grimy handled jug floating in it. There're few hand basins or mirrors.

As for showers, "Hot Shower" is often signed, but in 11 days so far I have only found one that worked, and have resorted to a bucket shower, cold water sluice down or more frequently I use my own "4-Baby Wipe" full body wash method[2]. In a crisis they say personal hygiene is the first to go. Here's the proof!

^[1] The "cure" didn't work again and I was troubled by Cheyne-Stokes respiration difficulties, sleeping very poorly for the next week.

[2] Contact me for gory detailsJ!

Day 10. Everest Base Camp Trek. Rest Day in Namche

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:51:00 GMT

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 the surface before you drown. A strong fear grabbed me from behind the knees all the way to the back of my neck and I'd start to tremble: "You're drowning!" screamed in my sleepless ears. It was as real as if I were fully awake. I was terrified all night. If I presented myself at any immigration port in the world I'm sure I could plead for asylum on the grounds of fear of imminent death by water boarding.

This phenomenon (Cheyne-Stokes Respiration) is very common at altitude apparently. Normally your breathing rate is triggered by the concentration of CO2 in your blood and your breath regulates this, speeding up to shed CO₂ when you exercise, slowing down in periods of inactivity. At lower ambient oxygen concentrations you breathe harder which lowers your blood CO₂ levels artificially, so you stop getting normal signals to breathe, and stop breathing altogether. Your body switches control to maintaining blood O₂ levels, a far less precise method. When O₂ levels fall to dngerous levels you breathe rapidly to restore normality, whereupon your breathing slows and stops. In the process of rapid breathing you again lower your CO₂ level below its control point and you get into an endless yo-yo of bretah/no breath. The result of not breathing for up to half a minute until the O₂ sensor triggers, is you struggle and gasp and pant for air, waking up in fear and repeating the cycle endlessly. I suffered from this every night for the next week.

After breakfast we set off for the obligatory rest day 'high hike' to the National Park HQ to condition the body to the new altitude and ready it for the next. As it was early in the day we were rewarded with a 360-degree clear views of the Khumbu Valley and the gallery of 7,000+ metre peaks lined up for the photo op: Everest trailing a cloud plume of its own making, Lhotse and Lhotse Shar, Nuptse and the three peaks of fantastic Ama Dablam. Tomorrow’s trail stretched out on the ridge ahead of us.

I felt unwell and struggled after my sleepless night, dropping out when the others continued up to Everest View Hotel, at 3,880 m the highest 5-star resort in the world.

Namche is set in a marvellous natural amphitheatre surrounded by massive black rock- and snow covered peaks. It's as bustling as it's name suggests, a focal point for routes to- and from the Khumbu and Tibet. Tibetan traders and their artefacts are on all sides as you enter the town that is noticeably prosperous and commercial with bakeries, cyber cafés and restaurants. I spent the rest of the day trawling the gear shops and pharmacy for last minute items. Streams of hikers were returning from EBC with hacking coughs and tales of icy winds, frozen toilets and freezing nights at the high elevation lodges.

Remind me: Why am I doing this? For fun? I need to rethink my answer.

Went to sleep with the temperature diving and snow falling fast. I hope this means a good day tomorrow?

Day 9. Everest Base Camp Trek. Phakding to Namche Bazaar

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:48:00 GMT

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 all-white snow peaks adjacent.

An easy start to the day on a road already crowded with trekkers, porters with the baskets, mule trains, dzo with packs, heading for Namche Bazaar, so there were are lot of narrow and steep points at which we waited for a traffic jam to clear. Mule trains meeting, dzo occupying much of the trail clashing with traffic moving in the opposite direction, backpackers resting and retying their boots.

I haven't seen a vehicle for a week; no bikes, barrows, carts, cars, trucks; nothing. I am in awe at the industry, determination and sheer tenacity of the Nepalese villagers in these remote lands. Their houses are neatly made of cut stone, almost invariably with a blue corrugated roof, bright wood framed windows and a paved terrace with stone retaining walls with high benches for porters to rest. Every piece of stone has been quarried and hand cut, every fitting has been carried for days on the backs of porters or animals along trails that themselves were won from the hard rock mountains by men with hand tools, and the houses are strung out along tenuous paths that twist up into the unbelievable heights of the slopes, where they preside over paddies and tiny fields beaten and ploughed to a tilted plane and propped by stone walls.

We entered the National Park at Monjo and rested a while in the little museum and collected some stats of travellers over recent years. By their accounting up to 200 trekkers pass this way daily in April. We are in good company!

We crossed the river several times by suspension bridge, seeing previews of the forthcoming ascent to Namche Bazaar from the valley, crossing the river many times by suspension bridge; a sheer, pine-clad ridge: 550 metres in 2.3 km distance, a formidable incline at altitude.

We were in a boulder field that was the former course of the river when two high suspension bridges appeared, one above the other, the old and new Hillary bridges at Larjadabhan. The higher one marks the insertion point of the trail on the mountain flank. A precipitous 60 m climb saw us on the high bridge, buffeted by the cold afternoon wind, a swaying chain of hikers and porters on the way to Namche.

We had nearly reached the bridge end when a team of dzo charged straight onto the bridge regardless of other traffic. We flattened against the plaited wire side ropes, anxiously clutching camera straps and backpack webbing away from the swinging horns. Many angry insults were thrown at the herder for reckless dzo-driving!

As we were clearing the police checkpoint at Namche Gate it started to sleet, large, heavy globs bouncing off the rocky road. We're getting used to the mountain weather pattern: a cold, brilliant early morning that quickly warms as the sun strengthens, clouds start jostling for space between the peaks from about midday, followed by wind, a sharp drop in temperature and early evening rain, sleet or snow. More of this lies ahead of us.

The ascent to Namche Bazaar wasn't as tough as we’d feared, testament to our improving fitness and adaptation to these conditions. Some enterprising Nepalis were selling tangerines on the track, catching exhausted trekkers in both directions. I willingly paid 100 rupees for one!

We sleep at 3,440 m (11,300 ft.) tonight, our highest night so far.

Day 8. Everest Base CampTrek. Lukla to Phakding

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:46:00 GMT

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 of the valley and seem to drop on to the runway from an impossible height, tyres shrieking on the asphalt a moment before the engines are put into full reverse thrust to brake and pull onto the tiny 4-plane apron. The planes reload and leave in a few minutes to return for the next wave before flying is stopped for the day. At the same time helicopter flights are lifting off taking climbers to higher reaches in the mountains.

The boys arrived in the second wave to a happy reunion with us all, recounting their Kathmandu transit. China Southern had briefly lost Nick's bags but otherwise they were OK.

We hadn't seen many trekkers before. Lukla is the favoured starting point for most hikers bound for high elevation treks so it came as a shock to see so many: out-bounders in their pristine outfits and new equipment; in-bounders sun burned, grizzled and travel stained. The little settlement teems with hopeful porters and apprehensive trekkers. The route to the highlands winds through thronging streets of vendors hawking trekking gear, Tibetan jewellery and last minute snacks. We signed in at the police post who for some reason wanted to know what sort of camera gear we were carrying, and set off to Phakding.

This was a walk in the park compared to anything we'd seen thus far with well-made cobbles, intact stairs and slight grades. Passing many mani walls and collections of painted stones and stupas, the trail descends through pleasant villages and prosperous fields of potatoes and cabbages, tracking the Dudh Khosi river. In all it was 2 and 1/2 hours, 13,300 steps losing altitude slightly from Lukla at 2850 m to 2640 m here, close to the milky river. After an early lunch, a quick snooze.

An unexpectedly light day, ready for the 1,200 m gain tomorrow to the storied Namche Bazaar, ancient trading post, gateway to the Upper Khumbu Valley and the route to Everest and Tibet. I can't believe we traversed 7 km so easily. On earlier stages of the trek, 7 km would have to have been won following a hard battle. However, I shouldn't speak too soon of winning battles.

Day 7. Everest Base Camp Trek. Bupsa to Lukla

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:43:00 GMT

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 lap of the gods with views of Paradise.

I know now why the previous days have been so challenging and testing of resolve and will. They were to prepare us for today, unquestionably the hardest day of all so far. Today was the day to make up the half day lost at the beginning of the trip, so it was always going to be a hard one, made harder by continual gains and losses of elevation as we skirted the flanks of the valley from ridge line to ridge line towards Lukla.

We started with a hard climb to near 2,900 metres and were continually delayed with other hikers and porters by mule trains, sometimes labouring uphill, other times careering downhill. The day consisted mainly of gaining a ridge top on a rough track, traversing the mountain flank, losing most of that altitude to cross a stream, then regaining it to cross the next ridge. It was relentless, testing your resolve at every moment.

Most of the trail has been hacked or blasted through solid rock, on slopes that must approach 70 degrees in places. You can imagine that not a lot has been, nor could be done to make the paths smooth or the grades acceptable, so much of the time we were scrambling over boulders and rubble, and slopes going up or down of close to 1:2 in places. Try that for 9 hours at a time and see how the feet and especially knees hold out. However, it was gratifying to feel that we were moving more easily at near 3,000 m, so much more comfortably than a few days ago

Passing over an immense black rock ridge in late morning the entire valley revealed itself; Serke in the deep valley, Lukla with it moth-like planes flitting on and off its tiny runway on a distant sloped ridge, tomorrow's trail from Lukla to Phakding scratched into the valley flank northwards, and the immense, circling peaks of Kusum Kanguru, Nupla and nameless others of snowless, sheer black rock.

Lunch at a ridge top teahouse overlooking Serke and Lukla served a pre-warning: we must lose 600 metres to 2250 metres at Serke, then regain 600 metres to reach Lukla. It was a test of resolve and determination, having painfully gained the elevation we were presently at.

We dragged into Lukla at 5pm in light snow and found our lodgings right at the end of the runway facing the incoming planes. There are no fixed wing flights in the afternoon since the visibility and crosswinds make the one-chance-only approach too hazardous. No doubt tomorrow we'll see many coming and going.

Postscripts:

Water intake inventory today: Breakfast - Nepali tea; 1/2 litre water before starting; 2 litres en route; 2 hot lemon drinks at lunch and a bowl of soup; 4 hot lemon drinks on arrival; 1/3 litre in the night. Thirsty work! Tumbled into bed, exhausted.

In our state of exhaustion and after 6 days of hard going, the ascent from Serke to Lukla became burned into our memories as the hardest of the trip. Many others to come were challenging because of gradient and altitude, but this one holds pride of place as the worst.

Day 6. Everest Base Camp Trek. Nunthala to Bupsa

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:40:00 GMT

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 height and steepness and angle and your footing could be rugged rock, powdered earth, mud or all of these in a puddle of stale mule urine.

We had to give way to mule trains many times during the day, early on as they streamed fully laden to the next staging point, and later in the day as teams returned with empty packs. The packs and webbing wear away the fur and some animals had open saddle sores.

They can move quite fast even with a full load, and are nervous and have to be passed with care. It's best to stand on the high side of a path, well out of the way until they pass as they come in twos and threes and will easily jostle you. If you're on the wrong side of the slope... Many Trekkers have come to grief that way.

We finally reached to the bottom of our valley and crossed the milky glacial water of the Dudh Khosi at its confluence with the clear spring water of the Deku Khola. We'll be following the Dudh Khosi until Base Camp and crossing it many more times, we were told. The descent was 3 and 1/2 hours and 8,600 bone-crunching steps. Of course the only way to go from there, at 1,300 m, is up. The trail was much like the descent to the river, uneven, sheer, rocky and overhung by the ever-present stench of mule urine. If the sun had not been obscured by thickening cloud, the climb might have been unbearable.

All the same it was very beautiful; tiny homesteads and villages clinging to the mountainsides with views over plunging, bottomless valleys, forests and overlooked by high peaks fringed by clouds. Villages have neat stands of barley and kale in terraces, a few chickens, friendly dogs and occasionally a big black pig in a sty. A number of houses are shop fronts showing fabrics, staples and snacks packed in bright plastic wrappers (which end up on the trail).

We reached Kharikola after a hard climb, lunching in a bright teahouse on the trail, overlooking the closing valley and the ridge to be conquered after lunch. We packed in calories for the final heartbreaking climb to Bupsa. However, the early start meant we had 3 hours of sunlight at the end of the day to rest, wash and write our journals.

One thing noticeable is the change in our physical fitness. It’s not that days are any less demanding, but during and after a challenging stretch, breathing is easier and recovery time is very much quicker. Muscles still get fatigued but we're less inclined to give up. It's noteworthy that in a gym you tend to give up when you feel the burn and feel self-righteous after an hour of burn-and-rest. Here the burn is the same but you have to keep going, pause, resume, for a whole day.

I'm learning that my legs have several sets of muscles. There is the set for standing, for walking, the climbing set, the stepping down group, and the twisting, turning and keeping your balance set. Each muscle set is activated separately so you have to wonder what a gym workout of climbing stairs or walking on a treadmill does for you with all those other muscles unchallenged. How could a gym prepare you for this?

We're all feeling better about the challenges to come, now quite close: Tomorrow we intend to reach Lukla. If the weather is good Gerard and Nick will fly in the next morning and we'll all set off for stage one of the joint trek to the Roof of the World.

Day 5. Everest Base Camp Trek. Junbesi to Nunthala

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:37:00 GMT

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 village, passing the ancient stupa, spinning the prayer wheels for good luck, crossing a stream and into an old stand of pine trees. Some logging was underway and you could see the tightly packed growth rings on the stumps of the old growth trees. The path was wide and well made without too many broken rocks to negotiate, arcing out along the grassy flank of a sheer mountainside, gradually gaining height. The morning flights to Lukla buzzed overhead but early clouds were forming and the warm sunny day was looking threatened.

We had a long slow climb over 3,000 metres until we stopped at Everest View Lodge for a hot tea and a break. The visibility had closed in by then so there was no photo op. We pressed on instead gradually losing altitude to cross a small torrent on a suspension bridge and ascended to Ringmu as a lunch stop.

Ringmu is the closest point this trail comes to a main road. Three hours away on foot is a depot where supplies for the hinterland are staged. As we were eating in the tearoom, endless trains of mules carrying large sacks lumbered by, neck bells chiming an alpine sound. Mixed among them, step by step in thin shoes on sturdy legs and without visible effort, diminutive porters heaved past with massive loads on their backs.

We joined the commercial goods stream after lunch in a brisk uphill to the ridge top at Traksindo at over 3,000 metres. There is a huge stupa and a large decorated gate at the peak of the trail welcomes you to the next valley. This was followed by a knee-breaking downhill for the best part of 2 hours on hard packed, rugged flagstones. The path margins were heavily eroded by diversions the mules have carved to avoid the rough cobbles. At one point we followed a trail of dry corn kernels for about a kilometre, leakage from a split mule pack.

We encountered teams of porters several times with their tapered basket packs stacked a body length higher than themselves and laden with unimaginable loads. One I counted had 10 boxes of what looked like full 650 ml drink bottles. Conservatively that's over 100 kg in weight, carried by a pint-sized porter with only a tumpline around his forehead and slung low around the load to share the weight.

They are a marvel to see. Like elite runners they waste no energy in bobbing up and down when moving forward, and the forward motion is more like a glide on slightly bent knees, flowing over rocks and obstacles. They carry a wooden 'T' shaped stick on one hand and every so often place the stick under the narrow bottom of the basket and lean back, the purpose of the 'T' becoming clear as a temporary stand.

Nunthala, our destination proved to be a scruffy place, a mule staging point and a collection of rather plain tearooms and lodges. Twilight saw us exhausted again, but safely in a lodge to refresh for the next day, also with an early start since tomorrow we are promised, is a long, hard day. My pedometer registered over 28,000 paces, the most so far.

Day 4. Everest Base Camp Trek. Sete to Junbesi.

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:34:00 GMT

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 composed of gneiss fractured along the mica bands which creates sheets and crumbling flagstones that lie in serrations and rough steps and are often treacherous unstable and loose. You can't take your eye off the next step, which requires concentrated, hard climbing. We were moving into an ancient rhododendron forest that was just starting to blossom after the long Himalayan winter. As we climbed we entered the cloud layer and the temperature dropped close to freezing, but the climbing was noticeably easier than the day before. Perhaps we are getting fitter but there was also no sun to overheat us and the grade was less severe, though longer.

On the route we passed many crumbling mani walls and a few stupas dedicated by prominent Sherpas. On the ridge summit we were at over 3,500 metres in cold, misty half-light. Drifts of rotten snow lay among the knotted roots and the trees became grotesquely twisted and heavy with moss. To our delight, tiny bunches of purple violets were open, the only colour in the charcoal and grey.

At one stop dark, bulky figures were visible, that materialised to a herd of yaks. When I approached them they obligingly surrounded me so I have a few good portraits.

We finally stopped at the top of the Lamajura Pass at 3,600 metres (11,800 ft) in thick fog. It was freezing cold. We entered a teahouse that offered a snapping wood fire for lunch, pulling up a few plastic chairs to the fireplace to warm up.

A small diversion on teahouses:

Some private homes open their houses (sometimes simply one big room) to serve drinks and meals. They have a wood fire in a large clay block fireplace on the floor. The fire is fed through a hole in the front of the block and flame and smoke issue from a hole in the top, where a ubiquitous pot holds boiling water. All cooking takes place on and around the fireplace. The kitchen is usually unlit and unventilated and the ceilings are blackened with years of soot.

We sat in the Lamajura teahouse with the front door wide open providing the only light in the room, with a steady stream of fog being sucked through the door. If you weren't directly in front of the flames, it was freezing throughout the room. We sat with our backs to the freezing wind while the woman cooked our meal of fried potatoes and veggies in front of us in two ancient and rather dangerous-looking pressure cookers. When the potatoes were done she gave them to her young son who was seated on the floor. He plucked the steaming potatoes out of the pot and peeled them with his thumbnail. We didn't object because they were to be fried with veggies in the second stage.

Following lunch we set off on a very pleasant walk through forests of enormous rhododendron and what looked like balsam pines, 20 and 30 metres tall and probably centuries old. The tiny strip paddy fields clinging to the rocky hillsides near Bhanda disappeared as the trail fell gradually to a hanging valley of pastures and fields. We were below the fog; it grew warmer and lighter. This was an altogether more prosperous looking farming area.

The trail cut along and down the side of the valley, crossing ridge after ridge, eventually passing the Junbesi monastery and entering the neat and very prosperous village of Junbesi. We found a lodge with power and comfortable beds and recuperated.

Day 3. Everest Base Camp Trek. Bhanda to Sete

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:31:00 GMT

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. Today's plan sounded simple: go to the river, cross it and on to Sete, 6 or 8 hours. The plan was ambitious from the start. For 3 and 1/2 hours we descended through farmlands and forests on a wet and vague trail, fording streams and stone bridges, passing through the front yards of wretchedly poor households. When we finally reached the main river, we were rewarded with our first suspension bridge crossing, small compensation for what we'd endured.

No gym training in the world readies you for walking down grade. What is called for is knee bends, no, single bends for 210 minutes, alternately taking the full weight of your body plus pack on one leg, again and again; sometimes a steep lunge, always an uneven step with a little side twist and ankle wobble. And repetitions? My pedometer recorded 13,644 by the time we reached Kinza for lunch.

We stopped at a traditional Sherpa teahouse along the riverside in Kinza, in various stages of fatigue. This heavy work seems to kill appetite and none of us could finish the veg meals we'd ordered so had little opportunity to refuel, but we did discover the elixir of life: cups of hot lemon and honey, and filled up on that instead.

The next stage was an unrelieved ascent of 4 hours and 8,600 steps (or single leg flexes). If there was ever a moment to ask myself what the Hell I thought I was doing at my age, it was in mid afternoon on the bare mountainside in the blazing heat, staring at the bottomless valley we'd left, with no destination in sight and no clear idea how much longer we'd be tested. Many farmhouse steps became my temporary resting points. A small smoky shop proffered Cokes, which I jumped at, and regretted 20 minutes later when the caffeine wore off and the depressive effect of too much sugar kicked in. I have hellish memories of dragging feet stumbling sluggishly, unrelieved muscle weakness and laboured breathing....

We were spent by the time we fell into Sete. The Sherpa lodge we'd chosen was like all: a sturdy stone building finished internally with rough sawn planking, giant steps leading to the first floor bedrooms with hard plywood beds covered by thin mattresses. Threadbare curtains cover the windows and draughts wander about untamed. There was no power, so we had to prepare everything in the fading daylight. Instead, we passed out in our sleeping bags for an hour before dinner. A selection of Nepalese and approximations to other dishes was on offer. We picked at the menu and recharged on hot lemon and honey.

Overall we had dropped 600 metres into the valley and climbed 1000 from there to Sete. We can be proud of two 1,000 metre days in a row, but ooh, the pain for that gain!

Day 2. Everest Base Camp Trek - Shivalaya to Bhanda

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 17:28:00 GMT

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 packs for water, camera and bric-à-brac. The experiences of the day quickly exposed our inexperience in mountain trekking. Bric-a-brac must be carefully chosen to deal with all eventualities.

Shivalaya is prettily located on a riverside, a collection of farmhouses, trading stores and trekker lodges. A 2,000 rupee toll was extracted from us for entering the newly created Conservation District. (Forget the wildlife; first do something about the roads to the area!)

We left Shivalaya in sunshine at 1,700 m with an unforgiving slog uphill for 3 and 1/2 hours on a route marked by red and orange dots daubed on the rough schist cobbles and giant steps glittering with gneiss and mica. The route is well used by local villagers who breezed past us, and herdsmen with their nervous dzo (yak/cattle cross). Neat, thick-walled stone houses with brightly coloured window frames line the route and we passed right through front yards and by open doors and windows catching glimpses and scents of daily life in these lower reaches.

We were entering the borderlands between the lowland Hindu tribes and the Buddhist Sherpa hill tribes, and the transition could shortly be seen by the low mani walls and small Buddhist stupas on the borders of villages as we progressed further uphill. Mani walls are made of large slate tiles endlessly inscribed with the mantra "Om mane pudme hum". We passed these and the stupas on our right hand side, as dictated by tradition.

We soon shed our too-warm clothing and rested frequently, getting our wind, gradually becoming more physically able, and were finally rewarded by a tea stop at Deurali on the ridge top at 2,720 m overlooking the valley holding our destination, Bhanda. 1,000 m elevation gained so far. Sweet, stewed milk tea never tasted better!

Our guide Gopal called an early stop because of threatening weather. It's not worth getting fatigued and cold and sick so early in the trek. In the final half hour before Deurali the weather had closed in, low scudding clouds grazing the hilltops and a chill on the sudden wind. The visibility, already limited by the smoke haze, became dull charcoal and as we were finishing our tea, it started raining, slowly at first, swelling to large fat drops that were probably hailstones a thousand metres above us. Our too-warm clothing was donned and soon became not-warm-enough/ not-waterproof-enough clothing.

About 1 & 1/2 hours later we slopped into the Buddha Lodge in Bhanda, at 2,200 metres, chilled and grateful for the shelter. A change of clothing, tea and lunch improved things while the rain stopped. Three young lads in their 20's that we'd been pacing all day decided to press on another 3 hours to Kinza, which on a better day we might have attempted. Shortly after they left the rain resumed, this time harder than before. I hope they made it. They were unguided and carrying heavy packs and lightly dressed.

As the sun sets the weather has lifted, the smoke haze has cleared and we can for the first time clearly see snow capped peaks on our route ahead. The peaks are above 4,000 metres so we have a way to go. We are behind our planned schedule by at least half a day and we have to catch up. The highest challenge in the next couple of days is 3,600 m and hopefully by then we'll be a bit more robust. Right now, we're all a bit knocked out. The lodge is unheated so there is only body heat to make up the temperature difference between the frigid outside and a tolerable bunk room temperature. This will worsen as we get higher.

Day 1. Kathmandu to Shivalaya (via Jiri) by bus. 4/2014

timhughes55 — Sat, 31 May 2014 08:50:00 GMT

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 with health and hazard warnings and strong cautions to those of delicate disposition as it will severely test the most seasoned traveller.

We caught the 8.00 from the old bus station somewhat apprehensively as no one could give us an ETA. "6 to 12 hours" we were told. We quickly found out why: after a promising start, 20km out of the city it became a narrow, poorly maintained, potholed roller coaster track.

From the moment we left the bus station we were treated to a continuous pounding in relentless 4:4 time of Nepali/ Hindi Bollywood-style, boy-girl, call-answer love songs punctuated by boisterous choruses and enthusiastic percussion. I never realized that these ballads go on (and on and on) for a good 15 minutes at a time, enough to try your patience, but... They quickly became the least troublesome hazard of the journey. Your attention became rigidly focused on preventing blunt trauma to skull and shins, crushed vertebrae, bruised organs and internal hemorrhage.

No-one told us the best seats are nearest the front. Logic says if you don't want to be scared to death, don't want to watch the driver on his mobile or look at the road ahead, sit at the back. But the nearer you are to the back axle, the worse the ride. The Indian-made Mahindra bus had obviously been proven tough and proved again to be so. It was not going to be cowed by a few axle-breaking holes and adverse cambers. It was going to teach the road a lesson. Bumps became spine jarring kicks in the coccyx, and potholes launched us into the broken overhead console, broken, it seems by skull impacts. The seats were steeply inclined; deliberately I believe, because if I'd been seated vertically I would have been compressed several inches shorter.

All seats were filled but nevertheless the bus stopped frequently to take on passengers. At one point 2 families totaling 13 people boarded the already standing-room filled bus. Youngsters were told to give up their seats to elders and the journey continued with passengers 2 and 3 to a seat, seated on luggage stacked in the aisles, patiently cross-legged on the floor or standing. Mothers nursed their infants, elders dozed and others cheerfully chatted.

A constant thought I'll confess is "What if the brakes fail?" They ground and juddered violently much of the time as the driver wrestled for control. Occasionally a steep downhill would have a run-off lane for vehicle brake failures terminating in a pile of sand to arrest the wayward vehicle. Or were they the site of mass graves? I couldn't decide.

I will never again complain about air turbulence. This was worse than the worst you could possibly imagine, plus sudden stops that threw you into the seat in front, near collisions with- and squeezing by other overloaded vehicles on broken road edges with precipitous drops. Sick bags were regularly passed around and filled. And the saxophone-riff horn was in constant use.

And through this all, the Nepalis travelled calmly and cheerfully. No one complained about being evicted from their paid-for seats, the wounds received or their lunch vomited into a blue plastic bag and dropped out of a window.

Ten and a half hours later we arrived to a cheerful solo on the horn and found lodging for the night. My pedometer recorded 46,657 bumps for the ride. We were beaten up and exhausted and quickly faded into nightmares of death by blunt instrument.

But what about our bus driver? What an incredible feat of mastery to manage that heaving beast all day, and the next morning from 5.30am we could hear his cheerful horn riff inviting passengers to join him and Mahindra in teaching the road more painful lessons in dominance on the return leg to Kathmandu.

Nothing will ever induce me to join him!

---

As an aside, it would be entertaining to see a full 32-seat bus of Western travelers having to share their space with twice that number of strangers on an autobahn, never mind on that punishing road. We have much to learn from the Nepalis.