Trek to Everest Base Camp (Part 2)

Day 8: Dingboche (4410 m) to Lobuche (4910 m)

‘On the Road to Find Out’ by Cat Stevens  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ--odAAA1A (if you are going to listen to any of my musical selections all of the way through then it should be this one. This is the song that inspired me to write this musical blog and I like to think that it was written for backpackers)

I woke up with an altitude head ache that just continued to get worse over the course of the day. The landscape got higher, colder, more desolate and more beautiful as we hiked.

“The view is striking with snow peaks rising above a bouldery desert that looks kind of like a dried up river bed”

Rachael trekking through the barren landscape

Prayer flags and mountains

Me with some prayer flags and mountains

Yaks!

We arrived at our rest house after only 3 ½ hours of walking (which was almost 3 hours less than our guide had told us that morning). The combination of this unexpected break and our brains being high on not enough oxygen made both Rachael and I very giddy.

“I have been feeling a little bit dazed. It is kind of the same as being overtired or intoxicated. Eating in the warm dinning room just exasperated these effects and made me feel very flushed and easily confused.”

In my high, oxygen deprived state I rewrote the words to‘Black Socks’ (the good old Girl Guides favourite) and laughed about it to myself for days afterwards. “Ab-by, she never gets dirty, the longer she treks for the cleaner she gets. Some-times I think I should wash her but something keeps telling me no no not yet, not yet, not yet”(Before you judge, keep in mind that my only option for washing was paying for a bucket of warm water to dump over my head, and it was way too cold to have wet hair)

In the afternoon, a heavy fog moved in and it started to snow. “This just highlighted the desolate atmosphere of where we are and kind of made me feel like I was on the moon or something… it reminded me again of how high up I am above the clouds, in a world where only moss, small plants and yaks can survive”


View of Lobuche through the fog

Before going to bed we chewed full cloves of raw garlic that KC had given us to help with our altitude head aches. We also brushed our teeth with juice because both of our water bottles had tang in them. We went to bed feeling ridiculous and excited for the push to Everest Base Camp the next morning.

This was the first night that I had some trouble sleeping. My head was pounding and I was finding it a little bit difficult to breath. Sleeplessness is one symptom of altitude sickness. Rachael had difficulty sleeping for most of the nights we were at high altitude and she also lost her appetite and felt nauseous when we were really high up.

Rachael chewing some garlic

Day 9: Lobuche (4910 m) to Everest Base Camp (5364 m) to Gorak Shep (5140 m)

‘Wondering Where the Lions Are’ by Bruce Cockburn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Lpx6JIMmk

We woke up at 5:30 am and against all odds my head ache had gone away and I was feeling fresh and ready to go.

KC leading the way into the rising sun

“We stepped outside into a fresh layer of snow and the sun rising behind the mountain peaks. I was excited to be finally heading to Basecamp and the scenery was so beautiful that I was soon feeling wonderful about being awake in the cold so early”

Sun's up and I'm ready for the momentous day ahead

Rachael is also ready

Rachael, our guide KC and our Porte Premoth

Somehow Premoth could go just as fast as rachael and I even with our 2 big duffle bags on his back!

We had lunch at Gorak Shep at 9:30 am and dropped our stuff off in our room before continuing our trek towards Basecamp.


Its only 9:30 am and we are both wishing we had time for a nap

Rachael was feeling the altitude sickness pretty badly but she ‘rallied’ (as she would say) and after a couple of hours of walking we both made it to Everest Base Camp in one piece!

We made it!

We made it!

We made it!

Basecamp itself didn’t look like much more than a bunch of tents scattered around in little camps. It is set up on a glacier that is covered in gravel and dirt but you could still see sections of blue ice sticking up everywhere.

The glacier that Basecamp is on

“The tents and many prayer flags were beautiful to see scattered among ice formations and so close to the towering mountains all around”



I have seen a lot of tents in my life but I have never seen tents look more legit than this

“I thought that arriving at Basecamp would make me feel hard-core but it kind of did the opposite. For me arriving at Basecamp was the end of my journey whereas for the people staying there it was just the beginning” .

The view of Everest from Basecamp is nothing spectacular but we could still see its dark form poking up from behind the two closer peaks. It was pretty amazing to see the icefall that is the first challenge for mountaineers when they attempt to summit Everest.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Mount Everest

This, ladies and gentlemen is the view of Mount Everest from Everest Basecamp. You may need to look very closely, I promise that you can see Everest.

Childhood dream accomplished!

We always knew that Rachael had her sights set on high placs

Day 10: Gorak Shep (5140 m) to summit of Kala Patthar (5550 m) to Pangboche (3930 m)

There is a reason that there is no song for the first half of this day. I could not pick a song that would do justice to the experience of watching the sun rise on the top of the world. My mind was shocked into silence.

This morning it was our mission to complete the most challenging portion of our trek. This was a 2 ½ hour climb up a huge rocky mound called Kala Patthar. The best view of Mount Everest and the surrounding Himalayan range (that is accessible to trekkers anyway) is from the summit of Kala Patthar.

“We woke up at 4:30 am and headed out before the sun rose. The only breakfast I had time for was a stale cookie, a couple almonds, a clove of garlic and a few gulps of warm water. A heavy fog hung all around and it was freezing cold.”

Miraculously, I was not feeling any altitude sickness at this point. Rachael on the other hand looked the most sick that I had seen her on the trek. All she said was “Breathing is for the weak” and kept on making her way slowly and painfully up the hill.

“About 1 hour into the climb the sun started to rise and the fog started to clear. Up until that point we could have been walking anywhere in the world."

“it took me a couple of seconds to realize that it was not a cloud that the first rays of the rising sun where lighting up but the slanting snowy peak of a mountain that appeared to be floating in front of us”

“The view all around me changed continuously as the sun rose and the fog faded and morphed along the base of the peaks.``

``The black form of Everest was lit up from behind by the rising sun and the snow blowing from its summit glowed like a hallo.``

``The peaks all around it slowly became lit up on their edges by the rising sun while their bases remained hidden by the fog-like cloud that was slowly being burned away.``

``It was the most beautiful and overpowering thing that I have ever seen. I couldn’t believe that I was actually in this remote place, so high up (almost 5500 m) seeing the sun rise over peaks at the top of the world. All I wanted to do was lie on the snow-covered slope and cry.”

But I was too busy frantically taking these photographs and trying to reach the summit to be able to drop everything and weep. Just when I had pulled myself together, the sun finally broke out from behind Everest and I got all excited and emotional again.

I was so excited that I took a selfy

When I ran down to share some of my excitement with Rachael she said, “I wouldn’t get too close if I were you, I think I’m going to vomit”. That sobered me up a bit. We both sat down to admire the view and give Rachael a chance to recover a bit from her altitude sickness and over exertion. Climbing steep slopes at over 5000 m is not like climbing them at sea level. My body was holding up remarkably well in the high altitude but I was still forced to walk very slowly. When I tried climbing at a slightly faster pace (probably the speed I would walk up a hill normally) I would get out of breath in seconds and it was impossible to suck in enough air at a time to catch my breath again.

Rachael catching her breath

"Breathing is for the weak"

'I Want it That Way' by the Backstreet Boys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fndeDfaWCg&ob=av2e. This song is dedicated to Rachael and her day from hell. I don't know what she listens too to keep herself going but I always just assume that it is this song, over and over again. If you are not in the mood for Backstreet Boys you can listen to what was on my mountain playlist this day instead: 'Sail Away to the Sea' by the Once http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TZRXMqbLII



We slowly worked ourway to the top, and we finally made it! It was incredible to stand at 5550 m (the highest point of our trek).

Rachael and KC in front of Everest on the summit of Kala Patthar

“This is probably the highest I will ever be in my life.”

Rachael celebrating that we are on our way back down

Little did Rachael know when this picture was taken that in a few minutes she would fall on the slippery rocks and make a spectacular face plant dow the hill. Luckily she did not hit her face or head but she did bash up her knee and her thumb pretty badly.

“It is just Rachael’s luck that as soon as we have finished the bulk of the uphill of the trek (which she finds especially difficult) she gets an injury that makes the downhill especially difficult for her…Despite my attempts to make an ice pack out of snow in a bag, her knee swelled up pretty badly and made the 7 hours we had left to trek that day awful for her.”

The trek wore on and on. By the time we made it to our teahouse at about 5pm we had been on the go for 12 hours straight with very few breaks.

Whenever I looked ahead I say KC leading the way enlessly onward

Whenever I looked behind I saw Rachael struggling on with a slight limp. Everytime I asked her if she was OK she would just say 'I have no choice, I've just got to make it there'.

 We descended a lot of meters that day and the landscape changed from ice-cold boulder desert, to low shrubs and windy yak farmland, to sweeping hills alongside the banks of a mountain river.

Yaks!

Look close and you can see the head phone in Rachael's ear. She's got her mountain beats playing to keep herself going.

A memorial to Scott Fischer who was one of the 8 climbers that died on 11May 1996 durring a fierce storm on Mt everest. (an IMAX film and the book Into Thin Air  chronicle the disaster)

We walked through a valley with stone houses, rivers, shrubs and yaks grazzing. It was nice to see green again.

Day 11: Pangboche (3930 m) to Namche Bazar (3440 m)

‘Come Let Go’ by Xavier Rudd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE0b91XzrjeE

It felt so good to be back at lower altitude where it was warmer. As we walked everything got greener and there were more flowers and budds on the trees. It was kind of like walking into spring.

"Today was another long day (about 7 hours of walking) but still far easier than yesterday. Rachael is still pretty sick and overall ‘a mess’ (as she would say), but she took some hard-core pain killers which made walking on her knee easier.”

We passed Rivendell. They've got an internet cafe these days.

We walked by Tangboche again and we had to hide inside the monastary gate to avoid being trampled by two fighting horses

“We arrived at Namche Bazar around 3pm and boy was it nice to come back here! We are staying at the same guesthouse we were in for our 2 acclimatization nights on our way up and it kind of feels like coming home….Rachael and I went out for a doughnut and cake to celebrate... Rachael needed to rest and recover so I went out on my own to enjoy the setting sunlight over the mountains. It was so beautiful that I leapt up the slope above town as fast as my lungs would let me and went on a picture taking spree with my newly charged camera battery.”

The Stupa above Namche

Some horses to keep me company

 I found some prayer flags to sit underneath

“Prayer flags, sunlight and mountains -> they’re so beautiful, I just can’t get over it!”

Day 12: Namche Bazar (3440 m) to Phakding (2610 m)

‘John from Econ’ by Rachael Vriezen and Abby Menendez. Lucky for you there is no recorded version of this song. We wrote while we were killing some time by the river before dinner. It was inspired by the Taylor Swift Song ‘You Belong With Me’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw&ob=av2n that we had heard earlier that day blaring from a Sherpa’s cell phone. As you get lower down (where there is better access to electricity) many of the Sherpas carrying large loads have Nepali music playing from their cellphones as they walk. This was the only guy we heard listening to T-swift. If you are not in the mood to listen to T-Swift than ‘Pop Star’ by Cat Stevens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRubdDwlHrM is a good alternative.

In case you are curious about ‘John from Econ’ here is a sampling of the lyrics which Rachael has written down in her journal:

“Oh John, this song is for you/ you sit in front of me in chemistry/ oh wait, I don’t take chemistry/ so it must be economics/ But I won’t tell you which economics, because then you’d know/ I’m the girl that sits behind you/ I always wear a leather jacket and drop my pencil in front of you/ I wish you’d notice me, John/ Oh, John from econ”

Anyway...back to the trek

“Today was a pretty short and easy day of trekking. We were only walking for about 4 hours and most of this was downhill or back and forth across suspension bridges”

We`re back to walking along hte river

Back to suspension bridges

Back to green fields

Back to rocks with buddhist prayers writen all over them

We exited the Park on this day. Luckily we had not broken any of these rules.

The guest house we stayed at this night was my favourite of the trek. We were the only guests staying there and it felt more like staying in somebodies home than in a guest house. We could see into the kitchen from the communal dinning area and grandma was sitting in the dining room with us watching TV.

“The lady who seems to run the place is really friendly as well as an amazing cook. She made us delicious fried potatoes with veggies and cheese. It is wonderful to have lots of fresh veggies again!”

Every guest house we stayed at had a display like this of all the `things white people want` (as Rachael would say). They`ve got toilet paper, soft drinks, alcohol, chocolate bars and bottled water.

Day 13: Phakding (2610 m) to Lukla (2840 m)

‘Auld Lang Syne’ by Salsa Celtica http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpG5dR3cp9w (This song just seemed like the perfect finally when I was walking the last killometer of the trek. You may need to skip the first couple of minutes to get to the really celebratory part of the song)

“We made it! We got up, ate delicious apple pancakes and then walked for 3 easy hours to arrive in Lukla before lunch time. It feels very surreal that I am scheduled to be on a plane back to Katmandu at 8:30am tomorrow morning”

Our guide and porter walking through the archway into Lukla

The airstrip at Lukla

A plane about to take off

I was sad to be about to be leaving the mountain but there were some signs that I should probably get back to civilization soon. First of all, my legs were starting to accumulate little dirt patches and my hair was so dirty that when I took my ponytail out it kind of stayed in shape. Secondly, I was starting to sneak of the paths and crawl over boulders to find secluded spots to sit on my own. “After sitting by the pool for far longer than is normal for someone to sit on their own, I scrambled up a steep forested slope and returned to the road near the airport by awkwardly cutting through someone’s back garden.” After walking by a pair of giggling and very clean looking ladies, I realized that I had a large stick in my hair. Finally, I interrupted a secret phone conversation that a man was having by an isolated Buddha statue when I emerged from the bushes (where I had gone to take a pee). I needed to stop skulking aroung in bushes like a yeti for a little while.

This is prime yeti habitat

Day 14: Lukla (2840 m) to Katmandu

 ‘The Wind’ by Cat Stevens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4-IZTZkTY8

Lukla at sunrise from the window of our room

There was a bit of tension in the morning because flights had been cancelled over the past couple of days because of strong winds. Sometimes planes get close to Lukla but are unable to land if the wind is bad. We didn’t have any such problems and our flight back to Katmandu went very smoothly. Coming back to the city felt a bit like arriving in Florida and we both felt out of place in our fleeces and tuques.

We`re on our way back!

View of the Himalayas from my window

The view of Katmandu from our hotel window

Now we are back in Katmandu after the experience of a lifetime. Both of us are appreciating the chance to recover, rest, shower and eat pizza. Our plan from here is to spend a few days exploring Katmandu with Sam and Alexia. Then we will take a bus to Pokora where we will spend about a week hanging out, going to coffee shops and doing short treks in the Pokora and Annapurna area.  We are hoping to organize some kind of rafting or white water kayaking thing from Pokora and then end up in Chitwan National Park for a few days. By then it will be almost time for me to travel back to Katmandu to catch my plane home to Canada on the 28^th of May. But these planes are flexible and we will just have to see where the wind takes us :D