Trek to Everest Base Camp: The Cat Stevens Musical (with Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Bruce Cockburn, Craig Cardiff, the Backstreet Boys, etc.)

'Wild World' by Cat Stevens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_0U3DlLFSU

In order to make this blog post cornier and hopefully more interesting for you to read, I have decided to supply a playlist to accompany the events and landscape that we experienced on each day of our trek. I tried to include as much Cat Stevens as possible (because he suites Nepal so well) but somehow a lot of the other music that was stuck in my head while I was walking snuck its way its way into this trekking musical as well. Enjoy!

Note: all the sections in "quotations" are bits I wrote in my journal durring the trek

Everest is the dark peak on the left

As many of you know Rachael and I spent the last two weeks trekking to Everest Base Camp and back. For Rachael this was the realization of a childhood dream and for me this was a great way to get out trekking in Nepal and spend some quality time up close and person with the Himalayas (I also got more and more excited about getting to base camp as the trek went on).

Summary of the trek: It was really beautiful and we walked a lot. We did this for 13 days. Some days I was sick, some days Rachael was sick. I took a bunch of pictures of prayer flags and a few pictures of the highest mountain in the world. Now we are both back in Katmandu safe and healthy and enjoying sleeping in warm beds and eating lots of pizza.

Day 1: Arrive in Katmandu

'Katmandu' by Cat Stevens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8420UW2_veM

We arrived in Katmandu from Delhi around noon and after a stressful hour of trying to figure out our visas we were finally let into the country. We organized our trek through Unique Path Trekking and they dropped us off at our fancy hotel in the tourist center of Katmandu (an area called Thamel). We went to the company office to get everything all set up and to meet our guide. He was a very friendly and capable little Nepali man named KC. He was wearing a sweater with a shiny Christmas tree on it and greeted us with a big smile. We spent the afternoon frantically trying to get everything done that we needed to before we left for the trek. I had been really sick with travellers diorea or food poisoning when I was in Delhi the day before. Thankfully I was feeling well enough to run around the streets of our neighbourhood which are jam packed with guest houses, restaurants, bakeries, shops selling colourful clothing and trekking/rafting/paragliding agencies. Rachael and I were focused only on the stores selling inexpensive outdoors gear. Katmandu is a gear-aholic’s dream! I bought a North Face (or good knock off) fleece for $5 and gortex rain paints for just over $10.  We didn’t get time to see much of Katmandu but the feeling that I got from driving between the airport and our hotel was that it is at least as chaotic, polluted and vibrant as any city I visited in India. I think we will need to visit the old area of the city and “freak street” (where travelers came to stay in the 60’s) to see the Katmandu that Cat Stevens is singing about.

Day 2: Lukla (2840 m) to Phakding (2610 m)

'Trouble' by Cat Stevens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1tRB7-aBr8&feature=related

I woke up feeling horrible. It was 5:30 am and I was expected to get out of bed and eat breakfast before heading to the airport to catch our flight into the mountains. My stomach was not feeling good at all and I could not eat anything except for a couple cornflakes. I slept as much as I could on our ride to the airport and slowly got more and more nervous for our upcoming flight. I usually do not get nervous for plane rides but I had read somewhere that the airstrip at Lukla was one of the most dangerous in the world because of its high mountainous location and short runway.

Our Airplane

 “Our flight over was beautiful and terrifying. Once we left the Katmandu valley all we could see was clouds. I was admiring some beautiful pointy looking clouds until I realized that they were not clouds at all but snow peaked mountains! It really hit me then that I was flying into the Himalayas… We hit some turbulence and I started to feel too stressed and sick to keep my eyes open”

Me pretending I am feeling well enough to start treking

Rachael actually ready to start trekking

A warm glass of tea and a half hour rest did a lot to help my airsickness and stomach sickness. The first section of our trek was an easy downhill walk but I had to make Rachael and KC stop to wait for me every half hour or so when the effort made me feel too sick again. After walking for only a couple hours we arrived at our guest house. This gave us both time for some well needed rest in the afternoon. Still, I was feeling pretty horrible and I had to reach for a plastic bag (but thankfully not use it) after climbing the stairs to our room. After sleeping like a log for 3 hours I woke up enough to write this in my journal:

“Looking back it was probably not a good plan to just go ahead and rush out on our trek. I can almost hear Mom and Dad’s voices in my head telling me that I should have stayed a day or two in Katmandu before I started the trek to make sure that I was 100% healthy….I know that this trek and the altitude can demolish even the strongest body if you are careless and I am afraid to climb to higher altitudes tomorrow if I am not feeling better”.

I swallowed a bunch of activated charcoal pills, made regular trips to the bathroom and tried my best to eat more than a couple mouthfuls of rice and lentils. Finally I took Rachael’s advice (she was getting more and more stressed as I failed to get better) and took anti-biotics before I went to sleep.

'Peace Train' by Cat Stevens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6mKMV0d2cs

The landscape we walked through that day was beautiful and everything I saw seemed fresh and unexpected. The trail was not too crowded and it followed the glacial river valley up through a bunch of little villages with stone houses, green vegetable fields and tourist lodges

“Everywhere there are prayer flags flapping in the wind and my favourite is when a group of donkeys walks by with their bells ringing like wind chimes.” 

The Sherpa people who live in the Everest region migrated from Tibet many years ago. Most of them practice Buddhism, which means that the landscape is full of stupas, prayer weels and prayer flags.

Our guide KC walking up the trail beside rocks carved and painted with Buddhist prayers in Tibetan

A wall of stone tablets with religious writings on them

The type of basket that many of the local people used to carry food and other supplies along the trekking routes to the villages and guesthouses. It is carried by a tump line on their heads and the stick is used both as a walking stick and to support the weight of the basket when they are resting

The amount of stuff that the local people could carry was astounding. They often have loads almost as large as themselves that they carry up hill for hours at a time. These men are carrying wood but I also saw people carrying chunks of raw meet, cabbages, bails of hay, beds, and large metal cylanders full of oxygen for climbing Everest.

My favourite sign in Lukla

My favourite sign in Phakding

Day 3: Phakding (2610 m) to Namche Bazar (3440 m)



The anti-biotics and rest did their job and I woke up feeling much better. It still felt like a marathon to eat anything but I finished my whole bowl of oatmeal. That explains why I am so excited about an empty bowl and a pill bottle

We started out by walking beside the amazingly clear and vibrantly blue-green glacial river. We walked across a whole bunch of long suspension bridges. I decided to climb with a hiking pole for the first time in my life and, as I wrote in my journal “I’m not sure if it helped but it did make me feel more epic”. Whenever I got bored I would inspire myself by picturing this scene from the Lord of the Rings in my head.

'The Ring Goes South' from The Lord of the Rings Soundtrack (start from 1:30) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcp9smiG14o 

Glacial river

A suspension bridge acros the river valley

Rachael being epic on a bridge

'Higher Ground' by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gs2o5T7oN8

Even though I was feeling much better, I was still recovering from being sick. I felt weaker and more easily tired than normal and this made today the most difficult day of the trek for me.

“Today was a tough hiking day. We walked for almost 6 hours and the whole afternoon was up hill. Thank God I was feeling better…I could not have done the hike I did today feeling the way I did yesterday…By the time 1 pm rolled around and we had been hiking up hill on steep switch backs and stairs for at least 45 min solid I had stopped admiring the view or singing the LOTR theme song in my head. All my energy was going towards the nest step and I had to put my iPod on to keep myself motivated.”



Our first view of Everest was from halfway up the long hill we climbed on this day. I'm pointing to Everest but as you  can see it is still a long way away.

Rachael being epic in front of Everest

Our room in Namce that I was so thankful to reach at the end of this tough day. As you can see we were not roughing it too badly as far as accomidation went.

Day 4: Acclimitization day at Namche Bazar (3440 m) – climbed to Everest View Hotel (3860 m)

'Morning has Broken' by Cat Stevens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5sSEkZ86ts

“I woke up surprisingly full of energy and my enthusiasm only grew when I saw the mountain peak above our guest house lit up and shinning even though the sun had not yet risen high enough to reach the rest of the landscape.”

Rachael trudging up the hill from out guesthouse at 5:30am

We woke up early to walk up above the town and see the sunrise over Everest far in the distance. We also stopped by at the visitor’s center for Sagarmatha National Park. It looked just like every other park visitor’s center in the world and that made my inner park naturalist feel very much at home.

Everest at sunrise

'Wild Mountain Time' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuTOSpKojKM (this song is dedicated to my trekking buddies in Snowdonia last summer. The first team to climb Everest trained in Snowdonia, so I think that it is only appropriate that I trained for trekking to Everest Base Camp there too :P)

After breakfast we went for an acclimatization hike up to Everest View Hotel. This is the highest hotel in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The weather was perfect and clear for our whole trek and this day was no exception. The view of Everest way off in the distance was beautiful and crystal clear.

Drinking tea at the Everest View Hotel with Everest in the background

The views on the walk up were in my opinion even more spectacular than the view from the hotel.  The sweeping slopes, green shrubs and open windy skies reminded me of Gross Mourn in Newfoundland or Cader Idris in Whales.

The advertisement photograph for Gross Mourne National Park (Newfoundland) that made me fall in love with mountains

Me trying to recreate this photograph in the Himalayas

We got to spend the afternoon taking it easy and exploring the shops in town.

“Namche is a really cool mountain town. It is nestled in a bowl with mountain peaks and terraced plots all around...It is amazing that there can be internet cafes, bakeries, beer and souvenir shops this far up in a place that can only be reached by hikers and yaks.”

This was the last town with these kinds of luxuries that we encountered on our trek. From here on up the running water turned into buckets beside sqwat toilets and the chocolate bars and toilet paper quadrupled in price. I bought a really nerdy hat (that rachael and I decided to call “the hydration hat”) as well as some tang to help keep myself hydrated and feeling well. I also made friends with a very friendly young lady in one of the art galleries and she taught me some Nepali words. It is very similar to Hindi. To say “My name is Abby” I would say in Nepali “Mero nam Abby ho” Instead of "Mera nam Abby hein” in Hindi.

Namche at sunset

A prayer wheel at Namche

Day 5:  Namche Bazar (3440 m) to Tengboche (3860 m)

'Solsbury Hill' by Peter Gabriel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUFOaRLbO0g&feature=related

In the morning we walked along the edge of a steep meandering slope with a beautiful view of Everest in front of us.

Everest is the peak with all the snow blowing off of it. It is poking out behind the ridge on the left.

I found the trekking on this day much easier than the last couple of days probably purely because I was now feeling better and had some food in my system. Rachael would say the opposite though. We walked up a steep hill for a couple hours after lunch time and by the end she was more than ready for a rest. We visited the Buddhist monastery that Tengboche is famous for and splurged on a big slice of brownie and apple crumble.

Halfway up the hill to Tanboche with my hiking pole and hydration hat

Me sitting inside the monastary grounds

When Rachael was taking a well-deserved nap, I was still feeling restless so I headed up the mountain behind our guesthouse. My intention was to aimlessly kill some time before dinner but it is hard not to feel that you are on some kind of spiritual journey when the landscape is so dramatic and every hilltop and peak is covered in Buddhist stupas and endless strings of prayer flags.

“I lay for a while by a Buddhist stupa and looked up at the prayer flags. There were crows flying and hovering around the flags in crazy acrobatics and they were so fun to watch and try to snap photos of.”

“I didn’t plan to walk very far but then the landscape was so amazing and the strong wind was so exhilarating that I didn’t want to turn around. I just kept climbing up and up through the rocks and shrubs until I reached the stupa at the very top. I sat there for a very long time tucked under a rock with my hair wipping in the wind…I hollered a couple of my favourite songs into the wind (in my usual off-key fashion) and continued singing most of the way back down”

The view from the stupa at the summit

Tengboche and my solo hike up the hill ended up being one of my favourite parts of the trek to Base Camp.  It was perched up among the mountains in a way that most of the other towns were not and the monastery made the little town extra beautiful.

Day 6: Tengboche (3860 m) to Dingboche (4410 m)

'Dance Me Outside' by Craig Cardiff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYNCjfQXWyo

prayer flags in the mornign light and KC leading the way onward

”I find the best way to keep myself going while trekking is to stay in a state of awe at where I am. The more I look up and admire the view, the more full of energy I feel and the less difficult the trek is. Most times when I do this I think ‘look where you are!’ and then I get ‘Dance Me Outside’ by Craig Cardiff (starting from 2:22 into the song) stuck in my head”.

Our hike today was relatively easy and only 4 hours long. Regardless, I was tired and worn out by the time we arrived. When we arrived in Dingboche it really felt like we had left the hospitable green world behind and entered the mountains.

“By the end of the mourning we were walking over barren skree covered hills and the landscape had become much more barren and rugged than any we had passed yet”

It was also cold - all the time. It even snowed a little bit that afternoon and the whole village felt grey and silent.

Yaks! Look at how fluffy thei tails are. That is what I needed to keep me warm.

“The clouds cleared just enough for us to watch the sun set against the snowy mountain peaks. It lights up the peaks the same way it does the clouds and looks absolutely beautiful”

Ama Dablam peak at sunset

Day 7:  Acclimatization day at Dingboche (4410 m) – climbed to the peak above the Nangkartshang Gompa (5083 m)

Tallest Man on Earth came onto my iPod shuffle during our hike on this day and he suited the beautiful barren landscape perfectly. I was listening to ‘Pistol Dreams’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buzb6lxbp1A  but Rachael says with a laugh that the title ‘Shallow Grave’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7uocB95JBw suits her experience of this day better.

On our so called ‘rest day’ our guide led us for 3 ½ hours straight up hill to help our bodies get used to the high altitude. Rachael says that this was the toughest climb of the trip for her. By this time we were at a high enough altitude that she was having a lot of trouble breathing, especially on the up hills. I was lucky the whole trek to be barely influenced by the altitude. My fingers did swell up into mini sausages after this hike though and I got a bit of a head ache in the evening which continued to get worse over the course of the next day.

Me hanging out with some prayer flags at the summit

Proof that Rachael made it to the top

“There is a different feeling about being way up high among the peaks. It feels like you are on their level and they look even more beautiful and powerful than they do from the level of the town.”

View from the top

View from the top

In the afternoon I went for a wander around the town and sat for a while in my giant down jacket on the step of a huge crumbling stupa.

The stupa on the edge of town

Intermission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hmDZz5pDOQ

Stay tuned over the next couple of days to hear the rest of this musical trek.

Coming up next: Face plants, altitude sickness, raw garlic and Talylor Swift

Do Rachael and I make it off the mountain alive? Is there more beautiful scenery to come? Does Rachael fulfill her childhood dream? Do I get to take more photographs of prayer flags? Do we ever find a Yeti?

SUPRISE, I am the Yeti!
(this picture would make a lot more sense if you could see that the title of the book I am holding up is 'My Quest for the Yeti' ...it would make even more sense if you have seen my legs in the past month or so)