Trekking to Everest Base Camp: My Experience PART FOUR

in #travel7 years ago (edited)

You can find Part One of this series HERE
You can find Part Two of this series HERE
You can find Part Three of this series HERE

Lobuche to Gorak Shep - Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar

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Me at the top of Kala Patthar surrounded by prayer flags

Hello, Steemians! I will pick up where I left off in my last post. When I arrived in Lobuche in the early afternoon, I found the smallest village I had seen yet and very few teahouses. I went to all of them and most of them were booked in advance by people with guides and I was starting to get a bit worried. I went to the last teahouse in the village and found that while they had rooms, they had no single rooms, luckily for me there were three other independent hikers there in the same situation as me and we struck up a quick friendship over tea and decided to hike together and share rooms in the smaller villages. I shared a room with a Brazilian guy named Christiano who was back for a second attempt to get to basecamp after his last attempt was halted by the earthquake of 2015. The other two hikers were Gabriel from Sweden and Lauri from Finland, we were all of equal fitness levels so it really worked out well for all of us.

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Along the trail to Gorak Shep

The next morning we set off early heading for the final village on the trek, Gorak Shep, it was about a 3-4 hour hike and most of it was over loose rock piles which made a mildly difficult to maneuver. We arrived before noon and had a quick lunch before making the decision of how to spend the rest of the day. The typical schedule for hikers is to arrive and head straight for basecamp and then the following morning head up Kala Patthar to watch sunrise over Mt Everest. However, talking to people in the teahouse we learned that the early morning weather had been hit or miss so we decided to head up Kala Patthar that afternoon and see the tallest mountain in the world surrounded by blue skies and take our chances the next morning at basecamp.

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Leaving Gorak Shep

Kala Patthar is a small mountain just to the west of Gorak Shep and Everest which provides amazing views at around 5550m above sea level

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Christiano stopping to take a photo on the hike up Kala Patthar

I will be honest here, hiking to the top of Kala Patthar was probably one of the toughest things I have ever done in the mountains, the air was increasingly thin and I had a pounding headache that wouldn't quit the whole time. It took us about 1-1.5 hours to get to the top and by the time we got there I was exhausted and had to sit for a few minutes to get my composure, but once I did I was blown away. The views were completely unbelievable in comparison to anything I had ever seen before, I have spent a lot of time in the Canadian Rockies but this was completely different. We spent about an hour up there basking in the view of the tallest mountain in the world, it was a beautiful day and I am so glad we made the decision to go up there and not to basecamp that day. After taking a bunch of pictures and relaxing a bit we headed back down for a big meal and an early bedtime to get ready for the morning hike to basecamp.

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Me in front of Mt Everest

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Looking down from the summit

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A shot of the peak of Kala Patthar

Everest Base Camp

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The next morning we got up and left at 4 am for the 2.5 hour hike to the basecamp itself at the base of the infamous Khumbu Glacier. The hike was difficult because it was quite cold and again the air was thin at altitudes above 5000m but we made it in reasonable time. In the offseason basecamp is deserted but you can spot it by the large amounts of prayer flags and the stones marking it so while it's not as impressive as Kala Patthar it is still quite the experience. To me, the most amazing part is the sense of scale you feel knowing you are standing at the bottom of the tallest mountain in the world, it gave me a great deal of respect for the Sherpas who travel up and down these trails multiple times every year. After spending a few hours watching sunrise and taking pictures we headed back to Gorak Shep for a big breakfast before heading back down to civilization. It had been 9 days since I left Lukla at this point and although I had accomplished what I set out to do, going down was a whole other beast to tackle.

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Finally made it!

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Sunrise over Mt. Everest

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Never been more tired or happier

I will conclude this series with one other post covering the way down from the top, if you like this post or have a story of your own, please comment below. Thanks for reading!

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That are some amazing pictures!!! I would love to go for the full experience! Could you reach the base of the glacier or does the last picture fool you about the distance?

My name is @hato and I'm the curator of the @Climbing-Trail. I resteemed this a post. If you like climbing, alpinism, and hiking check it out!

Yes you can reach the glacier from basecamp, it was maybe 60-70m off but the picture is a bit misleading because it isn't as flat as it looks. It took us a while to get over there to put our hands on the ice but it was definitely worth it. I like the posts you are resteeming so I followed your account, thanks for reading!

Thanks for sharing!

Nice that you like them and follow me now :-)

Super Nice, upvoted!
impressive, thanks for sharing such a great experience.
travelled for four years but this something else.
Keep your blogs coming will keep an eye out

I appreciate that! Thanks for reading!

Amazing what an adventure. I am so envious and sadly the chance of me ever making a trip like this ended when I broke my back 6 years ago. I will have to enjoy it through the eyes of people like you. It is an inspiring read and the photographs are astonishing. Thank you for posting @travelstheworld. Upvoted, resteemed and followed with pleasure.

Wow, thank you very much! I have lots to tell so I hope I can keep you entertained, I really appreciate the love

Did you suffer at all from the altitude? A friend of mine made it to Base Camp, but was not in a good way.

I did suffer a bit but it was manageable for me. I had dull headaches and had trouble sleeping once I was above 4500m but I just took ibuprofen a few times and it wasn't all that bad. I saw quite a lot of people who had to go down and at least one person per village had to be taken down by helicopter. Something like 11,000 people are on the trail in the month of October and a great deal of them don't make it because they are promised too much from some of the guide services or they have next to no experience at high altitudes. It broke my heart to see people who had traveled so far to have to turn around and not finish what they set out to do. Thanks for reading!

Yes, it would be extremely frustrating to come so far, so close, but...
Glad you made it. =)

I have mad respect for people who attempt Everest.

Be it the easiest path there or whatever, I don't think I ever will. The number of deaths related to it scare me.

Ya walking through the memorial to all the people who died on the mountain was... intense. There are hundreds of small piles of stones made by the families of those who died up there and it is quite surreal to see. Thanks for reading!

Wow man. That's scary.

I also heard of those who reached the top but never made it back down. Ironic.

It is. There are a few documentaries on the sherpas who are working on bringing the bodies down from the mountain as per the Nepal governments instructions. It's very sad but also quite interesting.

Not worth the risk imo.

Awesome i love your post

Thanks alot! I appreciate that

waw. . .
this must be a very fun and amazing journey @travelstheworld
and certainly not everyone can do it, because the cost would be very expensive and needed a strong physical.

It was an amazing journey! The cost was actually pretty reasonable if you go without a guide/porter but you definitely need to be at a decent fitness level to hike with a full pack at those altitudes. Thanks for reading!

yo're wellcome :-)

Means that the cost is expensive if we use guide/porter ? :-)

Yes, I spoke to quite a few people on the trail about costs for guides and porters and the cheapest I heard was $1000USD for the whole trek for just a porter and the highest was over $6000USD. I chose to skip the guide and porter because of the volume of people on the trail (over 11,000 in October) and the fact that it is a very established trail and my expenses for all the permits, rooms, food and rental jacket/sleeping bag was about $450USD and I had to carry a 9kg pack the whole way. It's not as expensive as a lot of people would lead you to believe!

waw. . .
very expensive, up to 1000 $.
if we can master the field of travel, we can be a guide as well.
for 1 month there are 3 people that we guide, can be very rich.

this is a tremendous opportunity.
but not suitable for me this field, because I'm sure my physical is not strong. Climbing up the short distance alone was my body error. hahahaa

Thank you. It's really wonderful I want to try too

Well, I will say it's not too expensive if you go independent so best of luck! Thanks for reading

Amazing , love your posts !

Thanks alot! I appreciate it!

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