Base Camp at Last!

Sorry for the delay in posting this but I'm back at work during the day and the toast of the town by night. ;-)

Base Camp day started very early and we were out of the teahouse in Lobuche by 7am. This is because it would take us about 5 hours to get to Gorak Shep, passing the Italian Weather Observatory on the way.

The landscape quickly becomes completely alien.

And the trail is treacherous.

After 5 hours we reached Gorak Shep which is an utter hole. We just dropped our bags, had some tea to warm up (and I had some porridge) and then straight back out of the door to head up to Base Camp. What followed was 2.5 hours of trekking along an uncertain trail, washed out or knocked out in places. On the one had you have to be careful for rockfall, and on the other that you don't slip on the rocks and tumble down the hill. As you progress there may be places where the trail has disappeared and it's necessary to kick footholds into the surface.

And then you hit the Khumbu Glacier. It gets colder but at this point you're exercising so hard that you just don't feel it. And the UV is searing you through your sunblock because you're so high up and the light is bouncing off of the ice and snow. The rocks are a thin veneer on the ice and footing is particularly treacherous.

And you're at 50% oxygen so you need to rest often along the way.

And all along the way you're distracted from watching your feet because the awesome spectacle of being at bloody Everest at last!

But it's so huge that distances are deceptive. There's still more tiptoeing along the glacier and around the tarns.

And then suddenly, like a mirage, there's the stone that indicates that one has indeed, at long last, reached Base Camp! Frankly I just collapsed and lit a ciggie. And I can tell you this, at 50% oxygen a ciggie lasts a very long time.

And also, of course, once you stop exercising, the cold hits you hard.  I quickly donned my down jacket and my Unseen University scarf to do my photo ops for the sponsors.

And then the obligatory pics around the stone.

As you can see, noone was there and I believe I may have been the first person of the season.

Of course I took a Kindom of Loathing "Sword and Martini" shot. I brought a flask of booze for the occasion.

I just wish I'd thought to chip off some ice from the glacier to pop into the mix!

Anyway, I shot a short video as well. Please remember that it was a long day at 50% oxygen and be kind!

And then, although it took 9 days to get there, after only 30 minutes we turned around. The weather was turning and I knew that it would take 2.5 hours to get back to Gorak Shep. And so as the clouds closed we headed back out.

And as you can see, I felt ready to utterly die by the time I got back to Gorak Shep. To be honest. there were points when I prayed, if there is a god, please show yourself and strike me down with cerebral edema so I can get a bloody chopper back to Kathmandu already!

All I could manage was a bit of tea and a bowl of garlic soup (apparetly good for the altitude) and then crashed after 10/11 hours of trekking. A well deserved rest say I!

Living La Vida Lobuche!

My birthday dawned cloudy but dry. Perfect hiking weather. We were out of Pheriche bright and early and I was really happy to be leaving the Pumori Lodge behind.

The trail leads out of the valley via the stream bed so it's all rocky and muddy ground until you finally climb the ridge to the monuments.

I was actually surprised but I got a bit verklempt at Monument Ridge. Near Scott Fischers's monument I was surprised to see a Jewish grave - for Trevor Eric Stokol. I don't know who he was specifically but I hope someone can tell his parents that I put a stone on his grave and recited the Shema.

After that it was a long but at least gradually ascending trail all the way to Lobuche where we were to rest for the night.

Lobuche was far nicer than I had feared. I'd read about it in several books about Everest and it sounded like a horrible little hole but they've been working on and investing in this village for the tourist trade and so the hotel that we stayed in was lovely and welcoming if understandably sparse. Look, considering we were 4910m up and n the middle of nowhere, the place was at least fairly warm and clean.

Fulla, my guide, had promised me a birthday surprise. I confess that I might have been slightly delirious from the low oxygen but I certainly had visions of my boyfriend sending me a birthday gift of a helicopter to escort me to base camp and then back to Kathmandu! Having just revealed that fantasy to my BF, he quite rightly points out that he doesn't have the organisational skills to arrange something like that and waves around the lovely guft that he did get me. Nonetheless, I was crazed.

Of course once we had thrown our rucksacks in our rooms we were off for another little hike up yet another ridge.

And a crafty cigarette!

Then back to Lobuche for my first birthday surprise - some Everest whiskey! OMG, this was the first booze to pass my lips for a week and that combined with the lack of oxygen hit me deliciously hard.

And as we were drinking our tea with whiskey, I could hear frantic whisking sounds coming from the kitchen. I thought to myself, "No, they couldn't possibly be trying to make a cake for me at 4910m! They'll never get enough air into the batter.". But lo and behold, they had indeed made a cake for me. I'm not gonna say it was the best cake I ever had but it deffo got points for effort. :-) And thank goodness it wasn't chocolate.

But as much fun as that was, it had to be an early night because in the morning we were off to Gorak Shep and THEN Base Camp!

Pheriche Rest Day

As usual I was up at dawn so I quietly sat outside and just watched the sunrise on the mountains.

As you can see, my suspicion about the monsoon bore out and we had a beautiful day.

I was also joined by a yak. Yaks are usually rather frightening to me (not that I'd had much experience prior to this). But I think you'll agree that this yak was after scritches. He or she kinda circled around and got to about 10 feet away from me when my porter came out and chased it away.

After a horrid breakfast (good thing I brought that bread from Namche). The only thing I could bring myself from the kitchen at the Pumori was hardboiled eggs and dry toast from my loaf. It seemed safest.

After breakfast we scrambled up the ridge above the lodge which took us to exactly 5000m.

It was lovely up on that ridge.

Anyway, after I got back down I managed to get a hot shower. I was so glad to scrub off the sweat of the previous few days and get into some clean clothes! I cleverly left clothes to be laundered in the stream so that when I got back from Base Camp there would be something clean to get into.

I honestly felt that I could have hiked up to the next village that day so was actually glad to get the rest day over. Especially because the next day would be my birthday. :-)

Deboche to Pheriche

At this point we're on Day 5 of actually trekking if you're still counting. I know that by this point, I was having trouble keeping track of which day of the week it was.

As mentioned in the previous post, Deboche is in the bottom of a valley filled with rhododendron forest. Sorry that the following pic is sideways but, although I can get it to rotate on my machine, it just will not rotate in this screen.

As we climbed out of the valley, the landscape really started to change.

And alpine flowers began to appear. In some places it was a true millefleur and ever so lovely. I also noticed that the bumblebees appeared to have pink bottoms. Is it an adaptation to the high UV? I wish I knew!

And finally pulled in to the home stretch to Pheriche and a well deserved rest day.

We would be staying at The Pumori Lodge - primarily I hope because it was the only place open this early in the season. Otherwise I would DEFINITELY recommend staying at The Himalayan Hotel which looked far far nicer.

The Pumori might be nicer in the high season but I can't imagine it. This place seemed grim. There were no working lights outside of the common room. Not even in the filthy and smelly toilet. I ended up going to sleep at 7:30 pm because the place was so awful and sleep was the only way to escape.

Namche to Deboche

I'm back and recovered from the trek but will post on a "day-by-day" basis as if i was still in the mountains. Mostly because I'm exhausted and overwhelmed at the mo' and also because I have ~500 pics to sift through.

So, there I was in Namche. A beaten and broken woman and yet only a few days into the misery that was this trek. Fortunately I had the foresight to buy myself a loaf of bread at the konditorie as there turned out to be no bread further up the valley.

 At this point we started hiking about 8 hours per day so the pace really increased. We travelled to Deboche this day via the Thangboche monastery which was shut for their annual mediation from August 14 - Sept. 28th. Or in the language of Discowrld, the Listening Monks were busy listening. I know this because when I passed a bit of wind at the gate they all came rushing out at which point I slipped in some yak shit and it all got a bit messy.

BTW, the gas thing was unintentioanl but a result of a nasty combo of immodium and high altitude flatulence.

Anyway, once past the monastery we descended into the rhododendron forests which were lovely. There we saw both mountain goats and musk deer.

When we finally got to Deboche I was utterly shattered. You know that  Four Yorkshiremen sketch? Well i honestly did go uphill both ways in the rain and the cold. Started off at 3450m, went up to 3600m then down to 3350m then up to 3850m then down to 3750m. 'Nuff said.

I also discovered that we had left the land of western flushing toilets and entered the land of either using a hole in the floor or using normal porcelain that was "flushed" by dint of dipping a large can into a cistern of water and pouring water down the bowl. Still, at least the Paradise Lodge in Deboche was clean. And i met a lovely but utterly mad couple from Louven in Belgium who had been yak herding for the previous 3 weeks. And y'all thought I was bonkers!

SHE'S BACK!!!!

After 2 days in Kathmandu filled with shopping, sightseeing, and other bits I'll allow Asti to detail in her post trek reportage; she caught her flight home. Early this morning she texted me from Delhi airport that she was waiting for her connecting flight to Heathrow and from the flight arrivals board it looks like she will be arriving a bit earlier than scheduled tonight.
We'll be at Terminal 4 awaiting her arrival in a couple of hours.