Everest Trek: Part 3

Dingboche to Everest Base Camp

The absurdity of what we were doing made us chuckle—“it will take 10 days of trekking to reach the bottom of a mountain”.  Usually, the bottom of the mountain is the boring starting point, but for this journey, the bottom was the destination and pinnacle of excitement.  The “bottom” or Everest base camp sits at approximately 17,600 feet, higher than any summit we have ever reached, including Mount Kenya at 17,057 feet.  On the way up, we learned tagging base camp and posting up for photos would likely be the easy part. The more challenging feat was actually sleeping overnight on the way there. In the final push, we slept in Lobuche at 16,109 feet and in Gorak Shep at 16,863 feet.  While the temperature in our room in Gorak Shep was approximately 14 degrees, we had to make sure our window was cracked, and our sleeping bags were free and clear of our faces, as to not stifle any fresh air finding its way to our lungs.  Gary tossed and turned all nights and often woke up gasping for air.  We had many sleepless nights but learned our patience and slow ascent was paying off. We felt pretty good while hiking and base camp seemed like an achievable goal for us.  This was not the case for many trekkers.  As we meandered up the trail, helicopters kept a brisk business shuttling people off the mountain.  We often heard of people we met early on the trek deciding to take a helicopter down. Aside from James Bond, how many times in your life do you say, “ I am going to need a helicopter”.  Climbing up to Everest Base Camp seems to be a bucket list item for many people and there were so many types of people attempting to do it.  Some were prepared physically, and some were prepared, let’s just say--- more materialistically.  As it turns out, physical preparation pays off more than a new down coat and pants.  I hate to say it, but youthfulness doesn’t hurt either.  Despite the clear acclimatization advantages of youth, the highest population of candidates attempting Everest Base Camp are groups of chuckling, joking men aged 60-70 years—I guess they have the time, jokes, and money to do it.

On our tenth day of trekking, we made our way to Everest Base Camp.  It was joyful to meet friends from earlier on the trek making their way down and hearing their stories of success or peril.  The stories entertained and terrified, but also reminded us we were near.  On the final push to base camp, we picked our way up and down the edge of the the Khumba Glacier, along with many porters and yaks working to supply the base camp for the upcoming climbing season.  A glacier may be the easiest way for ice to tumble down a mountain, but it certainly is not the easiest way for humans to make their way up a mountain—the ever changing trail twists, turns, rises and falls over mounds of rocky moraine, debris, and rock slides churned by the glacier.   And yes, we are talking about the Khumba Glacier.  If you have watched one documentary on Everest, you have heard about the Khumba Glacier, Khumba Icefall and the ice doctors (the Sherpas who carve out safer routes for climbers attempting to summit Everest—we actually saw them hanging out at our lodge).  It was amazing to be walking on the Khumba Glacier with our own two feet and were thrilled to see it all for ourselves.  We gained a deeper understanding of how hard it is to climb the world’s highest peak, which by the way, is even difficult to see from Base camp.  The best view of Everest comes later.  We are immensely proud of Channing for persevering and for being the youngest trekker we personally encountered during our visit who made it to Base Camp—she is one tough cookie!  The Base Camp experience included a lot of “golly, gee whiz… we made it” exclamations and pictures to confirm our achievement.  Unfortunately, our visit wasn’t long, as the menacing clouds approached and the snow was soon to fly, threatening our visibility to safely return to Gorak Shep, our teahouse for the night.  Everest demands respect, whether you are standing at Base Camp or the Summit.  The good new though, no matter where you are standing, is each step back takes you lower and lower, and with that, more oxygen!