Everest Trek: Part 4

Gorak Shep to Gokyo

Everest Base Camp was all well and fine, and we solidly checked it off our list.  Our next and likely much harder goal was to cross over Cho La Pass at 17,611 feet.  For those wearing altimeters, that is 11 feet higher than Everest Base Camp---hey, it counts!  Crossing Cho La pass afforded us access to the Ngozumba Glacier and valley and also the prized Gokyo Ri, the best vantage point to admire Mount Everest.   Crossing Cho La pass to Gokyo included navigating rocks, cables, snow, ice, rockfalls, landslides and two glacier crossings.  So, in Kathmandu we bought $10 “normal” micro-spikes.  Surely, they would save us from any catastrophic ice related mishaps. Also, to add more entertainment and friendship to the mix, in Gorak Shep we teamed up with Carlyn and Roàn, a mother and son duo originally from the Netherlands, but currently living in Qatar.  We were the only parent/child combos to be found on the mountaintop, so it seemed appropriate we team up to make a superhero roster of moms, dad and kid hikers for the duration of the trek.  The wonderful surprise of completing the Everest trek was the interesting and incredible community of fast friendships built on the trail and in the teahouses.  It was fun to learn about others and to speculate and keep up on their trail adventures, successes and failures. And if you are wondering, Germany appears to send the most trekkers to Everest.  They know how to travel!

Cho La pass ended up being more hype than substance.  It was an uphill challenge no doubt, but by the time we arrived mid-March, the snow and ice were not a difficult obstacle or barrier to our success.  Snickers bars, sandwiches, and water were enough to power us over the hill and at the same time provide enough weight to keep us from sliding off.  The wire cables down the rocky scree on the downhill side may have also helped—but we like the Snickers strategy much more than the cables.   Upon completing Cho La pass and staggering down the never-ending muddy knolls and river drainage, we overnighted in Dragnag.  It was here where bucket showers were ordered for all—and Gary, we insisted it included him too.  Bucket showers are a teahouse extra.  They cost approximately $5-6 and include a bucket of half boiling water and half cold water and provide just enough water to wash the stink off.  It’s mostly a pleasant experience if the ambient air is above freezing.  Interestingly, if you order about 1/3 the amount of boiling water to drink in a thermos, it cost $10-11.  The unusual pricing had us briefly consider savagely drinking bucket water.

The next day to Gokyo, while our shortest day of trekking, became our most hair-raising and death defying.  The Ngozumba Glacier was a feisty opponent.  From Dragnag, we crested a small lip of a hill and slid down the sandy glacial cut to the bulk of the icy glacier.  The next several hours were spent walking up, down and around threatening chunks of ice, rocks, gravel, and icy ponds.  Gary, maybe feeling a bit too clean from the bucket shower the night before, added extra thrill by tripping and sliding in the prone position down several embankments.  Climbing in the Everest region may be breaching the manufacturer’s warranty on his new hip replacement. But I am happy to say, the robotic man is thriving now.

The most terrifying moments came just as it seemed we were home free and near Gokyo.  From where the bulk of the ice lays and the cut the glacier makes down the valley, there is a steep, gravel, sandy hill of approximately 100 meters trekkers must climb to exit the glacier. It is spring in the Himalayas and everything is melting and turning to mud, and the rocky exit was no exception to this seasonal change.  The spring melt made for seriously unstable earth.  The hillside was releasing rock after rock, sliding dirt and debris.  We had to cross the path of the rockslides and make a diagonal cut up the hillside.  Down low we wove our way around giant boulders and rocks which were formerly home higher on the hill at one point.  Above we could see rocks perched with cracked earth below patiently waiting for their release.  All this evidence was not a reassuring feeling.  With our hearts beating fast and with no idea what to do in a rockfall, we desperately clawed and dodged our way out of harms way.  Since you can only go so fast uphill and at such a high altitude, it was a bit of a slow-motion horror film montage of spitting earth as the five of us scrambled to exit the glacier. 

After a good night sleep, we tackled Gokyo Ri.  This was a worthy trophy at 17,575 feet and offered the best views of Mount Everest.  Our adventure to the Ngozumba Glacier and Gokyo Ri was a solid accomplishment and definitely worth the effort.