We started our 19 day Everest Base Camp (EBC) trek with a quick flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, the airport in the Himalayas built by Edmund Hilary (who is a legend up here). It was my first time on a twin propped plane and the trip was pretty intense. It was delayed for about 20 minutes due to clouds, and as Arjun (my guide) said "Nepali clouds have rocks in the them". The airstrip truly is a mountain airstrip. The flight follows along the Himalayan chain into the Khumbu (Everest) region, the plane banks hard right and then plummets, not really a decent, and in front of your view is an airstrip that looks to be 1/4 mile long and uphill. We later found out that there have been 8 planes that missed the front of the runway and slammed into the mountain just before it. But as Arjun says, smiling people are lucky people and we landed safely. The main EBC trail starts right out of the airport in the bustling little town of Lukla. The town itself was much more developed than I anticipated and the furnishings of the lodges where beautiful hand-crafted wood. I was extremely surprised at how nice everything was so far. Until this point I had kept my expectations low about food and accommodations but things were looking up already. After a quick breakfast of toast and eggs we set off at a leisurely pace. The trail out of Lukla actually starts downhill. We cruised along the low lying valley, following field upon field of crops for the area through a rather thick forest. We passed several rhododendrons, which happen to be the national flower of Nepal along the way as well. The trail itself goes along a valley with a beautiful river flowing at its base. The water is by far the bluest and clearest river water that I had ever seen and was simply beautiful. The steepness of the valley ensured that it was constantly flowing at a good rate creating small rapids and waterfalls at every twist and turn. For the most part I was more awe struck by the river than the mountains on this day due to the clouds that loomed overhead. We were very lucky to have flown on this day at all, only 3 planes got off the ground and we happened to be the last ones. There were really no mountains to speak of on this day, but the valley walls were extremely steep and seemed quite high from our low position on the trail. I was loving every second of the hike thus far, probably because it was pretty much all downhill. We ended up at a teahouse in this little town called Benkar owned by an adorable sherpa family. It was actually, as we would later find out, the smallest teahouse that we stayed at along the way. Like the town of Lukla, this teahouse was very nicely furnished and the food was excellent. Had my first serving of dal bhat (the national dish of Nepal) which consists of rice, curry vegetables, and lentil soup. Nepali's eat it with their hands, but the wimpy westerners like myself use a fork and spoon. At the teahouse I met my first American, Amy, who was a buddhist nun that had studied under the Grand Master who studied under the Dalai Llama (I'm probably screwing that up somehow but she was definitely not your typical American). The night was very cold but the family had amazing fleece blankets that they gave to us to stay warm.
Prayer flags and the river from a bridge
Prayer stonesDay 2 - Benkar to Namche Bazaar
The 2nd day started off much the same as the first, more clouds/fog/annoying stuff to get in the way of the mountain views. I had my first, certainly not my last, bit of tibetban bread with peanut butter for breakfast. Tibetan bread is a dense fried dough that is referred to as trekkers bread because its quite high in calories and a good way to start the day before a long trek....and boy would I need it today. The trail continued to follow the valley floor for most of the way, weaving in and out of forest and crossing over the river that we'd been following the previous day. The blue waters continued to leave me awe-struck. Amazingly to cross the river, which you do several times at this elevation there are this long cable bridges that are amazing fun. If you get in the middle and slowly start to bounce you can hit the natural frequency of these things and have some fun, ok, I'm a huge engineering nerd I know. But the bridges are really cool to walk across, especially when you are crossing with a heard of yaks (there are a TON of them up there, no real need to hire a guide on the trail just follow the string of yak poo all the way to base camp). At about the midpoint of the day we finally entered Sagarmatha National Park (Sagarmatha = Everest in Nepali) and the real trekking began. Up, up, and more up. We had continued downhill out of Benkar all morning and that ended quickly as we started up the 3,000 foot hill into the town of Namche Bazaar. It was a long...very long, slow climb. And I really do mean slow. Between the elevation, Namche is at about 11,000 feet, and the steep grades your walking becomes more like a waddle and you have to stop to catch your breath every 50 feet. We finally made it into the town of Namche which is on a hillside overlooking some beautiful hills (though we couldn't see them on this day due to the clouds). The town is the largest of the region as it is the center for the Sherpa community and a winter retreat for those that also own homes higher in the hills. The town was larger than I expected and was in the shape of a horseshoe following the steep walls of the valley that it sits in. It was almost like a mini Thamel with trekking shops all over the place, they even had internet cafes up here ($1 for 6 minutes though). We stayed at a nice guest house that was mostly filled with people heading down who told us all about the cold and the beautiful views up ahead. We still hadn't seen any of them due to the weather but I was loving the valley all the same, looking down out of it actually reminded me a bit of Yosemite's valley. It was again freezing at night and we went to bed early hoping for blue skies in the morning.
Typical porterDay 3 - Day off Namche Bazaar
When we woke up on our rest/acclimatization day we looked out the windows to see a blizzard blanketing the valley. There would certainly be no beautiful views today. It was a freak storm according to the locals but was very frustrating, when were we ever going to see the mountains? We were currently at 11,000 feet which is not high enough for pure snow (Nepal is at a lower altitude than much of New England) so it was a sloppy mess of wet snow flakes that reminded me of a New England snow storm. Nothing really stuck, just made a mess of everything. It was a long frustrating day though as we were stuck inside for most of it. We were scheduled to climb a hill-top for acclimatization purposes (the general rule is go high, sleep low) and to get our first views of Everest but those were nixed due to the weather. We instead chatted it up with some Germans about life up higher on the trail, they said it was cold but the struggle was worth the views. We kept our fingers crossed. In the afternoon the snow let up and Stewart and I climbed a hill since we were getting a bit stir-crazy sitting in the guest house for so long with nothing to do. It was good to stretch the legs, but more of the same, fog and clouds, no real views.
Typical bridge on the trail
Typical village along the way
