Retracing our steps.... Down to Debuche where I sit and meditate in the quiet nunnery. Down to Namche and the feeling of towns and people. Down to Lukla in a long day of hiking where we celebrate the end of our trek.
Trekking
EBC: Taking Care of Our Staff
Heading up a trip means not only caring for 8-18 clients but also keeping an eye on 15-80 Nepali staff. At lunch I looked over to see Mani, one of our wonderful sherpa client escorts, scratching his stomach. Then I saw him do it again...and something looked wrong to...
EBC: Lunch Is Where You Make It.
Today, it's on a patio--and we welcome the sunny warmth back in a land of vegetation and village homes. U.s. Marine Corps
EBC: Pangboche Monastery
Pangboche is home to a 600-year-old monastery (the first in the Khumbu Valley). Built around a rock where a famous lama once meditated, the dim interior is filled with old statues, crumbling relics, wrathful deities behind locked doors, and the exaggerated faces of...
EBC: Living At Base Camp?
After a night on the glacier, I wondered what it would be like to spend TWO MONTHS living at Base Camp. So I asked Pemba.... The first few days living at Base Camp is not too bad, but when we are staying a long time, you feel kind of boring. You want to see more...
EBC: Overnight on the Glacier
Lying in a tent in Everest Base Camp, you can hear the ever-moving glacier beneath you crack and pop. Minor avalanches fall with a rumble and a rush on the surrounding mountains, their plumes of snow invisible in the darkness. These are the sounds of night at the edge...
EBC: Medical Doctors and Icefall Doctors
Two kinds of doctors exist at EBC... Luann Freer founded the Himalayan Rescue Association in 2003 when she realized that expeditions were sending sick and injured sherpas down hours of hiking for treatment because the expeditions didn't want to "waste" medical...
EBC: Reaching Everest Base Camp
Crossing rockslides and stepping out onto the glacier, we are dwarfed by contours of ice. EBC is not a flat space, but rather a sprawling, convoluted array of tents amid the rock and ice. It's a tremendous amount of work to clear enough flat space for camps and...
EBC: Make Way for the Yak Caravans
Nightlife In We're going up, but the yaks are coming down. Yak caravans ferry supplies to Everest Base Camp on the same trail we hike along. An expedition runs on its stomach, so food is constantly being brought up to support the hundreds of people at base camp....
EBC: At Our Peak–18,450 ft.
Reaching the top of Kala Patar (the classic viewpoint for Mt. Everest) is an arduous 2-3 hour climb to a rocky summit strewn with prayer flags. While the mountains appear still and serene, the wind actually whips and gusts against us with imposing force. Only 50% of...
EBC: Towards Pumori
Club Purgatory Few people take the high trail out of Lobuche, but I like to. The short climb brings us out into the morning sun while the lower trail is still cold in the mountains' shadow. Dramatic views of Pumori (a peak so beautiful it was named "Daughter of the...
EBC: Yak Grazing Territory
Dingboche is the highest permanent settlement in the region. Rock walls protect potato fields from grazing yaks, and we take an acclimatization hike up the valley. From here on up, the air is thin and oxygen grows scarce! Hiking out of Dingboche, the views become even...