So I have now crossed off the #1 on my list - hiking to Everest Base Camp! I was so lucky to have my trekking peeps - Cindy, Mitch, Mike, and John - join me for the adventure! It tooks us 13 days! That is right - 13 days with no shower! We stayed in local tea houses with other hikers. The rooms were basic and with our sleeping bags we tried to stay warm. It was COLD in Nepal. We would sit in the common area at night playing UNO and eating popcorn. Then after dinner we headed right to bed to prepare for the next day. Most of the time we were so cold but had a great time enduring a tough but amazing clmib! Lots of great memories and stories! We are all now "best friends"! Can't wait for our next journey!
Here was our schedule:
NOV 7: Transfer to airport, fly from Kathmandu to Lukla (9184 feet/ 2840 meters), trek to Jorsale
NOV 8: Trek to Namche Bazaar - the last town with running water and a post office! 11,283 feet/ 3440 meters
NOV 9: Acclimatization day in Namche, rest days were my least favorite cause we did some amazing high hike to get used to the alitutude!
NOV 10: Trek to Tengboche, 12,664 feet/ 3860 meters - this was one heck of a hike! Steep and hard stairs!
NOV 10: Trek to Tengboche, 12,664 feet/ 3860 meters - this was one heck of a hike! Steep and hard stairs!
NOV 11: Trek to Dingboche, 14,465 feet/ 4410 meters
NOV 12: Acclimatization trek to Chhukhung 15,518 ft, return to Dingboche - again I hate rest days! I actually got food poisioning on this day when we were coming down from the mountain. I didn't feel well for several hours. Not fun getting sick in a tea house with no running water! But the team was so nice to me and helped me through it!
NOV 13: Trek to Lobuche, 16,109 ft/ 4910 meters - now we are really high! Crazy!
NOV 14: Trek to Gorak Shep 16,863 feet/ 5140 meters then on to EBC 17,590 feet/ 5267 meters. We reached the Everest Base Camp at 1:05pm! Amazing! It was a hard hike through rocks and the glacier! But we did it! And then returned to Gorak Shep.
NOV 15: Trek to Kala Patthar at 5am to see sunrise over Mount Everest! 18,187 feet. This was a hard hike too but we all did it! It was cold and windy at the top!
NOV 16: Trek to Tengboche -
NOV 17: Trek to Jorsale at the first same tea house though now we had gone without showers in many days!
NOV 18: Trek to Lukla, we had some time so we tried all the pubs in Lukla at 2:30pm and enjoyed ourselves until 4:30pm! Not good when we haven't eaten meat in 12 days and wer still at high attilude but we had a blast on the dance floors!
NOV 19: Fly from Lukla to Kathmandu for showers and beer! We enjoyed dinner with our guides and had our first night in a hotel in weeks!
NOV 20: Rest day where we want to the famous bar Rum Noddles for our "footprint" to sign and hang saying we made it to EBC!
I will post some pictures soon!
