Some of the Best World Treks – Part 4

This was my third long trek at an altitude above 5,000 meters. It was quite a long and exhausting trek. It all started at Lukla Airport. They don’t call Lukla the world's most dangerous airport for nothing. Just a few meters of runway and then… nothing. Accidents often happen here. Sometimes it’s the shortness of the runway, but in most of the cases the problems are caused by strong fog. But you must take this into consideration if you plan to come here and do this trek.

All you need is lots of warm clothes, a sleeping bag for minus 20 degrees, a good sunscreen and the most important part, a great desire and passion to do the whole thing. Since I already had experience with high mountains, I assumed it wouldn’t be such an issue this time. “I’m going to make it till the end,” I said to myself. And we started walking early in the morning after we had finished our breakfast in the village of Lukla at an altitude of 2,800 meters.

First, we headed down to the village called Phakding, where we would spend our first night. We entered the Sagarmatha National Park. We hiked near small wooden houses, farms, fields, and some small shops, where we could buy some drinks, and I remember one particularly good bar, where you could have real coffee and not the one we had every day for breakfast (which was made from coffee and milk powder).

The next day we walked together near the river, named the Dudh Kosi river. From Phakding, our next stop was Namche Bazaar, where our goal was to acclimate for two days. As we walked further, we crossed many swinging suspension bridges. The incredibly famous one is the Hillary suspension bridge. It’s the grandest and scariest suspension bridge of the whole trek. We had made it across just before a train of yaks came along. From there it was about two hours straight uphill until we reached Namche Bazaar at an altitude of 3,445 meters.

Namche Bazaar is the biggest village along the way. It has everything. Laundry, coffee shops, tea houses, excellent bakeries, also plenty of shops if you forgot your gloves somewhere or if you need new pants. Also, a view of Everest if it’s a clear sunny day. The next day we did some acclimatization around Namche and visited the Sherpa Museum. There was a statue of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay outside the building. Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the 8,864-meter-high summit of Everest on May 29 in 1953, becoming the first people to stand atop the world's highest mountain.

When we came back for dinner, I ordered dal bhat, which was a common dish along the way. Dal bhat is a traditional meal in the Indian subcontinent. It consists of steamed rice and a cooked lentil soup called dal.

As you may have noticed in some of my photos, local Sherpas carry tremendous loads on their backs. The entire economy of the mountain depends on them and the yaks because they bring food and supplies to villages lying at high altitudes. It’s a common job in this society, but it comes with a price. I can only imagine the strain on the backs, hips, and knees of these men (and occasionally women) as they push forward and uphill.

The following day, the village of Tengboche followed. It lies at an altitude of 3,875 meters and is known for the monastery we passed by.

Day five began with an ascent to Dingboche, at the elevation of 4,410 meters, and during the walk, one of the most recognisable peaks on the road was the Ama Dablam mountain. Ama Dablam in translation means “Mother’s Necklace”. We again walked by the river. It was colder and quite windy that day. That night was also the first night when I had problems with the altitude. I couldn’t sleep. I was breathing heavily and my heart was pounding wildly.

The next morning, I knew I wasn’t one hundred percent OK, but I continued with my group further up to Lobuche, to an altitude of 4,910 meters. Altitude sickness usually goes away after some time. Nobody wants to disturb other trekkers with their problems. If you have a problem, you should tell your guide. He’s paid to care for you during the trek.

We walked five to six hours every day. We slept in cold rooms, wearing hats and lying inside our sleeping bags. The kitchen was the place where we gathered around the fire in the evenings, talked about how the day went, and prepared ourselves for the night and the next day. After dinner, our guides gave us instructions for the next day.

On the way to Lobuche, I felt great. The views were spectacular. There were snow-capped mountains everywhere around us. The path wasn’t too steep, so I didn’t have problems walking. But signs of altitude sickness started showing. A mild headache, nights of restless sleep and lack of appetite. Somewhere on the way, there was a little village, where we grabbed some lunch. I also started having talking problems there. I couldn’t speak normally. Not one normal sentence came from my mouth. It was better after an hour.

After six hours of walking, we came to Lobuche. This sleeping place wasn’t as nice as the previous ones. But we couldn’t expect fancy rooms so high up in the mountains. At dinner time, my guide measures my blood pressure. The results weren’t that good. But we all knew we were at a high altitude. There was a bakery in Lobuche. It’s the highest bakery in the world, at an elevation of 4,910 metres. A hot cup of tea and some chocolate cake made my day. I regained my appetite.

The next night we headed towards Gorak shep, where we would sleep the next night at an even higher altitude of 5,100 meters. Our guides said nobody could eat so high. Not for lunch nor for dinner, so we shouldn’t worry about that, they said. Just that we should drink plenty of tea or water.

It was a beautiful sunny day on our way to Gorak shep. I think this was the day we made an enormous number of photos. We walked, we laughed, we talked, we photographed each other, and the problems with altitude sickness somehow went away for some time. Everything around us was giant.

We came to Gorak shep, rested a bit and, after a small lunch, our goal was to reach Everest base camp at an altitude of 5,365 metres, which was three hours away from Gorak shep. Then we had to come back and sleep at a terrible altitude of 5,100 meters. That meant nearly ten hours of hiking that day, since the trek to Base Camp and then back again takes full six hours.

After lunch, we started towards our goal. We headed to the place where all enthusiasts, who want to climb to the top of Everest, gather in May. We walked for about three hours there. There were lots of rocks along the way and the Khumbu glacier was nearby all the time. In case you didn’t know, the Everest base camp is essentially a pile of rocks and flags. And, in May, there are also yellow tents of those going to the top of the mountain.

We came back to the lodge exhausted. After dinner (I couldn’t eat a lot, so I just ate a few potatoes and drank lots of tea), I went to my room to prepare myself for one more difficult night.

Sleeping at such a high altitude is a crazy thing to do! Until now, the highest altitude I slept at was 4,600 meters. But the one we slept at the night before was an elevation of 4,910 metres, which was also hard. After a horrible night’s sleep, I rose and saw my own breath in front of me. Despite the cold, I woke up sweating a few times during the night. I forced down a quick breakfast (which I couldn’t eat) and finally we started descending. But what I also started experiencing was a very dry cough. The guide explained to me that a lot of trekkers get this cough.

The Khumbu cough, also known as the high-altitude cough, is named after the area in the Everest region. Nearly all people who spend time at an extreme altitude (over 5,500 meters) will develop some degree of the Khumbu cough. It’s caused by the low humidity and sub-zero temperatures experienced at such an altitude. I had the cough for four weeks until I took some antibiotics.

From Gorak Shep, where I made a successful ascent, we started descending to an elevation of 4,200 meters towards the village of Pheriche, and the next day we headed back to Namche Bazaar, and the day after that back to Lukla. There, we slept for the last time before we flew back to Kathmandu early in the morning. Unfortunately, the fog in Lukla was terrible and the planes couldn’t fly, so we had to extend our stay in Lukla for another day before heading back to Kathmandu.

Kathmandu is a big city. It lies at an altitude of 1,400 meters. It’s full of crazy drivers and it’s dirty, but, somehow, good energy surrounds it. Many of the city's historic sites were damaged or destroyed in the 2015 earthquake. We stayed there for two more nights to get a proper shower and a decent meal, as well as to talk about our experiences up there in the mountains.

Thank you, Everest base camp, for such an amazing experience worth trying, but once was enough for me.