Everest Adventure in Two Parts - Part Do (Two)

Late in the afternoon on our seventh day on the trail we finally dragged ourselves into Gorak Shep, the last settlement on the trail up to the Mt. Everest base camp. Gorak Shep consists of three or four guest houses clustered together in a sandy valley, perhaps the former site of a glacial lake. Unlike most of the other settlements we'd passed through on the way up, this place's only purpose was catering to trekkers. Other villages support agriculture or yak-ranching or craft production, but Gorak Shep is exclusively a base for trekkers and climbers.

At 5,140m (16,864 ft) the air was ever-so thin and cold. This is how it must feel to be very old, we thought. You can never catch your breath and every step is an effort. The landscape was extreme, more so than anything I've seen outside of Antarctica. Nothing but blue sky, black rock, and snow and ice.



After an uncomfortable night in our Gorak Shep guest house, we rose early and headed up the last 3 hours of trail to the base camp itself. Surrounded by high mountains as we were, the valley was in shadow until nearly 10:30am. By that time we were trekking on the Khumbu glacier, a flow of ice descending off Mt. Everest, channeled into a stream between Nuptse and Khumbutse Mountains. About 2/3rds of the climbing trail up Mt. Everest itself is up the Khumbu ice fall, an extremely treacherous landscape of crevasses and shifting ice.

There was not much to mark the site of the base camp itself. There are no permanent buildings there, and outside of the climbing season (March-May) the only man-made structures are patches of flat stones used as tent platforms and a few crudely made stone wind barriers and roofless huts. The main attraction of the base camp is the spectacular views of the Khumbu ice fall, winding up between the mountains to the towering bulk of Mt. Everest, just out of site behind the nearer mountains (see picture above). At 5364m, the base camp is just a bit higher than Gorak Shep.



By the time we started our return journey back to Gorak Shep, the sun had finally made it above the towering mountains and into the valley. Within minutes of the sun hitting it, the dirty ice we were walking on came alive, creaking and cracking and suddenly sprouting rivulets of melt water. It was a little intimidating, and made us remember we were wandering around on a very active glacial flow.

Back at Gorak Shep we ate a quick lunch and then rolled right back out the door for our assent of Kala Pattar, a stony hill right near the village, from the top of which there is a good view of the Mt. Everest summit. Lemme tell you, this hill is *steep*. It would be a pain in the butt at sea-level, let alone at five and a half thousand meters. But our perseverance was rewarded, and as the sun started to set we stood on the top at 5,550m in a stiff wind, treated to an amazing view of the mountain, the glacier and the mountain-ringed valley at the top of the world.

Mt. Everest in the center




Mt. Everest in the center, looking a little smaller than the nearer Mt. Nuptse on the right.

After one more night at Gorak Shep (our eight night on the trail) it was time to walk down-hill for a change. We'd made such good time on the way up, we got a little ambitious and decided to take the long way home. Rather than decending the way we'd come, we only retraced our steps as far as Lobuche and then cut away to the east, following the trail over the Cho La Pass and decending the neihboring valley. So much for going downhill - the Cho La Pass tops out at 5,330m, almost as high as the base camp. Our ninth night was spent at Dzonglha, the crummiest and most expensive guest house yet, and then on the tenth day we tackled the pass. After a sharp slog up switchbacks and a 2-hour boulder scramble, we made it into the glaciated pass. This was probably the sketchiest part of the entire trail, crossing the icy and steep snow pack with nothing but one trekking pole to check my decent if I'd fallen and slid. The trail across the snow was not well marked, and we were worried about straying into areas of unstable ice.


The glacier in the Cho La pass


But we lived, and after slipping and sliding down a scree slope and dodging falling rocks on the far side, we had 2 days to make it back to Lukla to catch my flight to Kathmandu. During the day we rolled down the river valley as the terrain got greener and the air palatably thicker. On nights ten and eleven we slept at Dragnag and Mong. And finally, after an epic 12 hour hike on the twelfth day, we arrived back in Lukla a little foot sore but contented and amazed by our experiences.