Advertisement
Published: December 19th 2018
Edit Blog Post
Today turned out to be easier and much more enjoyable than I had thought it would be. I didn’t sleep as well as usual, mostly due to waking up short of breath due to the high altitude. Despite this I felt refreshed on getting up and feel well I myself. We enjoyed breakfast with our companions from yesterday and set off on our way in yet more glorious sunshine.
The walk from Lobuche to Gorak Shep is only about 200m ascent. The trail is once again extremely well travelled and we got stuck behind large groups of trekkers and yak trains. Expecting it to take about 2.5hrs we were pleasantly surprised to arrive just after 10am. The recommended Himalayan lodge had rooms for all of us (including a double bed for Stephen and I!). We dropped off our bags, had a snack and ordered another packed lunch.
We set off towards Everest base camp around 11am. We were torn between that and Kala Patthar as the weather was so good but as base camp should take around 6hrs we decided we needed the extra time tomorrow to try and walk to Dzangla rather than Lobuche.
After about an hour
Base camp
Because it’s not the climbing season there aren’t as many tents as usual we reached a sign which said ‘Everest base camp’ but there was no sign of any tents. Carrying on along the Khumbu glacier moraine wall we reached the actual base camp by 1240ish. There was a small group of tents and a porter setting up more. There was a large cairn and lots of prayer flags.
Some people are apparently disappointed by base camp - I was unexpectedly excited by it. It wasn’t what I imagined as there is currently no snow on the ground. Instead it’s a rocky, unlevel area on the glacier.
Behind it is the Khumbu ice fall.
We took some photos and then sat in the sun and ate our packed lunches (boiled eggs and a peanut butter & honey sandwich for us - expensive bliss!).
After lunch Robin, Stephen and myself decided to walk behind the prayers flags and along the glacier to get a closer view of the ice fall. It is scary and beautiful - I cannot believe people manage to cross it every year.
Base camp thoroughly explored we headed back to the teahouse. We arrived back by 3ish - meaning it took us around 4 hrs including a long lunch
stop. We are hoping this means Kala Patthar won’t take us 4 hrs tomorrow morning but as we are getting slightly more tired each day we shall see whether or not that’s the case.
On the walk up to base camp we bumped into some people Miriam & Robin had previously met. I think it’s easy to forget how dangerous this walk is. One guide explained how he had had to helicopter evacuate one of the guys they had met due to altitude issues. He also then told us a French girl who was walking alone had got lost in the glacial crossing we did yesterday and had fallen down a crevice and died. I’m very glad we seem to have found a group to join and just hope I can keep up!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.059s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 15; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0209s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb