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Published: March 30th 2014
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The next part of the trek saw us complete some long days predominantly walking uphill. We travelled from Namche Bazaar (3400m) to Debouche (3800m) to Dingboche (4400m) to Lobuche (4900m) to Gorak Shep (5100m). We have also found that travelling uphill in Nepal means doing slightly less downhill throughout the day than uphill.
As we climbed the alpine scenery became more sparse, dramatic and stunning. The ups and downs were steep and required careful navigation of stone steps or around yak poo. Luckily the national diet of dhal baat (dhal curry and rice with other assorted curries and pickles) was able to sustain our energy for hours at a time. Each of the lodges and restaurants we sat in did very similar fair in terms of food and drink: There was always noodles, some select western soups, momos (dumplings), dhal baat, about a dozen types of tea and occasionally chocolate cake or apple pie. Its a pretty well catered walk. But we also found that climbing in altitude limited the variety of fresh produce - vegies consisted of potato and cabbage and if there was meat it was generally dried yak. The sleeping bags we hired in Kathmandu for the
journey certainly got a working out - when we returned them I suggested they air them out for several days due to the cabbage.
Speaking of sleeping bags, Kathmandu offers a variety of fake trekking gear. Turns out the bags we hired were not real North Face let alone rated to -30C. Megs bag was pretty good however mine seemed to leak feathers during the night. I had to wear my thermals and hope they had blankets to stay warm. I'm sure my bag leaked several degrees of warmth during the trek and it couldn't have been more than a -5C bag to begin with. Each morning I would wake up as a human chicken for the amount of feathers stuck to my thermals. I'm sure down is meant to be the soft grey baby feathers right? I reckon the feathers stuck to me in the mornings were rooster feathers.
The altitude finally started to exhaust us (mostly me at first) when we ascended above 4000m. We spent 2 nights in Dingboche to acclimatise but I had these thumping headaches and my breathing was irregular during the night (could have been an allergic reaction to the
dinosaur feathers in my sleeping bag I guess...). It was at this point that we decided to start taking the acclimatisation pills (diamox) and they worked wonders. We still strained going uphill but the headaches and breathing were a lot better.
The highest guesthouse that is possible to stay in is at Gorak Shep (5100m). Our walk from Lobuche to Gorak Shep was one of the most trying of the whole trek. Unfortunately Meg began to seriously feel the affects of the altitude at Lobuche and she felt nauseas and out of breadth. We left mid-morning but by the time we were crossing the glacier into Gorak Shep the wind and the snow had picked up and Meg was looking worse for wear. If it weren't for the other necessities in my pack (like my yak jerky and ipod) I would like to have put Meg in there and carry her the rest of the way. 1 kg of yak jerky costs about $10, bargain. Unfortunately for Meg the 'helpful' tourists we passed coming the opposite direction across the glacier were full of differing opinions of time to get to Gorak Shep. I was running on 'dhal baat power,
24 hour' so I was feeling great - also to Megs dismay.
Trekking at altitude is a weird experience because the effects of altitude are so varied and inconsistent. The rescue helicopter would pass us through the valley several times a day escorting people back down the mountain due to altitude sickness and of course this was always in the back of our minds.
Gorak Shep is the gateway to Everest Base Camp (EBC) and Kala Pattar (the peak that has the greatest view of Everest - 5550m). We had heard that there was not very much to see from base camp as very few tents had been set up and you cannot see Everest from this vantage point. Notwithstanding, the return journey to base camp is several hours over the Khumbu glacier and Meg was not very enthusiastic to get back onto the rocky ice. We checked into our guesthouse at Gorak Shep with the plan to get up to Kala Pattar the following morning and then get as far down the valley as possible. After leaving our bags in our little room with snow coming through the closed windows, we settled in front of the wood
stove with the other intrepid trekkers and smashed some dhal baat.
Fully loaded.
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