Everest Base Camp and back

On December 15 at approximately 2 pm, I made it to the 5364 meter expanse on the Khumbu Glacier that is called "Everest Base Camp". The following morning I made it (hanging on by about a millimeter thick thread) to Kala Pattar at 5550 meters (for incredible views of the Himalaya ranges). The last 2 weeks have been the most trying, most physically exhausting, most gruelling, but also the most rewarding experiences of my life.

In 12 days, my group of 11 foreigners (plus 3 guides and 5 porters) and I trekked approximately 70 miles (not including rest day mileage), gaining then losing about 3 km in altitude (Min altitude: 2600 m, Maximum 5550 m). Most of us suffered from colds as well as altitude sickness and even food poisoning during that time. In 12 days I lost 5 KILOS (11 pounds), you just can't keep up with energy demands of trekking at high altitude. For the first time in 2 weeks, I felt "full" yesterday at dinner having stopped trekking and returning to Kathmandu.

Who else is crazy enough to sign up for this $hit?? 2 Irish Farmers (one is a sub 3 hour marathoner), 4 from the UK (including a personal trainer), 3 from the US (one serves in Iraq), 1 from Australia, and yours truly, the only Canadian on the trip. 4 of the 11 are marathon runners and everybody else is extremely fit in other ways.

So the trek starts from a place called Lukla which you fly in and out of from Kathmandu. There are no motor vehicles in this region WHATSOEVER. Transportation and carrying of goods is by yak or porter. Tenzing-Hillary Airport at Lukla is without a doubt the scariest airport I've ever been to. The runway is extremely short and the landing strip is 60 meters higher on one side (you land going uphill and take off going downhill). If you overshoot the runway, you hit an embankment, if you underestimate it, your plane falls off a cliff. There have been several accidents here, as you can imagine. The Nepalese pilots dress like Tom Cruise...with aviator sunglasses and leather jackets...they think they are IT, which honestly, they are for making the landings and take-offs safely. I gave about 5 sighs of relief on landing safely in Kathmandu.

Weather was perfect, couldn't have been better. Clear days (except the day we fly to Lukla and the day we leave). Got up to about 20-25 degrees at "low altitude"...3000m. Was very cold at night, no heating, often no electricity. We all huddle around by the fire at night. I am glad to have brought my -18 deg C sleeping bag, there were 2 nights when that wasn't even enough.

By Day 4 many of us have developed coughs (one guy started the trip with a cold and it quickly passed through all but 1 of the group members). I think I started coughing Day 3 and Day 4 it turned into a chest cough and cold. The effects of altitude sickness began probably at 3800 m - they aren't huge...mostly just sleep disturbances, and sleep-wake "cycles" of every hour or so instead of constant sleep. By 4900 m it was full blown altitude sickness. You are startled awake several times through the night because your body stops breathing. You wake up and hyperventilate, it's an awful feeling.

We got 3 "rest days" which were optional "torture days"...I partook in all 3 "torture days." One was from 4400 m to 5000 m and back down. The oxygen is getting really limited at this point (in comparison, the oxygen at 5500 m is HALF as much as at sea level). We climb up this pretty steep hill. I broke down getting up there...only 5 of 11 of us attempted it. You look at the hill and think to yourself "No problem, I can do that." In the back of your mind you keep telling yourself, "It's not sea level, it's 4500 or whatever odd meters." But it's hard to wrap your mind around it, you just can't understand why the hill should be so hard and why after taking slow steps up it, you hyperventilate. Again, a terrible terrible feeling...that you just can't get enough oxygen into your system. I thought this "torture day" would put me in good shape for trekking to 4900 m the next day. I felt fine until that evening when sometime thru the night (the coldest night yet...you DID NOT want to leave your sleeping bag unless ABSOLUTELY necessary)...a very intense headache started and I kept up the wake-sleep-wake-sleep cycles. In the morning, I'm completely nauseous. I tell the main guide how I'm feeling and he gives me a cup of hot water and tells me to take Diamox for altitude sickness. I throw up the water 10 minutes later but I think some of the pill stayed...I began to feel better 10 minutes later. Seriously thought I wouldn't be making base camp though, just so sick and so tired. Diamox is truly a wonder drug though, I only needed it for 2 days, but without it I wouldn't have been able to complete the trek.

Only 3 of us make the Kala Pattar excursion (5100 m to 5550 m), it was the coldest I've been in my life, only 0 deg C but who knows what it is with the windchill factor. Brutally freezing. I wanted to turn around so bad and go back down but my guide said "Erin if you don't keep going I will carry you to the top of the mountain." 3 SLOW steps up the mountain and you gotta rest, it is really that exhausting at altutude. Exhaustion at 5100 m is simply getting out of your sleeping bag at night to use the washroom then getting back in and zipping it back up. You're out of breath at that simple act. Heck, you're out of breath packing your sleeping bag up in the morning.

The only real event of the trip was at the end, Day 11...we had done a relatively easy downhill walk for 4 hours and were chilling out at a teahouse (2800 m) by the fire when all of a sudden one of the guys just collapses. No warning, he just faints. Normally when you faint you come to relatively quickly. He didn't. It took 45 minutes for him to speak again and another couple hours for him to get up and start walking. There was talk of sending him to Lukla by pony that night, none of us knew what to do. The owner of the teahouse waved hot coals (with incense) over his body to bring him back to life...the smoke from it is intoxicating, if the guy was having any trouble breathing at all, it probably would have suffocated him. The rest of us can't stop coughing. Luckily, he is fine and is able to complete the final 5 hour trek to Lukla the next day. All of us were quite scared though, it was just the accumulation of days and days of complete exhaustion. Made us all realize the dangers of altitude and exertion on this kind of scale.

Want to write a lot more about this but gotta meet up with the remaining 4 members of my group for dinner...am trying to attach pics but so far no luck.

Hope everyone is in the full swing of the Christmas Season!! Our Christmas treat came early when we were lucky enough to watch TV for an hour or so and saw George W getting shoes thrown at him! We all laughed hysterically for hours that night!

Write more hopefully tomorrow.
Erin