Day #5 - Everest BaseCamp
Wednesday, February 23rd
Itinerary- Lukla to Phakding
Elevation: 9,350’ to 8,661’
The kidding around is over!! Coming to you live from a hut in Phakding - at an elevation of 8,661’. It’s 4:15pm - we finished our hike today at 3pm. I’ve been getting my room organized for the past hour. Now I’m chilling in the lounge with a bunch of our group. I’m periodically writing and talking - it’s a really relaxing time of day.
Today started at 4am. We caught a shuttle to the airport at 5am for a 6:30am flight from Kathmandu to Lukla. If you read any descriptions on the Everest BaseCamp trek - you’ll often hear many stories about the Lukla flight - as in “one of the most dangerous/terrifying flights in the world”. Lukla’s airport is on the side of a mountain with a very small runway. There’s little room for error by the pilots. Plus, you’re in this extremely small plane, packed in like sardines, going down the Khumbu Valley between huge mountains that often generate low layers of fog and clouds. Good news - we made it safely!!!!
The weather today was absolutely spectacular. We stayed in Lukla for a couple of hours before starting our trek to allow for the coordination of the yak team (which are carrying our bags to our final destination each day). We had breakfast and took a ton of pictures while walking around the town.
We started our trek about 9am. The itinerary indicated 4.4 miles - we actually went 6.5 miles. The trek took 5 hours. We had a 647’ ascent and a 1,459’ descent. We grabbed lunch for about an hour midway through the hike. Hopefully the pictures tell the story - it was unreal scenery working our way through the Valley.
The 1 bad thing about today - there was a section of trail under construction- so we had to do this bypass. The bypass was up/down this sketchy hill with tons of mud and really slick conditions. I fell once - no big deal. But then I tripped again - saved it with my trekking pole - only to completely break off the handle of one of my poles. I’m going to try and get a replacement pole tomorrow in Namche Bazar (our final destination tomorrow). There must have been a defect with the pole - I’ve done this hundreds of times before without any issues.
We met for dinner at 6pm down in the lounge. It was a quick meal followed by a briefing for tomorrow’s hike. Tomorrow is a big day - we’ll get to 11,300’ and cover 3,000’ vertical I went back to the room and I’m finishing the blog now at 7:30pm. I need to get some good sleep.
So - it’s freezing cold here tonight - low 20’s. I bought a -20 deg F sleeping bag to make sure I can get warm on the trip - for these very conditions Hopefully it performs well tonight I’m feeling OK right now I have some congestion and a bit of a sore throat - but mostly good I think I’m going to start my Diamox medication tomorrow. This medication helps your body acclimatize to the altitude changes I took it for Kilimanjaro - hoping it will allow me to feel good through the duration of the hike. I live at 6,000’ and often see elevations in the 8,000-11,000’ while doing treks in Colorado. I’ve also done a number of 14,000’ peaks in Colorado. I’m a bit worried when we’ll be sleeping over 16,000’ in a few days - I want to be prepared.
Alright - gotta shut it down. To good health and good strength!! Keep it strong out there!!
Thanks for taking us along on your adventure! The information, stories, and pictures are fascinating.
ReplyDeleteYour sister would NOT have liked that plane, flight, or airport!
Stay safe.
Wishing you the best, Kyle! What an awesome endeavor!
ReplyDelete