Trekking to Everest Base Camp: My Experience PART FOUR

You can find Part One of this series HERE
You can find Part Two of this series HERE
You can find Part Three of this series HERE

Lobuche to Gorak Shep - Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar

Me at the top of Kala Patthar surrounded by prayer flags

Hello, Steemians! I will pick up where I left off in my last post. When I arrived in Lobuche in the early afternoon, I found the smallest village I had seen yet and very few teahouses. I went to all of them and most of them were booked in advance by people with guides and I was starting to get a bit worried. I went to the last teahouse in the village and found that while they had rooms, they had no single rooms, luckily for me there were three other independent hikers there in the same situation as me and we struck up a quick friendship over tea and decided to hike together and share rooms in the smaller villages. I shared a room with a Brazilian guy named Christiano who was back for a second attempt to get to basecamp after his last attempt was halted by the earthquake of 2015. The other two hikers were Gabriel from Sweden and Lauri from Finland, we were all of equal fitness levels so it really worked out well for all of us.

Along the trail to Gorak Shep

The next morning we set off early heading for the final village on the trek, Gorak Shep, it was about a 3-4 hour hike and most of it was over loose rock piles which made a mildly difficult to maneuver. We arrived before noon and had a quick lunch before making the decision of how to spend the rest of the day. The typical schedule for hikers is to arrive and head straight for basecamp and then the following morning head up Kala Patthar to watch sunrise over Mt Everest. However, talking to people in the teahouse we learned that the early morning weather had been hit or miss so we decided to head up Kala Patthar that afternoon and see the tallest mountain in the world surrounded by blue skies and take our chances the next morning at basecamp.

Leaving Gorak Shep

Kala Patthar is a small mountain just to the west of Gorak Shep and Everest which provides amazing views at around 5550m above sea level

Christiano stopping to take a photo on the hike up Kala Patthar

I will be honest here, hiking to the top of Kala Patthar was probably one of the toughest things I have ever done in the mountains, the air was increasingly thin and I had a pounding headache that wouldn't quit the whole time. It took us about 1-1.5 hours to get to the top and by the time we got there I was exhausted and had to sit for a few minutes to get my composure, but once I did I was blown away. The views were completely unbelievable in comparison to anything I had ever seen before, I have spent a lot of time in the Canadian Rockies but this was completely different. We spent about an hour up there basking in the view of the tallest mountain in the world, it was a beautiful day and I am so glad we made the decision to go up there and not to basecamp that day. After taking a bunch of pictures and relaxing a bit we headed back down for a big meal and an early bedtime to get ready for the morning hike to basecamp.

Me in front of Mt Everest

Looking down from the summit

A shot of the peak of Kala Patthar

Everest Base Camp

The next morning we got up and left at 4 am for the 2.5 hour hike to the basecamp itself at the base of the infamous Khumbu Glacier. The hike was difficult because it was quite cold and again the air was thin at altitudes above 5000m but we made it in reasonable time. In the offseason basecamp is deserted but you can spot it by the large amounts of prayer flags and the stones marking it so while it's not as impressive as Kala Patthar it is still quite the experience. To me, the most amazing part is the sense of scale you feel knowing you are standing at the bottom of the tallest mountain in the world, it gave me a great deal of respect for the Sherpas who travel up and down these trails multiple times every year. After spending a few hours watching sunrise and taking pictures we headed back to Gorak Shep for a big breakfast before heading back down to civilization. It had been 9 days since I left Lukla at this point and although I had accomplished what I set out to do, going down was a whole other beast to tackle.

Finally made it!

Sunrise over Mt. Everest

Never been more tired or happier

I will conclude this series with one other post covering the way down from the top, if you like this post or have a story of your own, please comment below. Thanks for reading!