Day 9 – Lobuche -> EBC -> Gorakshep
I’m writing this one a couple of days late, but this was a huge day. The walk wasn’t particularly difficult, about 6hrs total, at an altitude of 4,900-5,365m, but we all hit a mental wall and struggled. Especially after one of our group members was flown out with altitude sickness that same morning, it was very difficult.
The track to Everest Base Camp was very busy. A constant stream of people, yaks and horses. Typically helicopters will fly to Lobuche or Gorakshep, and then porters will carry everything up to base camp. So we were being passed by porters carrying stovetops, plywood, tent supplies, it was pretty insane. You could also rent a horse to get to base camp instead of walking, I would hate to know how much this cost but there were quite a few people doing it.
Reaching EBC itself while an achievement was a little underwhelming. There’s the “iconic” rock which is covered in graffiti, with the EBC sign in front that has fallen over on the ground. Honestly it was a bit of a rubbish dump, even looking towards all the tents of base camp itself. We queued up, got our photos, and then headed back off to Gorakshep.
Gorakshep was an interesting place. Would you believe they had a 5G tower there! It was the worst accommodation (yet??), the building was basically falling apart, open cracks to the outside and the toilet facilities were truly disgusting – and we’ve had some pretty bad ones so far!
After EBC we all crashed, we were feeling accomplished but exhausted.
Day 10 – Gorakshep -> Kala Patthar -> Lobuche
Kala Patthar is a hill (technically not a mountain, short 10m, due to the size of the mountains that surround it) that overlooks the Khumbu Valley, Everest and the Himalayas. Following EBC, we had the option to head up there for sunrise the next morning. This was something I knew I’d wanted to do before we’d even got to Nepal, but I knew it would be challenging. We left at 4am, in -17C weather, to hike 2hrs straight up, we gained about 600m altitude. It was extremely difficult. But so so worth it. The views from here were like something out of this world. I doubt I’ll ever experience anything like that again. As we walked up, it was so cold that our water bottles iced over. At the top there was even an added wind chill factor, but it was unreal. My highlight of the trip!
It only took us 45min to return back to Gorakshep, where we met up with those who didn’t come up and had breakfast together. Following this we had a short walk back to Lobuche where we spent the next night!
~ Nikita’s Nomadic Notes
Nikita’s Nomadic Notes 