Well,
Back in the 'Do' again (thats what us hippies call Kathmandu) safe and sound. We finished the hike with no major mishaps. For those who know the area we did the everest base camp trek (up the Khumbu Valley) and also some walks in the Gokyo Valley.
There's alot to say so I'll try and condense it down to highlights under sub headings:
The flight in:
Was pretty interesting, a 20 seater twin engine plane. The runway at Lukla (start of the walk) is only 450 m long. In order to allow landing and taking off over such a short distance it was built on a gradient with the higher end 60 m higher than the lower (it also means that if the plane fails to take off you plunge off the mountainside... apparently there used to be afew plane wrecks off the end of the runway, but they were removed as to not worry the tourists).
The walking:
Not too bad, not harder than anything I've done in Australia, I don't think there were any days over 20km. The altitude is the killer, particularly over 3, 400m. You walk up a flight of 5 stairs and have to stop to catch your breath.
The hardest day was probably Cho La pass which was a late addition to our plans. It connects the Khumbu and Gokyo valleys and saved us two days of back tracking. A lot of the year it is a techincal ice climb though if the weather is good you can walk through (which we did). The top of the pass is about 5 330 m and covered in snow and ice, a few of the bits were pretty slippery and crampons would have been nice, however getting across was fine due to the great weather this season.
The altitude:
All in all we spent about 6 days walking around 5 000m. The highest day was a peak that Alex and I did that the locals call the frozen fingers to 5, 700m. We pretty much all had a bit of a headache at some time or other because of the altitude however out itinery allowed for alot of acclimitization days which I think was a good idea. Alot of people went up faster and we saw alot of them coming back down sick with altitude sickness and vomiting. That's all it takes to ruin a great trip. There was one Korean man who was about two weeks ahead of us who make it to Kala Pattar (near Everest Base Camp) then had to turn back half way up the hill due to the altitude. He died in the lodge next to the one we stayed in of pulmonary oedema.
The locals:
Are great, they are veryu helpful and happy to see trekkers due to the huge amounts of wealth they have brought to the area. We found it fine without porters or guides and I don't think we missed out. In fact we ended up getting to know other groups guides and porters better than their clients did. We found that we have similar senses of humour to a lot of the locals. We made a heap of friends (and ended up getting a whole bunch of free stuff from the lodge owners). We played alot of cards and ended up giving a tidy sum (actually it was only $3 aus but because you bet about 10 cents a round it seemed like alot) on money to one particular Sherpa. We were particularly lucky with meeting intersting people, we ended up staying at the house of the head monk of the local monastery, we met the BBC rep for Nepal, the three times everest marathon winner (ended up challenging him to a 100m race for a snickers bar), and a whole bunch of people who have climbed Everest (every second Sherpa it seems).
The Cold:
Down to about -7 in rooms, drink bottles freeze solid in the night. You need to break the ice on the barrel of water to flush the toilet.
The facilities:
Up high there is no electricity (except for batteries charged by solar pannels), no running water, no plumbing and limited contact with the outside world. Everything you see is carried in on the backs of porters afew ways walk away (pringles go for about $5 and snickers for up to $3 Aus). We spoke to fairly well off people in some towns who had not heard of the war on Terrorism, September 11 or the asia tsunami.
Anyway, there are heaps more stories but We're heading out to dinner now. I will write more later.
[ Last edited 21/12/2005 09:34am ]
