No matter how good working life is, we all love weekends, why? Because it gives us time to do whatever we want, indulge in our favourite activities, run around or just relax. It’s something worth day dreaming about.

Trekking out of Namche Bazaar the track seemed promising, rolling along the side of the hills with clear views up the valley to the summit of Everest. The 'Nepalese' flat (a little up a little down) in the morning sun was relatively easy-going with the requisite stops for tea (Kumuka supplied us with bottomless tea). Having not drunk tea in the UK at all I found myself taking to the Nepalese tea as an excellent way to make sure I stayed hydrated and warm, lemon tea being a particular favourite for everyone on the trek. We eventually found ourselves losing height down towards the river, the lowest point north of Namche Bazaar before the final hour and a half hour climb up to Tengboche to end the day. The exertion brought me out in a headache, however Rex the mountaineer, seemed to enjoy the workout.

After a look around the Tengboche Monastery we hunkered in away from the cold night in the teahouse enjoying the unique, extremely tasty tuna pizza – its amazing what you can eat in the Himalayas! The weather turned that night and during my night time visits to the outside toilet (a hazard of drinking litres of water during the day) I saw a blanket of snow as far as the eye could see. Reluctantly stepping out into the cold at 7 the next morning we crunched through the fresh snow from Tengboche to climb even higher to our acclimatisation day destination of Dingboche at just over 4,400 metres. The group split at this point with Rex heading up a different valley towards Gokyo Lakes (to acclimatize for his Everest summit bid) with his guide, Red Ram, while the rest of the group followed our guide Babu through the snow frosted trees towards Dingboche.

Dingboche was a snow-covered collection of Teahouses, sat above the tree line with fantastic views of Ama Dablam on the far side of the valley. The altitude started to hit a bit more at this height and for our acclimatisation day the next day we walked for a few hours further up the valley to Chukhung, after being told that the Tibetean bread in the Teahouse there was particularly good. Jim and I both slowly plodded up there in bright sunshine being reflected off the snow lying everywhere. Afterwards, we raced back down the valley towards the Teahouse to spend the afternoon resting and eating Dhal Bat. The beauty of going on an organised trek was having someone pace us, the resting was most welcome.

The next day saw us pushing up to Lobuche, gaining a lot of height and finally getting onto the Khumbe Glacier that begins up by Everest Base Camp. This was a long, tough day beginning by contouring along a hillside to Dughla, a lonely Teahouse sat below the snub of the Khumbe Glacier, where after some fortifying garlic soup (we were constantly being told about the benefits of garlic soup for altitude!) we pushed up the hill and the 300 metres in altitude to Lobuche. By the time we were onto the Khumbe Glacier the weather was coming in and we could all begin to feel the effects of what a storm around Everest could really be like, it was quite exciting. Lobuche had not had great write-ups in all the books we'd been reading on the way up but all we could see were a collection of buildings surrounded by snow and swirling winds.
The Teahouse we spent that night in was comparatively warm..

The next day was an intentionally early start, up at 5am, to allow us time to get up to Gorak Shep, the last sign of civilisation before Everest Base Camp, and subsequently up to the summit of Kala Pathar at just over 5,500 metres to obtain the best views of the Everest Summit and the South Col. The walk between Lobuche and Gorak Shep took longer and had more 'Nepalese' flat than the map showed, with the track winding along the side of the glacier and not the straight-forward contouring track we'd been hoping for. By the time we got to Gorak Shep, cloud was flying across Everest obstructing the clear views of the summit we had been expecting. A quick change of plan meant we decided to head further up the glacier for Everest Base Camp, leaving Kala Pathar for the next morning when we hoped to be able to see the summit clearly.

The round trip to Everest Base Camp took around 6 hours with Everest poking out every so often but most of the time we were concentrating on the slippery track or the amazing formations and colours in the Khumbe Glacier. The site of Everest Base Camp was still quiet with evidence of only two tents with the expeditions for the season still only beginning to arrive in Lukla.
The Khumbe ice fall rose away from the Base Camp and apparently the Sherpas forging the route through the ice fall were just beginning to pick their way through the ice fall.

The next morning, after a night in Gorak Shep, was another early start to ensure we got the best views of Everest. With no sun to warm us the first part of the ascent of Kala Pathar was bitterly cold but thankfully in the final hour to the summit we had the sun emerging over Nuptse. The summit of Kala Pathar was one of the highlights of the trek with a 360 degree view of mountains over 7000 metres all around and glaciers sprawling down every valley. After exhausting the camera memory in 30 minutes we quickly dropped off the mountain and began the descent back to Namche Bazaar. After Kala Pathar, we rapidly retraced our steps back the way we had come the day before, all the way to Pheriche in that day.

We all begin to relax further as we continued to descend the next day back to the relative oxygen rich air around Namche with the comforts of an en-suite hot shower and satellite internet access also beckoning.

Alex travelled on Kumuka’s Everest Base Camp

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