Everest Base Camp Trek — From The View Of The Trekkers

Ding­boche to Lobuche/​Lobuche to Gorak Shep

Unre­al. Hav­ing spent the large part of my adult life dream­ing of this trip, actu­al­ly being here is just unre­al. The moun­tains are big and beau­ti­ful. The peo­ple are warm and wel­com­ing. But, most impor­tant­ly I couldn’t be with a nicer group of peo­ple. The fam­i­ly dynam­ic between Roger, Robb and Jon is gen­uine. Robb and Jon joke togeth­er con­stant­ly as broth­ers of about the same age do. Roger is a very proud father. You can tell by the way he looks at his sons and from time to time puts his arms around one of their shoul­ders. Blan­dine my new French friend is sweet and inquis­i­tive Deana, our guide, has made this trip so much more than a trekking adven­ture. Her knowl­edge of the Nepali cul­ture and tra­di­tions has added a whole new dimen­sion to the trip.

By: Martha

I con­cur with every­thing Martha is say­ing. A few addi­tion­al comments:

Deana is indeed mak­ing this trip more than a phys­i­cal expe­ri­ence. She is shar­ing her exten­sive knowl­edge of Nepal his­to­ry, peo­ple, reli­gions and cul­ture with us. She is atten­tive to every sin­gle person’s needs. She has tak­en on the role of a trekking guide, a yoga teacher (any­body up for a stretch­ing ses­sion at 16000 feet?), a med­ical advi­sor (Rob has been very help­ful as well), a pro­fes­sor in cul­ture aware­ness, and most impor­tant an avid card play­er (teach­ing us Spades, a wel­comed change from Hearts we had been play­ing for days).

Every­one is doing phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly well. I couldn’t have dreamed of a bet­ter group (well, if Martha were not so dif­fi­cult to room with, it would have been bet­ter, but if every­thing was per­fect it wouldn’t be fun).

Not only does our group get along, but our rela­tion­ship with our porters, our Nepali guide Dawa and our Sher­pa Dawa has been great as well. Some of them play cards with us, they all have been very sweet and atten­tive to our needs, and very patient with us.

The only thing to make this trip bet­ter is to make it longer. I can­not believe we will have been at the top of Kala Patthar and at Ever­est Base Camp by tomor­row after­noon. I am sad it is almost over although I promised Martha to stop men­tion­ing how sad it is that we will soon head back down.

The only rea­son why I want it to last longer is to have a chance with Jon as a team­mate to beat Martha and Deana at Spades (I sus­pect them to cheat any­way). More seri­ous­ly (who­ev­er is read­ing this post may won­der if this whole Ever­est Base Camp trek is just a cov­er up for a 2‑week card games train­ing), I hope that any­body pas­sion­ate, or even inter­est­ed in, about moun­tains will have the chance and oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cov­er this beau­ti­ful and fas­ci­nat­ing coun­try and to trek in the Khum­bu with as great of a guide as Deana is.

By: Blan­dine