Nepal - Everest Base Camp Trek - Descent

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Everest Base camp Descent. 29th June - 3rd July

We’d expected the trip back down to be a lot easier and whilst that was to be true in one respect we’d extended our trekking distance cover more ground in a single day on the way down. We aimed to cover what had taken us around 6 days to walk up, 3 days going down. The first day covering ground it had taken us 3 days to walk up. The first hour was tough but we found some rhythm after that.

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Some Himalayan flora.

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We’d planned to take lunch at Dughla and pick up some supplies & equipment we’d left there for storage on the way up. We however learnt that the bridge we’d crossed on the way up was no longer passable as the rivers depth and velocity had increased significantly since we were there. Pained at having to go back to this point we still had to make the best of it. We took lunch, repacked our rucksucks to spine-crushing level and enjoyed a good chat with an Irish & American girl we’d seen in Namche Bazzar on the way up and met on the Base Camp. Finally we had to leave and their guide was trying to point us in an alternate direction which basically had us walking down a very steep and long hill. Sylvia didn’t think this could be right and so we had a bit of a stand-off until the guide arrived and took us down….the steep and long hill. The trek was along the side of the river for a good few hours across not the friendliest of landscapes but we stuck with them until we got to the bridge at Pheriche.

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The climbers mule, the Yak. Very strong and able to endure very foul weather conditions.

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The long steep hill.

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A marker near a number of memorials to climbers losing their lives up here.

Along the way Chewy had joined us which worried the Yaks, and they subsequently started to chase Chewy who was with us. In the end the guide threw a large stone which found the spot on Chewy and you could hear his cry for too long a time and a long way away. The guide went to throw another rock but I stood in his way saying he’d had enough. Chewy ran off and hid in the undergrowth and I followed him. I found him semi-cowering in the undergrowth and I went over to give him a stroke and a bit of love. We set off again and Chewy followed us from a distance. It was true that he attracted the Yaks but they could easily be deterred by the throwing(and deliberate missing) of a rock at them. By the time we got to the point we were to split from the Irish group Chewy had caught us up and was being stroked by the American girl. Chewy ended up following us for the rest of the day and even crossed a very wet bridge which he plainly didn’t like doing. As he was half way across we encouraged him the rest of the way.

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The long way back !

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One of many other memorials to climbers who'd lost their lives.

The afternoon walk was very hard for most of it and the final 40 minute climb up to Tengboche had me at another exhaustion point. Sylvia coped far better and still waited patiently for me every 20/30metres as I tried to rest the rucksack by bending over forward, strange though it sounds.

We finally arrived at Tengboche to the applause of Drew and Tanya who had been there for an hour or so. They’d just about given up on us as it had been raining for about 2 hours and was getting rapidly dark.

Chewy also turned up and was sitting outside. I called his name from our balcony and his ears picked up and he ran over to the Hotel. My heart went out to him and I felt so sorry he didn’t have a constant owner. He came into the Hotel hall-way and ended up having a scrap with another dog, The owner chased the other dog away and somehow Chewy was allowed to come into the dining room with us. I was so pleased for him. It was wet & foul outside and he was with us in the warm. Drew & Tanya gave him the remains of their dinner under the table, and Sylvia & I gave him a fair amount too. He fell asleep under the table and was allowed to stay all night. Dog Heaven for him.

We stayed up chatting to Drew and Tanya, and the other guests until 9:30, which was unheard of for us whilst trekking !!

In the morning Drew called Chewy as they left and so he set off with them. The plan for all of us today was to reach Namche Bazzar, a shorter walk than yesterday, the reverse of the same length walk we did in one day when ascending. Somehow though I forgot that the trek went down one side of a valley to only ascent the other side. The walk down was fine but the ascent was hard work again.

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The path(s) down from Tengboche.

We finally made it into Namche Bazzar around 4pm. Nobody was in ’our’ Hotel but the front door was open so we just went in and sat in the living/dining area. About 15 mins later the owner returned to find us there. He looked quite shocked but went into a ’business as usual’ routine. We were soon in a room and taking a shower before enjoying dinner, a few glasses of wine and the remainder of Casino Royale on the Ipod. The owners and staff were a bit bemused as to what we were looking into as we sat there gazing at a box thinner than a packet of cigarettes and so had to come over and have a look. They smiled and carried on with their duties.

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Back at Namche Bazzar.

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A Budhhist Stupa at the bottom of Namche.

We slept well and planned to meet up this evening with Drew and Tanya at one of two Hotels in Lukla. The trekking today we thought was going to be long but easy. It wasn’t. It was a very long and hard day which had us walking in a torrential down-pour for the last 3-4 hours on long-forgotten steep paths finally into the dark as we reached Lukla.

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The Nepalsie equivalent of the Australian road train !

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Nice smiles for the load they are carrying.

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I bet he suffered as a kid at school !!

The rain poured and poured. We were trying to find where Drew & Tanya were staying and simultaneously confirm our seats on the flight back to Kathmandu for the following morning. The aircraft agent wasn’t very helpful and seemed very confused as to what we were asking. In the end we continued only to look for Drew & Tanya’s hotel until we finally had to call it a day as we were just getting more and more miserable. I’d seen another hotel where we decided to stay. It had a restaurant, beer & what looked like a warm bed.

The food wasn’t great and the fire wasn’t that warm but we were out of the rain and able to get some of the water out of our water-proof clothes. Our normal clothes under the waterproofs were saturated ass if we’d been swimming in them.

We retired to bed knowing that we had to get up around 5/6am to confirm our flight. The owner kindly knocked on our door and explained that as there had been a siren that the flights to Kathmandu would happen today. He also seemed quite confident that we would get a seat on the plane too-not sure how he knew.

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Back in Lukla on the morning after the rain fall.

We got our gear together and walked down to the airport. After 5 mins of being there and the usual pushing and pulling in the queue we were advised that we had seats for an 8am flight, It was only 06:30 so we went back to the Café we’d taken coffee at on the way up. We’d admired all the t-shirts various trekkers had left on the ceiling on the way up and Sylvia volunteered her Exploringrtw T-shirt I’d given her for Christmas so I duly adorned it with our names and achievement and pinned it to the ceiling. I was really pleased we had this extra time this morning.

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Pinning an exploringrtw T-shirt on the ceiling of fame !!

We went back to the airport for around 07:30am and bumped into Drew & Tanya again who were on the same flight. We chatted over the previous day and agreed to meet up for a Pizza in Thamel that evening.

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Lukla airport signifying the final end of this journey.

The planes came in as ours had done 2 weeks ago and soon we were being shepherded on board and the plane was sitting at the beginning of the run-way. We hadn’t understood why the flight out should be worse than the landing as according to Peter the scientist. That was until now. I think everybody’s palms were sweaty as the planes engines were taken to what seemed like bursting point. We knew what was happening but it didn’t seem to help us as we all knew that it was a sheer drop at the end of the runway and there seemed to be only a margin of about 10-20meters between the end of the take-off point and the cliff edge. We rattled down the run way and were soon in the sky. Even so the journey down the runway had felt like the beginning of a fairground ride.

30 uneventful minutes later we landed back at Kathmandu. Some where in the loading/unloading of our rucksacks from the plane, the insulated bite valve and cover had come away from my Camelback tube which I’d stupidly left exposed on the outside of the rucksack. I informed the airline and they did their best to find it whilst we took breakfast at the airport. They couldn’t find it and so we returned ‘home’ to our Hotel where we were greeted like family, and we enjoyed it too.

Epilogue.

As I re-read this journal entry it sounds like it was all hard work. Well, it was !, but there were some noticeable points where it was easier, namely the second half of the trek to Laboche, trekking back to Phericke on the return journey to Pangboche. However, please don’t confuse the effort required with the sense of achievement and the daily rewards of being up there. It really was fantastic and I don’t think I can compare it with any thing else I’ve done on the trip so far with the possible exception of John & I’s time in Bolivia.

Mike.
 


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