The trek to Mt. Everest base camp in Nepal is really not a long distance, we will be trekking about 30 miles to the base camp and 30 miles back to Lukla. The big deal is the altitude. We will be taking a little hopper plane from Kathmandu into Lukla, which is where our trekking will begin. The Lukla airstrip has been known to be a bit tumultuous and unpredictable with the weather. There are many stories of travelers that have to wait for days before flying to or from Lukla. Since there have been a few planes going down over the years the airline is extra careful before heading out.

Altitude is what makes this a hard trek, not the distance, Lukla’s elevation is 9300 ft, the peak of our trek, Kala Pattar, is over 18,000 ft. It will take 10 days to hike to base camp, with a day to acclimate every few days and once we get to base camp we turn around and hike 4 days to get back to Lukla.
The sights and experiences that trekkers share are unbelievable, stay tuned to hear ours. I will attempt to share with you while in the experience of it, there are a few places that have internet availability.

Some of the ways that we are preparing for the trek and high altitude are hiking around here in the mountains (only 6000 ft); taking ginger, garlic and ginkgo to help thin our blood; buying the right clothes for layering (it will get very cold in the higher altitudes); water purifier; and of course getting our house in order since we will be gone for a month.

The hikes that we have done here in the mountains are beautiful. I am loving the “training”. Next week Roger and I will be hiking about 10 miles to get to a lodge on Mt. LeConte in the Smokey Mountain National Park. The only way to get to this lodge are hiking trails. When we hiked there last month there numerous stretches of the trail covered with ice. If it wasn’t for the cable that was bolted to the mountain we could have easily fallen off a cliff. They are telling us that it is still icy up there. That seems like a great way to train in the cold…brrr.

Once we get to the lodge we will be staying in simple accommodations without electricity and possible sharing the sleep space. We hear the food is fantastic. A short way from the lodge is the Appalachian Trail that will give us a bit more altitude to hike. But there are also a lot of trails back in there for us to explore the next day before we hike out. I hope to have some great pictures to share with you. In my next posts I will share some more of the training and also the rest of the plans of our upcoming trip to Nepal and Bhutan.

May your day be filled with wonder and awe.