The base camp trail was difficult for three reasons.
1) it went as high as 5400m.
2) it crossed a glacier where the trail was destroyed daily
3) our guide got sick and turned back
oddly, the worst of the evils was probably #2. Crossing the glacier might not have been far, but it was impossible to even find the trail (you had to look for these stacks of rocks...) Anyway, we persevered, and rolled into base camp around 1:45. Unfortunately, we really couldn't hang around because it gets dark around 6, and we were also exhausted... so we had a powerbar and took some pictures and headed back. Just as we were leaving we met a guy from the Slovenian team who was heading on his summit push the next day. We also met Kumar, one of the climbing Sherpas that sets the ropes in the Khumbu Icefall.
Most people say that base camp is worthless and there is nothing to see. If you are any sort of Everest enthusiust like Joe or myself (esp. Joe), then being that close to the Icefall and going through the effort to get there, you understand and live what everyone reads in the books about Everest. It was brutal, but it was cool.
On the way back, Joe starting feeling the altitude, and we picked up our guide about half way back not feeling well. We sent out guide back down to Lobuche to try to get better, and we stayed at Gorak Shep for the night (once we got back to Gorak Shep, we both felt fine). We had some great conversations with the crowd at Gorak Shep... many of them were continuing on to do some mountaineering and other interesting stuff.
As an aside, our guide woke up in Lobuche at 1:30 am and was very sick with Altitude Sickness... he had to be carried down the mountain to Pheriche... However... that was just the beginnings of the altitude problems were were going to have.... |
