On Day 1 we flew in a small Twin Otter aircraft from Kathmandu to Lukla. The flight was incredible: the foothills we were flying over got more and more dramatic, and out the left-hand side we saw glimpses of the Himalaya. After about 1.5 hours we flew close over a ridge and had our first glimpse of the Lukla airstrip, a tiny runway pasted to the side of a mountain, and which until a few years ago was still nothing but a grassy field. It was a bumpy landing but quite an experience – what a way to start our trek!
We had arranged a 20-day trek in the Everest Region of eastern Nepal. We would fly from Kathmandu to Lukla to avoid the long approach walk into the mountains from Jiri (which would add a few more weeks to the trek – it’s meant to be a beautiful walk but we just didn’t have the time).
Our plan was to follow the following classic Everest route shown in the map below (but traveling the reverse direction around the "loop"):
This map gives you some idea of the elevations that we were trekking at, and the height of some of the mountains in the region:
From Lukla we planned to walk a couple of days to the central town of the region, Namche Bazaar where we would spend a day acclimatizing. We would then walk further north and take the eastern branch of the valley which would lead us up towards Gokyo. There, we would spend a few days to climb Gokyo Ri and explore the valley further. To cross back over into the western valley we would ascend over the high Cho La pass to Dzongla and then walk further north as far as Everest Base Camp and Kala Pattar, which we would explore from Gorak Shep.
Eco Trek, our trekking company, arranged two experienced staff to accompany us for the duration of the trek: Shiva (guide) and Kumar (porter). They weren’t sherpas native to the Everest region, but came from a different mountain region north of Kathmandu. These wonderful people leave behind their families and their farms to work for about 10 months of the year as guides/porters because the money is so good – we were sure to go with a trekking company that paid and treated its staff well.
Dad and I arrived in Kathmandu and had a couple of days to see the sights, acclimatize and make arrangements for a guide and porter with our trekking company, Eco Trek, for our 20-day trek through the Everest Region. We stayed at a classic trekker’s hotel in Thamel and organized a tour of the city with one of the staff from Eco Trek.
