By Caitlin
The start of the trek Well, we were on our way. My expectations were low. I had no idea if we would be able to conquer this trail that people's opinions varied from "rather easy" to "incredibly difficult." In retrospect, it was both at times and everything in between. Here's some of the highlights (and lowlights) of what its like to trek to the base camp of the tallest mountain in the world:
Looking mIserable in the cold On a typical day we would get up pretty early and have breakfast. One of our most dreaded early tasks became stuffing our sleeping bags into the compression sacks in the freezing cold. I would usually do as much in my sleeping bag as I could (washing face, brushing teeth, changing clothes) to preserve my body heat. Then we were off for 5-6 hours of hiking. As we got higher, our hiking time was shorter, about 3 hours) and on the way down from Everest Base Camp, they were much longer (7-9 hours), as we compressed a few days walking into one. Once we reached our destination each day, the battle against the cold began. We would find the warmest spot in our teahouse, usually the dining hall, and try to stay in the sunny patches as long as they were around. Once the sun went down, we either huddled around the stove in the teahouse, or retreated to our sleeping bags until dinner to read or watch Freaks and Geeks on the iPad.
Mmm, Dhal Bhat Meals on the trek were pleasantly surprising. However, every teahouse seemingly had the same menu which offered various bland potato, rice or noodle dishes. No hesitations on the constant carbo-loading. That was the only option. Every menu offered pizza but it wasn’t great (think frozen pizza bagel). I came to really enjoy the local staple food Dhal Bhat, nicknamed the “24-hour power food!” It's just lentil soup with rice and usually served with curried vegetables. The Nepali locals were eating it at least two meals a day and it was pretty darn delish! Snacks like Pringles and Snickers were also readily available and we occasionally indulged for either an energy boost, emotional boost or both.
| The teahouses we stayed in ranged quite a bit but were usually above my expectations. That being said, my expectations were incredibly low. Every building was little more than thin plywood walls and a piece of foam on top of a plywood “bed”. Crucially, everywhere provided a blanket which made the difference in us surviving the sub-zero nights, despite having pretty warm sleeping bags. Our rooms at night were roughly the same temp or a few degrees warmer than the outside temperature, which was near freezing for several of the nights. During the last week, water left on the floor over night would be frozen by morning. |  A typical room |
Despite cold and discomfort, the teahouse nights were some of my favorite moments on the trek, characterized by awkwardness and camaraderie. All the porters, guides, trekkers and teahouse families huddled around the fire in an effort to keep warm. One night we shared a fire with some Buddhist monks. We taught some Nepalis how to to play the card game Asshole and another game Pass the Pigs, while they taught us Nepali games. Another night we watched some of a very Bollywood-esque Nepali movie on someone's phone (featuring only Akon songs!).
 Cute little village girl giving bunny ears to a dog |  Up, up we go |  A glacial stream |
Yak traffic jams is a thing Besides the cold, the toughest parts of the trek were the conditions on the trail and hiking at high altitude. The trail was incredibly rocky, uneven and steep. Watching every step was crucial because you were one turned ankle from falling off the cliff. Especially on the way down, the stairs became very hard on our bodies and knees. The longer days resulted in pain and fatigue. Often very narrow, the trails were shared by herds of Yaks and donkeys, hired to carry everything from tourists supplies to beer, as far up as people go. Human porters also did a vast amount of the hauling. Doors and timber were just some of the unbelievable things we saw people carrying up the trail, while we griped about our 15 lb packs. Fascinating to me was the complete lack of the wheel. No bikes, no carts, and definitely no cars. Its may be the only place I've been where there is no mobility outside of human or animal power, unaided by wheels.
 That is an old lady carrying that stuff |  |  That is 9 cases of beer he is carrying up! |
Hiking at high altitude was something neither Jed nor I had done before. I don't think I'd been any higher than 10,000 ft before Nepal. Even just a little effort makes you breathe like you're running up stairs, so actually climbing stairs is very difficult. Luckily, we were going pretty slowly in an effort to acclimatize properly. Because of this, we had almost no altitude sickness, which is usually brought on by moving too quickly up the mountain. We also forced ourselves to drink 3-4 liters of water a day in order to stave off altitude effects, which is much harder when its cold outside.
It goes without saying that the views were breathtaking. Literally. After staring at our feet for an hour, water breaks were also moments to enjoy the view. The vastness of each peak and the way the same mountain changed in different light and from every angle made no two pictures the same. One critique of the EBC trek, in contrast to other trekking routes in Nepal like the Annapurna Circuit, is that you go and up and back down along the same route. This did not matter to us as we found the back-down view different and equally as beautiful as the way up. In fact, without the anticipation of reaching the “goal” of EBC, we probably appreciated it and relished it more.
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Reaching the top was not the emotional high you might expect (more on that in the next post). The trek really became about the whole experience to us and we loved all the good and the bad. To that one random guy we met in Tanzania who told us “You can't do that! There's no way you are prepared for that!”: I wish he could see us on top of Everest Base Camp.
Here are a bunch of pictures from the trek (click on any picture to bring up a larger gallery you can scroll through):
Here are a bunch of pictures from the trek (click on any picture to bring up a larger gallery you can scroll through):
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