Namaste! Hello! I'm back, where to start? Well, i made it! I got to the top no troubles and my gosh; it was the hardest, most exhausting, difficult, amazing and rewarding thing i've ever done! It was absolutely fantastic and i have no idea where to begin! Ok so to start with i should say that upon meeting the group we were told that this was the first Gecko's group to go to Basecamp, before this they only did it through Peregrine (the company i think John, Dave's dad was thinking of going with). So that was a nice surprise and we all made. There were six in the group and it worked out well. There were a couple from Sydney; Mel and Greg, two guys; James from Melbourne and Russell from Sydney. Then Suzanne from the UK, very close to where I'm from. So it was nice and small, we had a main leader Subal and two other guides who we met at Lukla; Prem (meaning 'Life') and Jeevan (meaning 'Love'). We also had three porters, and man, do not underestimate these guys. This is porter not in the sense that they have Yaks that they heard along, this is these three guys between them carrying our six bags plus two for the guides. And they don't carry them on their backs, no this all goes on their heads. I'm not kidding! The porters of the Himalaylas are amazing, some of them use baskets that they balance things on but basically (it's very hard to explain, i'll try and put a picture up) they tie everything together, then have one strap that they place across their foreheads and thats it. They carry it like that. And they kick our butts...always at the top before us! I felt like an old lady! Upon getting to the top though they are always smiling at you and probably thinking, "You crazy person, what are you doing!"
Gosh, there is so much to write i have no idea where to start. While trekking i kept thinking of things to write here and now i can't remember them all. One thing that they don't prepare you for on this trip is the sitting around. Its the hardest part. Basically, every day we would get up early and start walking at about 8:30am. Whoever has my itinerary will see that most of the days are around 5 hours walking. We, however halved all of these times. We made really good progress, we would ask our guide how long he thought we would take on a certain day and quite often it wouldn't take that long. We were walking quite fast. So we would arrive at our destinations generally around 11am and then that would be it until the next morning. We could go on optional hikes, which we did do on our acclimatisation days (we had two) but really, when we arrived there would be nothing more to see in the villages that we stayed at. So it became our habit of arriving, ordering lunch, which would take an hour, then we played cards(Shithead was the favourite! If anyone knows this game they will know how brilliant it is!), read, wrote in our journals and, sad as this sounds, see how long we can hang out until our next hot chocolate or tea or something of the sort. I've never drank so much hot chocolate in my life! Then there would be dinner. "Is it too early to decide what i'm ordering yet?" "Suzanne, its only 4pm". This was what filled the time, when to choose dinner, when to order dinner and when to have dinner. After that the same process would occur for breakfast! It does sound really sad, but honestly, there is nothing else to do, it is SO cold up there, too cold to go outside. Although we did have very good weather for trekking. Typically the day would start bright blue skies, which is amazing to wake up too against the backdrop of 6000m plus mountains, then around midday the clouds would roll in for the rest of the day/night. But we only had rain twice and that was when we were just arriving into our destinations for that nights, very lucky. And it snowed a few times, mainly on the opposite mountain or the like though, but it was probably at the same altitude as us. It snowed on us once. We were hiking up to Dingboche (4410m) where we would spend two days and it snowed lightly for the last half an hour of walking. It melted when it hit the ground but grew heavier during the night. And man was it cold, i couldn't feel my fingers or toes and at the teahouse (we only stayed in teahouses) they don't put the fires on till late as most of them don't have wood, especially higher up where there are no trees. So they use cow dug, yes honestly, they stick them to walls and rockeries to dry out and then use them to fuel the fire. Very interesting! Lovely smell. Tip number 1: Don't do your hand-washing outside when its snowing with the locals. After 5 mins my hands were so cold i could hardly feel them, after 10 they were numb! You see, after our third stop at Namche Bazar (3440m) there are no taps, nothing at all like that, only a tube outside that spurts water. So this is very interesting on the washing front. Both yourself and clothing. Pretty much we didn't shower for over 10 days, and as there were no taps the only thing on offer were baby wipes! I don't think i have ever been so grubby and smelly in my entire life! All six of us smelt bad, got grumpy, had sunburn and windburn and chapped lips. But it was still brilliant!
The walking itself wasn't particularly bad, i mean don't get me wrong, it was hard, very hard, but the main thing that all of us found a challange was the altitude. At sea level we breath 20% oxygen, but at basecamp we only have 10%, so for a large portion of the trip we weren't getting much at all. You are only supposed to ascend 300m a day for proper acclimatisation, but there were times when we had to go about 700m up, this was only because there are no teahouses for quite a way at one point, so then we would have to have another day at the same height. Reading about it before i left its hard to grasp just how the altitude effects you, but it does take a huge toll on your body. You walk slower and get out of breath quicker. There were quite a few times when, not just our group but it seemed everyone, would try to stay up later (8:30 was a late night for us up there) purely because everyone was scared of going to sleep because of the breathing difficulties you can get up there. Everyone i spoke to had gone through it, waking up in the middle of the night and realizing that there is no oxygen in your lungs, so you panic and try to take deep gulps of air, but this only makes you worse. So you have to calm yourself and take small breaths. You have to try and sleep so that your body is straight to make it easier to breath. I don't mean to scare anybody. But still, Subal (our guide) said we were doing really well, he's never taken a group that not everyone had made it up to the top and he would tell us stories of his other treks when he would be woken up at 2am by a group member asking for oxygen.
Our trek leaders were fantastic, Subal, our main guide, lives in Kathmandu and is helping me to organise getting to Chitwan National Park etc. He really was brilliant, very patient which i think was needed with our constant questions the whole trek long; "Subal, what's that mountain called", "How high is it?" "What's it called again?", and unfortunately, the very childish "How much further Subal?" But that was a necessary question, not for the how much longer do we hve to keep walking, but more for us to understand where abouts we were in relation to everything else. The walking was fantastic, it felt great to get up every morning and walk for a few hours! Although Mel and Greg, at the risk of sounding mean, i don't really understand why they did it. Whinging the whole way up about the walking, the accomodation, wising they could have Burger King and then they practically bowled everyone else over getting down the mountain! And going down was one of the best parts, Spring had arrived, there were new buds and blossoms, new calves and puppies everywhere! (I nearly brought one back - very cute!)
Our other leaders were interesting characters; Prem and Jeevan. Prem was hilarious, wearing his down jacket even when it was stifling hot (from the walking) and only taking it off occasionally when it was cold. We all ended up going by whether he had his jacket on or not as to what we should wear that day! And he had a whistle. That was both funny and infuriating. He would usually lead the group and he would blow that damn whistle to stop for water breaks and then again to start yelling "Zoom, Zoom!" It was funny, just on the way back down (which were four long days of walking) it got so annoying, i nearly took it off him!
Sorry Siggie i had no sightings of the Sasquach, but i did see the famous "Yeti Skull". I just look like half a coconut, bit disappointing but never mind! We also saw plenty of Yaks, they're quite beautiful creatues, again i'll have to try and put some piccies up! An interesting fact though: Yaks can't go below 3000m as its to hot, so for below this they have a hybred of Yak and Cow which they call a 'Jokyo'. They look pretty similar, the Yak is just alot hairier!
So i know most people thought i was going to Basecamp on the 14th April, but we cahnged the intinerary at that point. Instead we climbed to Basecamp on no less than Friday 13th April. it was a very lucky day, we couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather! I have never seen such an amazing blue, maybe its because of where i was, either way it was outstanding. We walked all dy to get there, not so much hard walking, just bitterly cold! And whoever said Bsecamp it not so great...i really have no idea what they're talking about. Did they turn up with their eyes cosed? admittedly they have cleaned it up alot in the pst few years, but it was truely amazing! Walking in on the Khumbu glacier, the Khumbu icefall to your right (the way to the summit of Everest. There were people climbing down when we got there) and just surrounded by mountains. You could see some mountains in Tibet from there, and its quite large really. A conglomeration of yellow, green, orange and blue tents. It was amazing, and i'm happy to say i made it there first out of our group! But i am glad that you were all mentally wishing me up the mountain the next day as this was our ascent to Kala Patthar, our highest point of 5545m. We changed this to the next day as we wanted to do it at sunrise, so up we got at 5am, leaving at 5:45am, instantly i couldn't feel my feet or hands. My face was swollen with the cold, my fingers resembaled cheerio sausages; very attractive! And i found that really, really hard. That was my greatest challenge, i hadn't eaten before i left, no one had, we were tired because it's hard to sleep at altitude (and the cold of course) but Subal estimated an hour and a half. Only four of us went (Mel and Greg stayed back, i can't imagine this, i was getting myself up that last bit if it killed me!) the other 3 got up there in 1 hr 15 mins, i got up in 1 hr 25mins. So still good, i felt like i was going to pass out, but my gosh, the views from up there. I will never forget that, ever. It brought tears to my eyes. The sun rising up behind Everest, you could see the entire range of mountains, the Khumbu Glacier, basecamp, everything. It was so beautiful. Kala Patthar itself is interesting to say the least! Its kind of a triangluar shape, two sides just dropping away and the other is what you climb, its very steep and theres not much room for error, the whole thing is just huge rocks piled together. And of course at the top it is covered in Buddist player flags! Oh and it was Nepali New Year! 2064 in Nepali years so it was a good day to do it. Our guides preceded to scream some Nepali songs at the top of their lungs! It was quite amusing! Then we pretty much rolled down the mountain for some brekky, we got to see a Himalayan "Snow-Peacock" on the way down. Interesting thing, half chicken, half penguin! Makes an awful noise too!
Ok so i think i'll write some more tomorrow and see if i can put some photos up too. It's getting late here. Hope your all well out there!

Love Katie
xx