Everest Base Camp Trek: My Experience

E

very journey starts with a motto. By looking at nervous me in one of the restaurants in Kathmandu, Chef said “Marna hi he to kahi par bhi meraga, a chat yah ape neeche girke yaha pe bhi marega, Lukla me flight land karte time bhi marega. Mene kabhi EBC pe gaya nahi lekin suna he experience bahut mast rehta karke. Agar itna maut se darega to kabhi naya kuch try hi nahi karega aur naya experience bhi nahi milega.” (You can die anywhere. If this ceiling falls down, you will die right now, if the flight doesn’t land in Lukla then also you would die. I have never been to EBC or Lukla before, but, I heard from many the great experiences they had. If you are scared of death so much, then you will never try anything new.)

Tenzing-Hillary (Lukla) Airport- 527 m runway

15 seater planes to and from Kathmandu to Lukla 

Motivation often helps. My problem was different – altitude and lack of practice. I had no prior trekking experience. I was nervous about 12 long day trek and altitude. I had read many blogs and problems which trekkers face but, unfortunately, one cannot imagine anything which he/she never gone through. An altitude sickness, breathing problem due to lack of Oxygen, mental challenges during trek and many. I had no idea what does that even mean. Having no idea of what so ever I had booked EBC trek two weeks prior.

It is quite difficult to put all my experiences in words. I really do not know what to write. I tried my best. I have purposefully not written many of our experiences here because you should give it a try and experience it by yourself. 

We started our trek from Lukla to Phakding on day 1 (3-4 hours easy trek). Except on day 1, every other day I gave up while climbing up. The steeper climbs began as we entered Sagarmatha National Park. This climb was of approx. 3-4 hours to Namche Bazar. 

Sagarmatha National Park Entrance (Actual fun begins here)

World's tallest Hillary suspension bridge

I was so happy looking at the snowfall for the first time in my lifetime. That happiness did not last for long. I had no prior experience of living in negative temperatures (The only thing I have seen with a negative temperature is a refrigerator with -80 ^oC to keep biological samples in our labs but unfortunately I never lived inside that.) Within half an hour of climb, I developed breathing issues and started losing confidence after a couple of hours, because everyone else in my group was doing relatively quite good. On day 2 amid the trek, I realized that “I made a big mistake by choosing EBC.” Every step started getting challenging for me. My mind was not stopping to curse myself for making such a stupid decision. 

Me contemplating: I made a mistake. Why did I choose this trek?

Remember “Best things come to you when you are in the worst situation.” Soon my team realized that I am struggling and I need help. To cheer me up and keep me motivated, none of them went ahead of me. Instead, they remained behind me, started cheering me up and made me laugh. “I just wanted to be alive,” that was the only motivation I had on day 2. 

The team waiting for me to start walking. 

This picture was taken as a memory of me witnessing snowfall for the first time

Lovely pastry 

Birthday celebrations at 4440 m (Once in a lifetime opportunity)

By now, I had developed enough fears about ascents and mountains. In simple words, I was shit scared of snow, breathing issues and climbs. The funniest thing was, I was trying to sleep on that day but a cat jumped on my bed at night and spoiled my sleep. The whole night I could not sleep because of fear of cats. I hate cats from that day onwards. Day 3 was rest and acclimatization day, I was trying to keep myself away from negative thoughts and emotions. For my luck, I even struggled during acclimatization. I started worrying about the next 10 days. I had realized by that time, it is not going to be easy for me now on. On day 3, we all went to watch the movie “Everest’ which was streaming for free for tourists in a local teahouse. It is based on a true story of Jamling Tenzing Norgay, is the son of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay - The first man to climb Mt Everest with Edmund Hillary.

I do not know how much emotional one gets while watching that movie outside EBC trek. For those who are doing EBC trek and climbing Mt Everest, this movie gives goosebumps. It shows reality. This movie is purely inspirational. One thing which touched my heart and I followed it throughout the trek was the suggestion/advice/secret told to Jamling by his father.

“Jamling, never show pride and arrogance in front of the mountains, they are mightier than us. Pride and arrogance make mountain gods unhappy. Bow to them, surrender to them, they will show you the way and you will reach your destination.”

The whole trek we walked through Buddhist culture. Humble people, beautiful (???) weather, mighty mountains, enthusiastic hikers, and all that pain was taking me through a totally different journey. I stopped challenging mountains – yes, I did that. Generally, we all do that right? If something is not working, then we take it as a challenge. This did not work for me there. Instead, I started practising my new mantra, which Sherpa Tenzing told to his son. I simply surrendered myself to mountains. 

I stopped looking at mountains, every climb was scaring me. I started focusing on one step at a time and stopped looking at mighty mountains. One Breathe, One Step (Naomi's mantra). By this time, I had stopped thinking negative about myself. I was slowest in the group. I was the only man, who reached the camp every day, every time at last and was welcomed by the whole team with claps each time (of course, for me every step was an achievement). My team started cheering me up before every climb. I heard only one thing from 10 voices “Come on Shashi, you can do it.” Though I gave up many many times but my teammates never let me give up. Their only mantra for me was “Come on Shashi, you can do it.” I love them all because they never ever got frustrated on or de-motivated me even once in 14 days. 

The Team

Every day I went through breathing issues while climbing up, body ache and headache sometimes. Truly speaking, there was no other option, other than facing this pain and fear. Body pain was somewhat manageable, because after a good sleep at night one would get relief, but fear? - wonderful. Day by day, I started losing my body strength as my food intake reduced with altitude, in turn it was affecting my mental strength too. With altitude temperature drops. The temperature was around 6-7 degree Celcius when we started from Lukla and reached - 17 to -19 degree Celcius towards the end of EBC. 

As we reached Gorakshep on day 9 in the morning, two hours away from EBC, I started getting altitude sickness and got bit headache. Took a tablet, rested for 10 minutes and said to me “Next two hours is going to be tough. By hook or crook, I should make it. Because, if I miss this opportunity now, I have to walk all 9 days once again in future or I may not come as well.” The team was ready outside the teahouse and we were ready to put all our strengths to make it happen.

On the way to Everest Base Camp

By facing all these challenging situations, around 11 AM on day 9 we reached Everest Base Camp. Ah! such an out of the world feeling. It was not just a sense of achievement, it was a truly different feeling. Everest imprints something on every heart who reach to her. I am sorry, none of us can express how and what we felt. I request you to please go there to experience it. Everest base camp itself is heaven. On that day I understood, “If there is way to heaven, then it is through hell (I mean physical and mental pain and suffering).”

Successfully made EBC happen

Actual Engineer’s problem started while starting from Gorakshep back to Lukla (airport from we started 9 days ago). We don’t study once the exam is over, right? my mind and body applied the same formula here. I had put all my strength to reach EBC. I thought I consumed all my strength and have nothing left to use. In Gorakshep, the previous night, I could not sleep at all because of severe headache, lost my appetite (generally caused by altitude sickness) and had no strength to walk back. I asked my guide to call the air ambulance as I can’t make it to Lukla. For my (bad)luck, it was heavily snowing and helicopters can’t fly in bad weathers. The guide suggested me to walk back to lower altitudes soon and he said, If I feel the same even at a lower altitude (Tea-Pee break: next stop) he would call an ambulance. Somehow, having no other option I walked for 3 hours to the next stop and started feeling better. Once I felt better, then no helicopter (common sense right?), I had to walk down. I walked down successfully. Approximately we walked for 19 kilometres on day 10 in the snow (most of the places). 

On the way back

After reaching Lukla, we all celebrated with a nice party at night. All of us said in one voice “This is the craziest thing we have ever done in and with our life.” It was teamwork. Though all of had the same destination, we were walking in our paths in our minds. Everest Base Camp is not just an achievement, it was kind of fulfilment. The experience which can't be spoken or expressed to anyone else other than feeling it. It taught us many lessons for life. 

Every Step Takes You One Step Near to The Destiny

You Can’t Move-on Unless You Give-Up Your Past Experiences (pains)

How To Do Team Work? Meaning of Collective Success. 

Few of us hated altitudes, few falls of snow, few suspension bridges, few cats (me) and few downhills. Each one of us had to face our individual fears, but all of us successfully overcame it and finished the task.  

The effects of EBC trek lasted for a week (physically) and forever (mentally) on me. My both nostrils were nicely bleeding for a week even after arriving home. Too much cold damaged my nostril cells (for some time). However, I recovered without any medicines (Self-quarantine period helped me). 

I don’t mind much about these strains and pains – as these don’t last for too long. No body pain or sleeplessness at all. I was comfortable and feeling healthy after the trek. I don’t even regret those pains, weaknesses, loss of confidence and bleeding from the nose etc. Because the Himalayas taught me: 

Pain Is Inevitable

 and 

There Is A Price to Pay for Heaven

Have you ever listened to the song Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)? There is a beautiful line in the song - “……Someday, you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire, Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair.” Hahaha…so true isn’t it?

This is the only mistake (till now) which I never regretted in my life and best birthday gift too to myself. I would love to do such mistakes again. 

-SB