First of all just to
explain, the Khumbu is the Nepali word for the Everest region. As we explained
in a previous post our main intention for going to the Khumbu was to hike up to
the village of Pangboche to visit Lama Geshe who married us twenty years ago. On
October 22nd we flew from Kathmandu to the little mountain town of Lukla
(9,400 ft) where all trekking and climbing expeditions in the Everest region
start. We flew in a Twin Otter which was a thrill for Sara and I since we have
made thousands of jumps out of that type of airplane.
After arriving in
Lukla, Urgen our guide took us to Paradise Lodge for a quick lunch; this was the
same lodge we started our trek from twenty years ago. Urgen was our agent
twenty years ago who arranged our hike. This trip he was again our agent, and also
joined us as our guide, which was a special treat. Our porter was Pemba, the
poor chap who had to carry our heavy load up and back.
Our plan was to go a
short distance to the village of Cheplung and stay at a lodge owned by the
brother of Pemba Sherpa who we met in September in Colorado. Even though we
only hiked for about an hour, right away we were immediately reminded that two
weeks hiking on the Khumbu trails was going to be very difficult.
The trails in the
Khumbu are almost all up or down. There are probably about 10% of the trails
that are level or smooth. The trails are almost all made of rocks. They have to
be to stop the trail from being washed out and eroded during the Monsoon
season. So you have to be extremely careful and aware of how you place your
feet and make each step. A fall on one of those rocky trails would definitely
result in an injury. Being seventy years old with a hip replacement, two
marginal knees, and recent back surgery the hike created a pretty high anxiety level for me.
Going uphill was no problem other than it was exhausting and required numerous
stops to catch my breath. Going downhill on the other hand was downright scary
at times. There were a bunch of times when I thought to myself as my old friend
Tinker Hillman would say “this is another fine mess I have gotten myself in”.
In the Khumbu everything
including all supplies and even building materials goes up to the villages on
the trails by Sherpa porters, yaks, zo’s ( a cross between a yak and a cow ),
mules, or horses. There are no roads or any motor vehicles of any sort. The
Sherpa porters have to be the strongest, heartiest people on earth. These small
men can carry loads at least double their body weight. We saw numerous porters
carrying over two hundred pounds of plywood on their back. They only use a head
strap, no shoulder straps or hip belt. I saw one porter with a half size
refrigerator on his back. They are absolutely amazing!
During the two weeks we
stayed in lodges run by local Sherpa families. The lodges typically have rooms
with two single beds and a foam pad. They provide a blanket and pillow but
since none of the rooms have heat we used our sleeping bags. Pretty basic, but an huge upgrade
from twenty years ago when we either slept in our tent or the communal bunk
rooms. Having a private room was quite a change!
Most of the lodges have
a community bathroom with a toilet and sink, although we had a couple of occasions where
we had our own bathroom. In the two week period we were in the Khumbu we had
three showers which was considered a luxury. There is always a common dining
area and kitchen. The dining area has one wood stove for heat so this is a hang
out area for trekkers since this is the only source of heat in the lodge. When
we were in Tengboche (13,000 ft) our room got down to 36F degrees at night-
pretty frosty.
We were pretty lucky to have good weather. It was sunny every day except for the day and a half of snow
we got at Tengboche. We would always start out in the morning with a couple of
layers of warm clothes but it would not take long before we had to take those
off because of the physical exercise and heat generated from the strenuous
hiking. Urgen wisely picked locations for us to stop each day so the trek was
divided to ensure a more comfortable pace and duration.
Twenty years ago we had
a lot of eight and nine hour hiking days. This time it was more in the four to
seven hour days. Our second day from Cheplung to Monju covering 12 miles was
tough but the third day was probably the hardest day of the trek. Going from
Monju to Namche Bazar we had a vertical gain of 3,000 feet over 6 ½ miles. Needless
to say that is a lot of steep uphill hiking, according to Sara’s Fitbit we
climbed 142 floors that day! As I mentioned before it is all uphill then downhill over
and over again. There is a huge river running through the Khumbu valley called the
Dudh Koshi River. Because of the terrain sometimes you are hiking on one side
and sometimes you have to cross a long cable bridge to hike on the other side.
We probably crossed the river at least a dozen times. We were very glad when we arrived in Namche; we
were at a nice lodge and got our first shower.
Most people spend two
nights in Namache Bazzar which is at 11,300 feet to help acclimatize to the
altitude; it is important to go slowly to prevent altitude sickness. Most people
then hike from Namche to Tengboche in one day, but Urgen elected to do a
shorter hike to Kyangjuma instead of staying two days in Namache. This split a 14 mile really tough uphill hike
to Tengboche into two days, which was a great idea! After a night at Kyangjuma we made the hike
up to Tengboche. Good thing we only had to cover 8 miles, because it was a
really tough up and down hike again. The mountain views were majestic, and the
trail was through spruce and fir trees; at least when we stopped to rest we had
something to distract us from the suffering! By now we had a couple of days under our belts
and we were starting to feel a little more confident we could pull this trek
off. Plus we had been at 11,000 feet for two days so we were adjusting to the
altitude.
Tengboche is an
interesting place because there is a large monastery which is the main
monastery in the Khumbu. The monastery has two Lamas, one is older and the
other is quite a bit younger. The younger Lama is considered to be the reincarnation
of a previous Lama. That afternoon when we arrived in Tengboche I suggested to
Sara we go over to the monastery just to look around. When we got over to the
monastery and went into the area where the monks have their big prayer room all
the Lamas and about thirty monks were having their afternoon prayer session. We
were allowed to come in a quiet and respectful manner and sit and observe and
listen. All the monks were chanting from their Buddhist scriptures and ringing
bells, playing a variety of horns and drums. I had heard this sort of thing on
a CD before but never live and in person. It was absolutely fascinating. As I
closed my eyes, the chanting became almost hypnotic. You easily lose yourself
in the Tibetan tones coming from the monks and the bells, horns and drums. It
was truly a once in a lifetime experience.
The next day (October
27th) we got up and made the three to four hour hike to Pangboche,
our final destination. We stayed at a lodge owned and operated by Tashi who is Lama Geshe daughter. She is also the sister of Jigme who is the man who works
for Sara’s company KPMG. He works in the New York office and was actually in
our wedding twenty years ago when he was eight years old! After lunch, we went
to Lama Geshe’s house for a visit and a blessing.
Realizing Lama Geshe
would not remember our wedding from twenty years ago, we had printed several
pictures of the wedding to show him. He seemed very excited to see we had
returned after twenty years to see him again. He gave us several blessings and
some special printed cards that he signed for us. Lama Geshe said we had a blessing of health
and happiness for another twenty years, and he suggested maybe we would all see
each other again in another twenty years.
We had brought a new pair
of Rockport shoes for Lama Geshe and two sweaters for his wife. Jigme had
suggested these gifts and told us what sizes to get, so luckily everything fit correctly. Lama Geshe and his wife
seemed thrilled with their gifts. They were very kind and sent food over to the lodge that evening to thank us for the gifts.
When we arrived at Lama
Geshe’s house there were two ladies who there introduced themselves as Jenny and Dr. LuLu. Jenny was working in Periche which is
a village higher up in the Khumbu, teaching mountain rescue to some of the
Sherpas. Dr. LuLu was working as an emergency doctor in Everest base camp. After
chatting for a bit we realized we were talking to Jenny Lowe Anker who is the
wife of Conrad Anker one of America’s most famous climbers. Conrad was
currently on a climbing expedition in Nepal. We had recently seen a great documentary called
Meru about Conrad and some friends climbing a very difficult mountain. Jenny had also been interviewed in the documentation. You never know who
you will bump into hiking in Nepal!
After our visit with
Lama Geshe and his wife we went outside and with Urgen and Pemba’s help found the
same spot where we took a photo after our wedding twenty years ago. Sara had brought her original wedding dress purchased in
Kathmandu for 100 rupees and I had my original white shirt. We managed to recreate the shot just for the
fun of it! We spent a lovely evening in
Tashi’s lodge chatting to her and the rest of the hikers and climbers.
Sara and I had brought
a separate bag of over 40 lbs of gifts for the Nepali Sherpa people. It was
mostly warm hats, gloves, socks, shirts and school supplies along with the
gifts for Lama Geshe and his wife. We had dropped off some of the gifts in
Cheplung on the way up but left the last of the gifts with Tashi at her lodge
and asked her to distribute them. Our porter, Pemba I am sure was happy to not
to have to carry that extra 40 lbs any more. My guess is he was carrying 80-100
lbs for us and every day we would ask him if he was doing alright and his
standard answer was “ No Problem ”. That became kind of a joke between our
little group of four. Anytime somebody asked about how things were going the
answer was “No Problem “.
So after hiking up for
five days we turned around and started the trip back. We hiked back Tengboche so
we could take part in an annual festival, including a Buddhist blessing and a
day of Lama dancing!. This wasn’t on our original schedule, but it is very
special to see these events so we jumped at the opportunity to participate. We
arrived in Tengboche in time to participate in blessing, which is a big deal
for all the local Sherpa people, and also for Urgen and Pemba since they had
never attended this annual festival.
The blessing was an
outside event and all the monks and Lamas came down from the monastery. With
the local people and trekkers we had at least a hundred or more people. During
the blessing the weather was starting to get a little harsh with a little bit
of sleet. After we went back to the lodge sure enough it started to snow. It
snowed some that night and the next day which cancelled the festival of Lama
dancing. We started to freak out a bit since the weather forecast was bad for
about a week. We started to think we could get snowed in for awhile and not
make it back to Lukla to catch our flight back to Kathmandu – it’s dangerous to
hike on the trails when they are covered in snow.
Fortunately, the next morning
the weather cleared and we went to the monastery for the festival. The festival
was very interesting and colorful. The monks dressed up in brightly colored
costumes and came out in the courtyard of the monastery and did some ceremonial
dancing. We were able to stay and see three different groups of monks do their
dances but had to leave after a few hours to start the hike back to our next location which
was Kyangjuma. The festival was an unexpected treat, so it was icing on the cake
to be able to observe and photograph something so unique. I felt like I was
opening a page of National Geographic and seeing this beautiful Buddhist
festival unfold in front of me. Again, a once in a lifetime event.
We spent the night in Kyangjuma
(October 30th) and then the next day hiked to Namche and stopped for
lunch. After lunch we hiked on to Monju. This was the hardest day of hiking we
had on the way up but now we were going in the reverse direction. Instead of 3,000
feet of vertical going up we were doing 3,000 feet going down. Of course, as
usual it really was up and down but we would go from 11,500 feet to 8,500 feet
and there were some very steep parts. Fortunately, we made it to Monju after 11
miles without any problems but we were pretty whipped.
The next two days were
hard but not like the hike from Namche to Monju but still long hard days. According
to Sara’s FitBit for the time in the Khumbu we walked 100 miles, and climbed 1,048 floors! We did bump into Pemba Sherpa our friend from Colorado on our last day of hiking. He was in Nepal for his Sherpa Foundation and helping to rebuild Sherpa homes damaged during the earthquake. We made it to Lukla on November 2nd
as planned and the next morning the weather was clear enough for the Twin Otters to fly back to Kathmandu.The airport and surrounding mountains make it very difficult to fly into and out of Lukla, and there are frequently days where no flights can arrive or depart. As we flew back to Kathmandu
we had very mixed emotions. We were very glad to be done with all the hiking
but very sad to leave the Khumbu knowing we might not see those beautiful
mountains again, at least up close and personal.
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