Author: Joel Topf

So I still have one post to write, the flight out and the last 3 three days in Kathmandu. But for now here is the whole trip. I also want to make one more (I’m likely lying and will in fact make further requests) request for a donation to the MMRF.

Someone was very concerned about snoring last night. Everytime either Ben or I started to snore we got a sudden, loud, and quite frankly, violent knock on the wall. At this time it seems prudent to remind my dear readers that everything man-made you see in the Himalayas has came up on the back of a man or beast. This includes all of the building materials for the tea houses. So the walls are thin. When this person pounded on the walls I legitimately feared his fist would go through the wall. At one point I got up to use the bathroom and Ben heard me moving around the room and thought the pounder had come to the room to rumble. The following day, no one fessed up to the violent knocking.

The snow storm had knocked out their solar power so their was no electric lights in the teahouse. It was strictly a headlamp affair.

Breakfast was gruel, toast, and hard boiled eggs. I had brought a foil pouch of tuna fish. I had not found an opportunity to eat it or share it before now and since this was our last day of hiking I had a tuna fish sandwich for breakfast.

The hike was a long one. We were starting at Duglha and were going to hike all the way to Namche Bazaar. Karma estimated we had 12 hours of hiking, Bishnu thought we could do it in 10. For the morning the ground was talus covered with snow. The hike was quick. We quickly hiked off the moraine and then cruised through the meadow we hiked through after leaving Dengboche. Pheriche where we picked up American Paul, who had stayed behind at Dingboche three days earlier. After we crossed the Dudh Cosi (again) the snow melted and we had a fast level walk into a tea break and then into lunch.

There was a lot of porter, yak and mule traffic on the trail. And if you looked at the loads they were all addressed to Everest Basecamp. During climbing season there will be 1,500 to 2,000 people living on the edge of that glacier and we were seeing there beginnings of the tent city slowly make its way up the mountain.

After lunch we climbed the ridge to Tengboche. This was a long continuous hike up but only a warm up to the main event. After cruising into Tengboche we had a 2,500 foot descent to the river. It was steep and long. Dropping half a mile, even when steep takes a long time. My knees were barking by the time we reached river level. At the river we came to the bakery that 4 days earlier had no donuts. Well, today they had donuts. They had the oldest, dustiest, stalest donuts. This did not stop me from eating one. And it was good.

After the world’s worst bakery we had one last climb of the trip. I think it was about 2,000 feet vertical. It started steep and then eased into a steady gradual climb for an hour or so.

I finished the hike with Ben, Jen, and Ellen. We finished with headlights. Eleven hours. A rolling hike with a total descent from 15,000 to 11,000 feet with two significant climbs. A fine end to a fine trek through the Himalayas.

Just like the day before we wake up early to get an early start on a big day but events conspired to push us our start time back. We met in the commons room of the tea house at 6:45, when we were promised breakfast. Cornflakes, porridge and hard boiled eggs weren’t served until 7:20. So we started at our usual hiking time at 8 AM.

Though the night had been brutally cold, the weather that morning was another cloudless blue skies. It was cold, but not bitter. I had somehow come to the idea that the hike to EBC was an easy stroll and we could bang it out in a couple of hours.

It was not easy.

It was up.

It was down.

It was rough terrain over boulders, loose talus and dusty scree.

And there was no atmosphere.

It really was just like the hardest section of the hike to Gorek Shep. But the altitude here was punishing. I thought that this hike was the most difficult segment of the entire trek, though, most of the people I talked with disagreed. We scrambled for close to three hours before we stood on the verge of Basecamp.

During the hike we got to see Everest peak over a ridge of mountains that normally obscures it. Like I said, perfect weather. As we hiked up the left side of the lateral moraine of the Kumbu glacier, it became apparent we were hiking into blind canyon. I knew that Everest climbs started by climbing through the Kumbu ice fall, but it was unclear where that went. Eventually it became apparent that the glacier took a turn to the right and there was a hidden gap in the wall that led up the mountain to camp one. Once that geography became clear my eyes knew where to look for Basecamp and could pick up the prayer flags.

That black pyramid like mountain in the background is Everest.
Saad had trouble in the day before and this day also started pretty rocky. Initially he had really cold hands and I lent him my down gloves. This did not help and it became apparent that he had more than cold hands. He complained of dulled thinking and some confusion. He was having acute mountain sickness. He descended with Jim back to Gorek Shep.

The remainder of the group stumbled, bumbled, and fumbled toward the end zone. We stopped a few 100 yards short of basecamp to gather the group so we could all arrive together.

It was sublime.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the wedding dress is from this wedding that happened last year.

AJKD represents at Everest BasecampLove your kidneysCJASN and Everest Basecamp

Silva and Jeff had a touching moment where they dedicated the climb to the loved ones they lost and then drank some home-made Raki and poured some out. Before long, English Paul and Bishnu were calling for us to wrap it up and hike back to Gorek Shep.

The hike back? Just as hard.

When we got to Gorek Shep we quickly ate lunch and started hiking down to Duglha, the place we ate lunch two days ago (on the hike from Dengboche to Lobuche). As we walked out of the teahouse it was already snowing. We hiked through the snow and hightailed it off the mountain. We descended from 17,500 at Basecamp to around 15,000 at Duglha. Everyone was grateful to be out of the high altitude. The snow made for an epic Himalayan day.

We had veggie mo mos for dinner. Ben ate 13 mo mos. I wasn’t sure if I should impressed or repulsed.

The plan was to get a slightly earlier start. Instead of rolling at 8:30 we were going to start hiking at 8:00.

This didn’t happen.

Renee had a rough night. She had a severe splitting headache. She was nauseated. She was a mess. It was an easy decision to evacuate her by helicopter. Shawn, of course, went with her. She told me that she had miscalculated her AMS score the day before and she shouldn’t have ascended yesterday. Not good. We all said good bye. It was great to hear that instead of leaving Nepal, they planned on waiting for the rest of the crew in Kathmandu. So we would see them again. We wanted to see them off, but when we were ready to go the helicopter was still refueling in Lukla. Jim called it, we couldn’t wait and we needed to start hiking.

The Lobuche Helipad

It was a cold night and lots of people had frozen water bottles and frozen Camelbacks. People showed ingenuity in working around this:

• Lots of water bottles strapped to packs that day. If you are going to use a CamelBack, always have a Nalgene or two in reserve if it springs a leak or freezes.
• Future experiment: How much vodka would you need to add to the CamelBack to lower the freezing temp to around zero?
• Good suggestion from Kelly: after taking a drink from your CamelBack, blow back into it in order to blow the water back into the reservoir and so it doesn’t remain in the tubing where it is prone to freezing.

The hike continued the climb on the lateral moraine of the Kumbu glacier. It was hard hiking the loose talus of the moraine. We had frequent climbs, some of them prolonged, and we were hiking from 15,500 to 17,000 feet so the air was pretty thin.

We had some fluffy white clouds chasing us up the mountain all day.

As we climbed higher and higher we finally saw the Kumbu glacier. It isn’t a clean glacier like you see in Alaskan glaciers. The Kumbu Glacier, at least below Gorek Shep, is covered with gravel. The glacier blends right into the surrounding terrain of loose talus and skree. However, periodically the disguise would fail and you could see the ice poke through the gravel and reveal the deception. We were hiking next to a massive slow flowing river of ice covered by a thin veneer of stone.

Besides the domesticated mammals that were common on the lower mountain we saw very little animal life in the Himalayas. Today was an exception as we ran into a family (flock) of Himalayan Snow Cocks.

We hiked a solid four hours and rolled into Gorek Shep at around 12:30. The weather started deteriorating toward the end of the hike and while we were eating lunch it started to snow. During lunch we were informed that the trip to basecamp was a six-hour round trip, and that even if the weather was good we wouldn’t be able to make the trip to EBC today. So the new plan was to wake up early and go to EBC on fresh legs tomorrow. Not doing EBC today meant that Kalapatthar was off the table. No views of Everest for us.

Gorek Shep in all of its glory (with helicopter)The hot shower? Fake news.loading the stove with dried yak dung. The tea houses would only have a stove going in the evening. Since we were going to be there during the day, we had to pay them a few hundred rupees to light the stove early.

Note that inside, around a stove everyone has their down and hats on. It was cold.

What was frustrating to me was that even if we had hit our original depart time of 8 AM we would have arrived at Gorek Shep at noon, add an hour for lunch and then 6 hours for round tripping it to basecamp and back and it becomes clear that it would not have been enough time to make it without headlamps. For this plan of Lobuche to EBC and then back to Gorek Shep for dinner and sleep to work we needed to start at dawn (6 AM). By starting at 8 AM, which got pushed to 8:30, Kalapatthar was never going to happen.

So the rest of the day was rest. Just chill in the highest teahouse in the world. And chill we did. It was really cold. Ben and I explored outside a bit as the weather improved in the afternoon. We found the famous “This way to Everest Basecamp” sign.

We came inside, had some popcorn. Then I went to our room to nap before dinner. The morning had been hard and just resting at 17,000 feet was exhausting. That’s when I found out our room was not exactly “in”the teahouse, but rather in an annex just outside the teahouse. Now I had gotten used to shared bathrooms down the hall from my room, but now using the bathroom meant going outside and walking to the main teahouse. Not cool, especially as nighttime temps were falling below zero.

Gorek Shep feels like it is on the edge of the world. No WiFi. No cell service. Even our GPS stopped broadcasting. They did not offer any electricity for charging phones. Gorek Shep is the world’s highest teahouse and felt like the end of civilization.

Tomorrow we have a hike, from Gorek Shep up to EBC and then down to Pheriche, a distance we spent two days hiking up. Push day.

I woke up at the usual6 AM, but this time to bad news. Kirk had a rough night. Splitting headache, nausea, fatigue, and no sleep from 12:30 to 6 AM. He had acute mountain sickness (AMS). He scored 5 on the Lake Louise AMS scoring system, not including the headache. The move here is immediate descent. Kirk wasn’t interested in hiking lower so we hailed him a chopper and he flew to Lukla and then to Kathmandu. Paul, one of our leaders also developed AMS, but his score, not including headache was 3, so he couldn’t go higher, but didn’t need to be evacuated. So instead of joining us to Lobuche, he is going to meet us in Pheriche in 3 nights. Pheriche is essentially the same altitude as Dengboche.

I had a headache all night but was feeling much better after 800 mg of kidney punishing of ibuprofen.

Kirk’s helicopter came in and whisked him away so fast we didn’t really get to say goodbye. Technology can make these transitions happen so fast. H/T Mark.

The hike out of town was up out of the valley and crowded with a long train of people all going to EBC. We were on a hikers highway. When we climbed out of the valley on to the plain we emerged into a stunning alpine meadow spotted with half-abandoned yak-herder shelters and yak pens. The meadow reminded Jeff and I of the alpine meadow on the way to Snowbird Pass in Mount Robson Provincial Park. We hiked this meadow for hours. It was a gentle uphill. After about an hour we got a glimpse of Pheriche below us.

Note the lateral moraine to the right of me.

As we hiked along we encountered and named a couple of dogs, Eddie and Scooter. Eddie followed us all the way to lunch and was rewarded with a warm chapati. Lucky dog. As we were hiking we could see a lateral moraine for an unnamed glacier on the left. We could see a growing lateral moraine on our right too. As we approached lunch we started to climb the lateral moraine on the right, which functionally meant traversing a precarious boulder field to cross the rattiest bridge yet.

The town of Dhugla is like two buildings and one of them is an outhouse. This is where we were headed for lunch. It looks close but we had to navigate quite a boulder field, cross a river and renegotiate another boulder field to actually get there.

Why would you be nervous about that bridge?Jen with Eddie in the background. Both the stream and the boulder field were glacial detritus and were a good hint of the afternoon to come. For lunch we had noodle soup in at auxiliary room and then we moved into the main dining room for warm chapati, and peanut butter and honey. More than a few cans of Pringles were purchased.

Noodle soup.Still life with lemon tea and OMD-EM10

When everything needs to be carried up by a person or a yak, you come up with creative solutions for mundane things like “door handles.”

After lunch we lost Eddie the dog and headed up a tough incline. We were climbing from the valley floor on to the lateral moraine we would be on for the remainder of the climb. It was a long tough climb on scree and talus. At the top of the first pitch we came to Memorials for Fallen Climbers. This collection of memorials, much like gravestones, is dedicated to to climbers who have died on the mountains around us. We saw Scott Fisher’s memorial there. Fisher was the leader of Mountain Madness, that was made famous in Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. Rob Hall supposedly has a memorial up at basecamp. Hoping to see that in a few days (I looked around when we made it a few days later and didn’t see it). The clouds were rolling in and the wind was blowing making for an eerie setting.

How eggs get up the mountain: On the back of a porter. After seeing this I stopped complaining about the price of breakfast.

After the memorials we had a long steady hike up punctuated by a series of more serious climbs for the remainder of the afternoon. With the loose rock, you had to think about where you were going to place every step. I rolled into Lobuche at 3:50. Good time. Renee and Shawn came in last. Renee didn’t look good and a porter was carrying her pack.

Renee went right to bed when she arrived. We had popcorn as a snack in the teahouse, a common teahouse snack. Weird right?

Dinner was Dahl bat. After dinner we discussed the next few days. The plan for tomorrow was to leave at 8 AM to hike to Gorek Shep. Have lunch and then hike on to EBC. That part seemed straight forward. Then they brought up the following day. The next day according to the itinerary was to hike up to Kalapatthar, the high point of the trip and a genuine peak (we haven’t hiked to a peak on this trip up to this point). Kalapatthar is supposed to have a great view of Everest. You can’t see the mountain from EBC. The itinerary then says we would hike down to Pheriche, a distance that we needed more than 2 days to cover going up. The leaders, Jim, Paul, Bishnu all said this was too much and strenuously recommended against doing this. Then Alicia and Kelley said they would not be going to Kalapatthar. So all of the people who organized and designed the trip that was described as something that would be “difficult but doable by someone of average fitness” were now telling us that the itinerary was too difficult and they recommended against doing this portion of the trip. They did say that if some people wanted to do the trip they would send a Sherpa to assist but would guide the remainder of the group down.

Reading the room it seemed that almost everyone was okay with missing Kalapatthar except for Mark, Ellen, Ryan and me. I kept wrestling with this over the night and gradually shifted my feeling. I promised my family I would not do anything stupid and going on a spur trip against the advice of all the leaders started to feel like something stupid. Events that would unfold the following day that would eliminate any chance of climbing Kalapatthar so this mental debate was all for naught.

I was cashed after the group meeting and went to my room and was asleep by 7:45.

They told us to drink lots of water.Lobuche was one of the trashiest Tea Houses we stayed at.Only Sherpas smoke at altitude.

We started the morning in Tengboche. I slept through the night for the first time since coming to this side of the globe. Only took me a week to flip my biologic clock. We were sleeping at 12,000 feet, the altitude at the top of Breckinridge. Anytime I have been at the peak of Breck, all I want to do is get off the top because it was too cold, too windy, and a distinct lack of O’s.

We packed our stuff then went to the Tengboche temple to see a Buddhist service. The temple was amazing. It was phenomenally detailed and intricately decorated. It was full of symbols, all too inscrutable for me to understand. The service began with one monk chanting and then another one joined in and then finally a third monk joined in. There was a forth monk, that I think was an intern because all he did we dutifully refill the tea cups of the three tenors. After watching them chant for close to an hour we stood up and funneled through a line where a monk offered a short prayer for each of us and presented us with a ritual scarf, Katas. One of our photographers, John, was granted permission to film the service. They told him that no one had filmed it for 10 years. Not sure about that because there is a scene in both Into Thin Air and Everest that looked like they were filmed in that room. My final take on the experience, “cold but peaceful.”

After the service we had breakfast and then packed up and set out. I continued to be frustrated by the small size of the day pack. It is only 26 liters and it was nearly impossible to pack my down, rain gear, first aid kit, sun hat and warm, and gloves, snacks, water, sun screen. This was made worse by the fact that our duffles were loaded on the yaks early so by the time we were done with breakfast the gear was packed tight so anything you needed for the morning you needed to carry. This has been killing me especially because I need the iPad and scale to record morning weights.

The hike started down through a beautiful and fragrant rhododendron Forrest. We were following a guy carrying corrugated steel on his back. That looked pretty heavy. Stay in college kids or you may find yourself carrying corrugated steel up the Himalayas. We passed Rivendell and gave our regards to Elrond and the elves.

Rhodedendron Forrest. Just like the Smokeys.We cruised down from Tengboche until we hooked up with the Dudh Cosi, the river which drains the Kumbu Ice Fall (The Ice Fall is the first obstacle after leaving Basecamp when climbing Mount Everest). It was a cool hike and for a long time that morning we were able to look over our shoulder and see Tengboche. We passed a collapsed bridge from the 2015 earthquake. In fact people were always pointing out earthquake damage all along the trip. It was a defining moment for the entire region, both in the mlountains and in Kathmandu. The ridge was a pile of twisted steel still connected to one side of the ravine.

We crossed on a higher bridge. It was an exciting bridge crossing. I have enjoyed all of them except for that famous double bridge. That one was just too high for me. This one was fine. As the group started crossing the bridge some yaks started crossing from the other side so some of us turned around (hence the people facing both ways on the bridge picture above). We cruised until about 1:00 and came in for a well deserved lunch. It was a vegetable soup called Sherpa’s Stew. We ate it in a cool tea houses. All of the tea houses have a eating area that has windows on three sides with great views.

After lunch we cruised into Dengboche. We had magnificent views of Ama Dablan, Everest and Lohtse. But mostly Ama Dablan. Dengboche is a small village. We stayed at the Everest Resort. The resort name is quite a stretch. We are starting to see mountain inflation. Lower on the mountain water was 100 rupees for a liter. At Dengboche it was 250 rupees. In Tangboche they charged your phone for 300 rupees. In Dengboche they charged 300 rupees for an hour of charge.

At 14,000 feet when the wind begins to blow its gets cold fast. Note: Corrugated Steele Guy in the background.

The graffitti you see in the Himalayas is…different.Plastic cups are light and don’t break. Perfect for Himalayan Tea Houses, but Peter Rabbit?Crossing the Dudh Cosi (again)The kids on the trail were cute.Ama DablamSolar powered tea kettle warmer could boil water, possibly helped by the high altitude. We saw these reflectors everywhere.

The hike into DengbocheClouds over Dengboche. Almost every afternoon we had clouds roll in, at higher altitudes this usually meant hiking in the mist.Popcorn a staple snack in the tea houses. Who knew?Checking vital signs in Dengboche.

That night Jim and English Paul talk about altitude sickness. We were now at over 14,000 feet, about as high as any place in the continental US. They said this was the place where we might see people start to get sick. They went over the Lake Louise Acute Mountain Sickness Score and asked us to assess ourselves every morning and every night.

Later that night Mark and I did a duet of The Cremation of Sam McGee.

After a rest day in Namche it is back to the dusty trail as we hike from Namche Bazar to Tengboche.

Up to now our rooms on the trek have had amenities like electric outlets and in-room bathrooms, well we made it to Tengboche and the teahouse had neither of these. There are two wash closets down the hall but even these have their idiosyncrasies like padlocks on them until 5:30 PM. Why? No one knows. It is the way of Tengboche.

The other cute feature of the bathroom is that the toilets don’t flush. There is an 80 gallon drum of water and a coffee can floating in the water. After you do your business, you simply flush the toilet by pouring water into the toilet. This took me more than a few moments to figure out.

The electricity is no longer included in your rent for the night, but they will be happy charge your device for 300 rupees, about $3.

But let’s start at the beginning.

We woke at 6:00 and had porridge and eggs with naan bread for breakfast. Eating porridge made me want to complain that this bowl was too hot and that bowl was too cold, until I finally found one that was just right.

Then our packs were loaded on yaks and away we went. The hike was up out of town as we went over the ridge the city is built on.

We hiked along the the ridge with a great view of Ama Dablam. Ama Dablam means Mother’s Treasure Box. The mountain has a central peak with a subsidiary peak on either side (you can only see the one on the left in the picture below.) The image is supposed to look like a woman’s head and two arms. In the middle of the central peak is large hanging glacier that is supposed to represent a broach or “treasure box.”

The weather was perfect. Cloudless blue sky. Visibility for miles. Stopped for some pics.

After a few hours we stopped for a tea break. Zonder broke out the chili spiced dehydrated mango. This is an amazing hiking food.

Then we continued onward and downward as we left the ridge and headed for river level.

We crossed the river on another epic bridge, this time over rapids.

Then we had lunch. The place teased us by advertising donuts, but it was too early in the season for the bakery to be open. They promised us that they would have donuts on our return trip later in the week. (We’ll see.)

Then after lunch an ascent, a big ascent. Just like the hike into Namche Bazar the hike to Tengboche had a 2,500 foot vertical climb packed into the after lunch hike. This is a Mount Democrat climb packed into the second half of a day. This part of the climb was particularly busy with lots of Yaks. There is a biological heir by to the animals in the Himalayas. Tengboche was about as high as you would see donkeys, and in the climb to Tengboche we saw our first long-haired yaks. Below this point we had seen yak-horse (or maybe donkey?) hybrids. But up high it was the real yak.

During the climb the clouds began rolling in. Then we were in the clouds. We hiked in the clouds all the way to Tengboche.

After this epic climb with endless switchbacks, rolling into Tengboche was a magical moment.

We had dinner, played around with the pulse oximeter (strangely the Sherpa’s had lower oxygen saturation than the trekkers) met some college students going on the same hike we were. Ben, the photographer, played Spoons with them and relieved them of some of their excess rupees.

Lowest pulse ox of the group 83 from one of our Sherpas. This surprised me. We are at 12,660 feet. #MM4MM pic.twitter.com/gfY2AD9MDh

— Joel M. Topf, MD FACP (@kidney_boy) March 8, 2018

Their curve RBCs oxygen pressure to saturation curve has shifted. They don’t saturate because of lower affinity, and hence are much better in releasing it to the cells

— Poyan Mehr (@poyanmehr) March 9, 2018

To paraphrase one of my fawm mentors. Above 14,000ft a pulse ox is about as useful as a neurosurgeon. Should I bring one if I can? Sure. Is it going to give me a lot helpful information? Probably not.

— Expedition Journal (@expedjournal) March 9, 2018

Namche Bazar for a day with no hiking. We were spending a rest day before going any higher to help with acclimatization. This is the only non-hiking day we have on the trek. This meant a luxurious 9:00 Am breakfast time. After breakfast Silva, Jeff, John, Paul, and Jim walked about 20 minutes to the Tenzing Norgay memorial at a park on the top of the city. The memorial is a statue of Tenzing posing with his ice ax. It is a sculptural representation of the picture you have seen a thousand times of him summiting Everest.

My favorite part of the statue was the “No climbing” sign place un-ironically on its base.

The park is at the high point of the city and gives a great view of the high peaks of the Himalayas. This is where I saw Everest for the first time, right along side the statue of the first man to ascend the mountain. It was a moving experience to finally see it after planning and preparing for this trip for the last 14 months.

After the memorial we went down into the shops of Namche Bazar. All of us were pretty concerned by how cold it was the night before and wanted to buy additional clothes. I bought some warm socks for the tea house ($3.50), a warmer hat ($3.50), and some down gloves ($9). Then we went for Pizza at the Namche Bazar Bakery and Pizza (number 1 bakery on TripAdvisor). After lunch we went to a North Face store and were shocked by the North Face prices. It’s amazing how fast you get used to counterfeit prices.

Then I went to the Liquid Bar to see the movie Everest. A few of the bars in town show free movies at 3:00. All the movies are climbing movies. They know their audience. It was about the 1996 Everest disaster that Krakauer wrote about in Into Thin Air. The movie had some great shots of the climbers going to basecamp including Kathmandu International Airport, the double bridge, and the entrance to Namche Bazar. It was wild seeing the places I just visited in the last few days on film.

After the movie we had dinner and a pep talk. Then off to bed by 9 PM.

It was a nice rest day.

It was a day that felt like a real vacation: see a cultural high point, do some shopping, grab some pizza, and see a movie. Very ordinary.