Trip Reports

Everest 3 Peaks 3 Passes 11th Oct - 4th Nov '14

Written by Leader Alex Langdon, November 2014

Everest 3 Peaks 3 Passes October 2014

Our team consisted of:

David & Lianne, Colin, Lisa & Nigel, Chris, Phil, Helen, Hugh and Richard

Our team first laid eyes on each other at Heathrow T4. Despite the best efforts of the M25, everyone arrived in plenty of time and whizzed through the Jet Airways check-in. Alun Richardson and his team doing the Khumbu Climber trip were on the same flight, as was Robin who was off to do his own JG trip so there were a lot of Jagged Globe bags around which made it easy to identify our groups. We flew to Kathmandu via Delhi with about a 4 hour stopover.

The Summit Hotel was very welcoming and we were able to check-in immediately after resolving an initial mix-up with the room allocations. We all ate in the hotel and changed sufficient dollars and pounds into Nepalese rupees for the next 3 weeks. Monday morning brought the joy of a 4am wake-up call and a 4-30am breakfast. By 5-30 we were all fully immersed in the chaos that is the airport with teams from all over the world vying for check-in & weigh-in. Our team began to exhibit a natural talent for getting to the front of the queue with our bags all together, outstanding! Sadly we also seemed to have a talent for packing the kitchen sink, so our excess baggage charge was exorbitant!

By 9-30 all of our team had made it to Lukla and all of our bags had arrived, having travelled on an impressive number of different flights. The early part of our trek was plagued by drizzle between Lukla and Namche and the waterproofs were constantly on & off. This culminated in a ëproperí thunderstorm whilst we were in Namche and what felt like several metres of rainfall overnight. Obviously this fell as snow over higher ground and was to make our route and the views over the next few weeks even more impressive.

From Namche onwards, our team were extremely lucky with the weather: Our days all started clear and bright (and cold!) with cloud slowly developing throughout the day. This gave us spectacular views every day. The 3 Peaks 3 Passes route heads off the ëbeaten trackí after Namche and we saw very few other trekkers over the next few days. The slow increase in altitude began to be felt by a few people, with many struggling to sleep well or having mild headaches and/or nausea. Our itinerary allowed for us to take our time at this stage, so we could rest and recuperate as needed.

Our first pass, the Renjo-La was spectacular and covered in snow, right down to 4000m. Our campsite the night before the pass was on the snow which was a new experience for many of the team. It was a long day at a very steady pace which brought us into Gokyo mid afternoon for hot lemon juice and a chance to buy some ëgenuine Oakleysí for Phil.

Over the next few days, 8 of us tackled Gokyo-Ri and then the whole team managed the second pass, the Cho-La, wearing Kahtoola microspikes on our boots, to the envy of most of the other people sliding down the track in various degrees of ëcontrolí. Sadly, the following day Helen had to leave the team for a week and was escorted down to the hospital in Pheriche. Nigel & Hugh took first shift and managed to tell stories non-stop for 2 hours! Then Phil & Chris took over for the second shift the whole way down to Pheriche. The entire team were fantastic on this day and everyone helped out (with Colin and Richard supervising the oxygen cylinder); a big thank you to everyone. The doctor confirmed that Helen had mild HAPE and suggested she should head slowly down toward Namche, where we found her a week later feeling much better...in the cake shop!

The rest of the team continued on up to Gorak Shep with a few hardy souls heading up a miserable looking Kalar Patar early afternoon. It rewarded them in spectacular style on the summit with a view of Everest and Lhotse peering back through a gap in the clouds. Early the next day found our team at Everest Base Camp which we managed to have all to ourselves and only met other teams as we returned to Gorak Shep.

For the last of the 3 passes, the Khongma-La, it was possible to be flexible with routes and our team divided: 4 people going over and 6 going around it. 5 people then summited Chukhung-Ri the following day which marked the last of the 3 Peaks. By that evening the whole team had descended and were re-united in Pangboche.

The next few days found us walking out toward Lukla, getting fantastic views of Ama Dablam, visiting the monastery at Tengboche, meeting up with Helen, eating cakes in Namche and shopping for souvenirs. We then had our farewell dinner with our local team of guides & porters, a bit too much rum and some seriously dodgy dancing! Our skills in the airport queue saw us through weigh-in in record time and somehow many, many kilos lighter! Then it was time for R&R in KathmanduÖ.sightseeing & shopping.

I feel very lucky to have had such a brilliant and diverse team of people on this trip. We have had more than our fair share of various ailments which stopped many people from completing the whole itinerary. Despite this, everyone was fantastically supportive to each other and we spent a lot of time laughing.

Alex Langdon

« Previous report | Next report »

Jagged Globe Newsletter

We publish an email newsletter with trip reports and latest availability, plus features, competitions and general news of our climbing, trekking & skiing activities.