Trip Reports

Everest 3 Peaks 3 Passes - 15 Oct to 7 Nov '17

Written by Leader Mungo Ross, November 2017

There are trips that just follow the itinerary and do what it says on the tin (in spite of a fond little expression of mine –“the itinerary is only in pencil”): this autumn season in Nepal appears to have seen a bumper bundle of trips do exactly that, and this was one of them.

Eighteen of us (a big group, but Kerry was there from the office to provide her cheerful support) congregated at the Summit Hotel in Kathmandu, and we were all in Lukla for breakfast the following morning (albeit missing eight kit bags which were out with our weight allowance on the flight, but which – as assured, what can possibly go wrong – were with us by dinner time in Phakding). Two nights in Namche Bazar – by the way, the walk up to a view point on the ridge to the North West of the capital of the Khumbu offers much the same view but without the crowds as the more popular walk to the Japanese Everest View Hotel – and it’s always worth the effort of getting up early to watch the sunrise, even if oops it happens to be a foggy morning. Then it’s off the main Everest trail into the Bhote Koshi for two nights in Thame, another night in Lungden before our one night in tents below the Renjo La, this all to enable the essential acclimatisation, and allow us the sense of being true adventurers.

There is an irony in the commercial success of the upper Khumbu – because Everest is there – and we appear to have done too good a job of encouraging folk to go there to support the economy after the earthquakes! New lodges are appearing every season being built to ever higher standards, Ang Dawa’s lodge in Phakding has raised the bar and is positively “Alpine Chalet”. What I used to refer to as like living in a (very cold) plywood box now has carpeted floor, varnished or painted walls, curtains over the windows, en-suite flushing loos, sometimes even a hot shower. Gone are the nights of having to get fully dressed to trot (probably literally) to an outside toilet where you’d be lucky to be able to even get inside the dilapidated shed to add to the already considerable unsavoury mess. Egg and chips, mobile reception, and the can’t-live-without-it-now Wi-Fi abound, as do the increasing numbers of other trekkers, climbers, tourists, porters and Sherpas so a night under canvas is an opportunity to really know that we are indeed in the High Himalaya.

But I digress, back to the story – all over the Renjo La to Gokyo; well not quite all, we’d already lost one member back at Lungden to a medical condition which we reckoned wasn’t going to be helped by subjecting it to a sudden significant reduction in oxygen, that same lack accounting for three more of the group leaving us from Gokyo - then on over the Cho La and the Kongma La, up (and safely back down) Gokyo Ri, Kala Patar and Chukung Ri, visited Everest Base Camp, and some folk even walked to the fifth lake beyond Gokyo to see what must be the best view of Everest from the Nepal side. When I say that we followed the itinerary what I really meant is that the trip did – various folk decided for various reasons to take advantage of the flexibility that this trek offers to walk round some of the Passes and skip some of the Peaks – perhaps the best reason ever, and this might just be a first for Jagged Globe, to become aware of an unexpected pregnancy!!! Suggestions of Kerry or Mungo for the child’s name in nine months’ time were not serious – by the way! Out of the sixteen members who set out on this trek – what has to be one of the very best treks in the whole world, by the way – five actually summited all three Peaks, crossed all three Passes and went to Everest Base Camp. I’ve never measured the success of mountain treks and climbing expeditions in terms of summits and destinations; it is sincerely about the journey, and this has been a spectacularly successful journey of a random group of people (some more random than others) who have become friends spending three weeks together in an utterly inspiring landscape.

We have been blessed with the great weather of this autumn season in Nepal; supported by a great crew of Sherpas, Sherpanis, and Porters; had Jagged Globe a phone call away to take care of evacuations; the infrastructure in the Khumbu Valley of communications, medical clinics and helicopters; and a group who were all up for the challenge – as challenge indeed it is. This is trekking high Peaks and Passes in the Himalaya; hearing marathon runners and competitive athletes say that this has been the toughest thing they have ever done is no surprise - none of us like suddenly having only half the oxygen we’re used to, particularly while we are climbing up and down steep mountain slopes. This is a committing and demanding trek through some of the world’s most spectacular mountain scenery – thank you everybody involved for making this trek so much fun as well.

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