Trip Reports

Everest 3 Peaks 3 Passes - 3 to 27 May '12

Written by Leader Paul Westwood, May 2012

Most of the team assembled at Heathrow airport T4 in eager anticipation of a trip into largely unvisited territory. One member, Graham, would join directly from Delhi making a total, including their expedition leader, Paul Westwood, of thirteen people.

The flights with Jet Airways went smoothly, if a little later than planned, due to delayed connecting flights, and the team arrived at Summit Hotel in Kathmandu in mid-afternoon of the following day. No sooner had the team arrived in Kathmandu that they were off early the next morning to the domestic airport for an exciting flight to the tiny mountain airstrip at Lukla. An exciting flight with take off being delayed again but this time due to adverse weather conditions, and an even more exciting landing for even the most experienced flyer. The team were met by the local Lama and introduced to their Sirdar & Sherpa crew. After some tea and biscuits, their kit bags, tents and provisions were strapped to the waiting yaks and porters; their rucksacks adjusted on their own backs and they were off, heading for their first night’s camp at Phakding.

Quite a tough first day followed by an even tougher second, having entered Sagarmatha National Park at Monjo, the group made their way up the legendary Namche Hill to Namche Bazaar, the capital of the Khumbu region. This trek takes an acclimatisation day at this point, so we had two nights at Namche. ‘Acclimatisation’ however doesn’t mean rest and so the team gained height by visiting the Everest View Hotel, returning to sleep at a lower altitude back at Namche. When the weather is good, which it was at this point, the Everest View Hotel does exactly what its name implies.

From this point, our trek left the main route up to EBC and headed west up the beautiful and peaceful valley to Thame for another two night camp. It was here that Laurens showed the first signs of his liking for tea house bedrooms, rather than his tent, and additional tea house food, particularly pizza!

On our rest and acclimatisation day, we visited the monastery above Thame and did a training session with the portable altitude chamber (PAC) or Gammov Bag. Narinjan acted as the casualty and seemed to quite enjoy the whole experience. From Thame, we climbed more steeply to Lungden and the following day, to base camp below the Renjo La. Some of the team climbed with Paul to 5000m in the afternoon before returning to 4900m for dinner and sleep.

The first of our three high passes, the Renjo La, came the following day and gave us a taste of the changeability of the weather with sun, cloud, wind and snowfall! A further acclimatisation day at Gokyo saw groups walking to the lakes further up the valley or just chilling about the lodge. A few of the team were feeling the strain at this point so alternative routes were devised and resourced to miss out crossing the Cho La. The next day, most of the group climbed Gokyo Ri, our first peak, before we all made our way across the Ngozumpa glacier to Dragnag for a final night all together for quite a few days. Tony learned what it feels like to run with a pack on your back when you thought you could barely even walk – just needing a motivational call of “Run, rock fall!”

Up early the next day, Tony, Narinjan, Jan and Pam along with their accompanying Sherpa/porters headed down the valley to Pangboche (a long walk!) while the remaining nine, including Angela who’d made a remarkable recovery from Delhi belly, started off for pass number two, the Cho La at 5330m altitude (another long walk too!) to arrive at Dzongla after 7½ hours of hard walking. The rocky climb up to the pass had sections of loose rock and iced up sections, while the descent involved a tricky down climb (with the help of a confidence rope) and a walk over a short glacier. The group had crampons with them but conditions didn’t warrant their use. A solo German lady accompanied us across the Cho La as she was nervous of tackling it alone – we think she took a bit of a shine to Andy as well, despite Amanda never being too far away!

The trek was more than half way complete now and another trend was emerging, that of Rich and Kath buying Sprite and Pringles at every opportunity – comfort eating, I think you’d say. David was also showing an enormous dedication to his art by lugging about a really heavy (getting on for 20kg) rucksac containing a large plate camera – can’t wait to see the results! Pemba Sherpa was tasked to accompany him when he went wandering off in search of that perfect shooting position.

From Dzongla, the group walked to Lobuje and the next day to Gorak Shep, the site of the 1953 base camp and our base for the next two nights. Narinjan rejoined the group at this point having slept in lodges at Pangboche and Dugla. The altitude here is well over 5200m and the temperatures can be as extreme. The following day the team headed off to Everest Base Camp where they received a lovely warm welcome from Jagged Globe’s summit team in residence. Adam Ward, the summit team’s Base Camp Manager and Chef talked about what was going on and planned for the next few days (for both Everest and Lhotse summit teams) and prepared a wonderful spread for lunch.

We split into two teams to climb Kala Pattar, one leaving in the dark at 4am to see the sun rise while the rest of the group decided on a more civilised time of 0830! Narinjan had written some special prayers which he said at the summit – a moving experience. On arriving back at Lobuje, we found our previous campsite occupied and the crew had set us up at a particularly uninviting lodge camp site – Dawa, our Sirdar agreed with me that this wasn’t an acceptable standard so all the tents, including the toilet tent, baggage, kitchen crew, etc were moved from there to a new location – much better! And all done within a matter of minutes! Early rise the next day to cross the Khumbu glacier before scaling the rocky western side of the Kongma La, our final high pass, before the long decent to the small collection of houses/lodges called Chhukhung.

The team split into two summit teams again for the final peak ascent of Chhukhung Ri, but this time the first (very early birds) team consisted of just David – to get sunrise photos, and Graham – to beat Laurens to the final summit. Laurens did scale Chhukhung Ri very quickly with the later team but as Graham reminded him “everyone knows who was first to summit Everest but very few know who is the fastest!” frequently.

We stayed overnight at Pangboche before an almost obligatory stop at the bakery for cakes and coffee, and a visit to the Monastery at Thangbocheand, before a slightly extended afternoon walk to reach Namche Bazaar. More cake and coffee at either Everest or German Bakeries and a bit of retail therapy (who’s yak hair jacket is that?) before we headed off down Namche Hill and out of the national park. Our final overnight was at Phakding – where we were all treated to a bedroom for the night – and then we were back into Lukla, our gateway back into the wider world.

Unfortunately, due to the weather, there were to be no aeroplanes landing at Lukla for the foreseeable future so it took a couple of days and three chartered helicopters for us to open the gateway but it did mean an unexpected and very exciting final stage to our trekking experience. Not much time in Kathmandu but a cracking alternative ending!

Paul Westwood – Expedition Leader « Previous report | Next report »

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