Three Passes Trek Day 13 & 14

Three Passes Trek Day 13 - Thursday November 10. Chukhung to Lobuche over the Kongma La pass (5545metres) The trek over Kongma La, the first of the 3 passes, was by far the toughest day of the trek so far (and hopefully will remain that way). I'm now in the relative luxury of the 'Guest House for EBC' which can be recognised by its bright orange colour, where we've decided to take a rest day to recover. At this point the trek rejoins the EBC route, having separated from it 4 days ago at Dingboche. We strongly recommend prospective travelers on this trek to figure in a rest day here or at least allow a couple of extra days overall just to make sure you have the option of taking a break when you need one. If you follow the itinerary in the guide book and various websites from organised tours you'll find that today's agenda involves 6 hours walking to Gorak Shep, Everest base camp and then back to Gorak Shep. Anyway, just to recap, the trek over the pass went a bit like this: We woke at 5am, packed our bags, drank lots of fluids and were ready to leave at 6 as arranged. We'd given Phuri, our porter/guide the previous day off, so he hiked back to his home village and hadn't shown up the previous evening as arranged. As he still didn't appear, we set off with full packs, a bit of a strain under normal circumstances, but even more so when ascending more than 1000m t the pass (and down again). About 10-15 min along the trail, we came to a creek crossing about 2.5 to 3 metres wide, but with barely visible stepping stones covered with ice. We couldn't figure out a safe path across, so in the end we decided to jump across. There was no way we could manage it with our backpacks on, so we decided to throw them across. With a 1, 2, 3 heave action we somehow managed to sling them across (with a slight helicopter spin) without them getting wet or breaking anything. Next, I took the took the first jump off a 2 step run up and landed on the opposite side without breaking any bones. I turned around to see if Sama was ready to jump, but she was looking the other way at the approaching figure of Phuri, who had turned up after all and had hurried along after us. Phuri quickly grabbed a couple of flat stones and with no fuss whatsoever placed them in strategic spots for Sama to walk across the creek as though it was the simplest manoeuvre ever undertaken. After swapping around backpacks, we continued on our way with Phuri shouldering the heaviest load. It was fortunate for us that he made it, as it turned out to be a torturous 4 hour ascent, with lots of steep slopes. As we got higher we found ourselves stopping every few minutes to catch our breath. The atmosphere has about 50 percent less oxygen at this altitude (5545 metres). There were several places where the path was unclear and we would have probably wasted a fair bit of time and energy had we not had Phuri with us, who had been walking the trek for years.

After an unquantifiable amount of effort, exertion, sweat, determination and (admittedly) a little self doubt, we reached the Kongma La. It was difficult to decide which way to look as the views in both directions were magnificent even by Himalayan standards. Then with little fanfare we passed beneath he strings of prayer flags and commenced our descent, which was very steep and difficult to maintain balance and stability.

I tried using my trekking poles for only the second time. They helped a little but kept collapsing in on their own telescopic mechanism so I gave up after a while. Sama, who is a mountain goat by nature, found that part easy and kept having to wait for me to catch up. Cheap trekking poles from Kathmandu cheap stalls are officially the least useful piece of technology to bring with you. We reached the base on the other side of the pass and stopped for about 15 min to devour some snacks that we'd brought, but the hard part wasn't quite over. After crossing a nice flat stretch of terrain the rest of the journey involved climbing and descending a series of glacial dunes. After the first few I mentally renounced the idea of it ever ending, so it was with some surprise as well as relief that we came over the final mound to see Lobuche looming below, with the orange coloured tea house we'd been recommended glaring at us like a beacon of hope.... haven't moved far away from it since (except for a 2hour walk this morning and this post is already getting a bit long, so I'll leave it out).