We woke up pretty early at 6am, in our tent on the summit of Lobuche East, at 6100m.
We had a bit of food, then packed up all of our stuff, including the tent. Kristen and I walked down together, (as Pemba had to organise something at camp) and we were fastttt getting down to the junction between the mountain and the hiking path. I wasn’t pushing myself hard, but it felt so good to move fast down a big mountain which is not something I usually do. It took us less than 1 hour to get down this section.
Once we got to the end of the snow, we could put our hiking shoes on, take our helmets and harnesses off, and change pants.
Pemba joined up, and the three of us walked down together to Lobuche Village, which is 1200m below the summit.
Our main motivation for this section was to get schnitzel in the village! To put in perspective: almost every lodge on the everest base camp trek has the exact same menu, so for one (at 4900m!!!) to have something like schnitzel was incredible!
We spent a longggg time in the village, as we were a little bit tired and took our time to eat and drink to refuel. We still had a long way to go!
We hit the trails again, heading towards Everest base camp. The first step was to get to Gorakshep, which was 2 slow hours of up and down. We had tea, and Kristen and I used a normal toilet* for the last time in a while.
*In base camp we have seperate pee and poop toilets and yes it is a hassle. So please be grateful for a toilet at home that manages both 🫶✌️
Now the final push to Everest base camp. We continued on for a while, not rushing, as we didn’t know how much rest we would get before having to head up on Everest, so there was no point in arriving too tired. We passed what seemed like all of the camps (it actually is, all but 2 or 3) before finally reaching ours at about 4:30pm.
We met up with Dad and our friends, and immediately had some tea. I have had a bit of a cough, so now that I’m back at base camp I can finally get some stronger meds. I also chugged a protein shake, to help with recovery.
A lot of people think that because I like being outdoors, I like staying “disconnected” and being one with nature. And while yes, if I’m on a girls hiking trip with my friends I do like that, but most of the time I love staying connected with back home. Well at least the good parts.
I’m also a teenage girl who loves a good scroll once in a while!!
I immediately jumped on the wifi, called Mum, and then hopped on a 7 way video call with my friends!
When Kristen, Pemba and I arrived at EBC, it was already getting colder so I didn’t want to have a shower, otherwise my wet hair would freeze. Plus, it had already been 11 days since my last shower, what’s one more day?
I headed off to dinner, where there were a few new faces that had arrived when we were gone. One of them is Sheroze from Pakistan, who is one of the first people I met when I started climbing in Nepal. I was a bit of a fangirl back then, but now we’re good friends! We had mashed potatoes, chicken, pasta, and veggies for dinner, with fruit cocktail. Some people think we’re eating dehydrated camping food for 2 months!
