AWC Going Dutch Dec 2018

High Altitude Trekking – Part II
by Melissa White
Heading Down
What goes up must come down, and so our
adventure in Nepal continued after achieving
our goal of trekking to Everest Base Camp
(EBC). Overall, heading down the mountain
was easier, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.
Not only did we still have plenty of uphills
to contend with – every day we encountered
a constant series of up and down referred to
as “Nepali Flat” – but some of the downhills
were crazy steep. Although I’ve never had
knee problems, my right knee became swollen
and sore. There’s no ice where there’s no
refrigeration, but luckily Teresa had brought
along an extra neoprene brace, which helped
greatly to alleviate the pain. Although we
were following the same route that we had
taken up, the scenery looked quite different
from the other direction. More than once we
asked our guide, Ishor, if he was sure that
we had travelled this way before. He just
laughed.
I often joked that we were on a High Altitude
Detox Program of no alcohol and no meat.
In an effort to prevent altitude sickness, we
avoided alcohol – with the exception of a
celebration over a few warm Everest Beers
with Ishor and our porters after our 11th day
40 GOING DUTCH
of trekking. We had also been warned to stay
away from meat due to the lack of refrigeration
on the mountain. That was especially
difficult for Kent, who gave in and had pizza
with tuna several times after being assured
that Ishor always checked the expiration
dates on the cans of tuna first. Carlin is a vegetarian,
so it was easy for her. Teresa and I are
flexitarians who also had no problem sticking
with a purely vegetarian diet. Every night I
ate dal bhat, a traditional Nepali meal of lentil
soup, rice and vegetable curry, and never
grew tired of it. I added one unexpected item
to my detox list along the way: news. After
seeing yet another disconcerting headline on
my BBC app on our third day, I decided that
I was done checking the news until my return.
It turned out that it was easier to give
up than I’d expected: we had access to WiFi
on only 5 of the 15 days. While I was willing
to pay for WiFi at the teahouses, I was much
too cheap to pay the exorbitant fees for 3G
roaming.
On the way up, we had visited Tengboche
Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery
originally built in 1916 and rebuilt in 1934 after
a devastating earthquake. Unfortunately,
photography wasn’t allowed inside; I have
no photos of the amazingly vibrant murals
covering the walls. Our timing wasn’t right
to attend a service, but when we passed back
through on our way down we were lucky
enough to witness a marching band of monks
playing drums, shells and horns with no obvious
melody or harmony. Ishor informed us
that they were marching down to the lodge
we had just left so they could meet with the
chief lama of the region.
We rarely encountered trekkers coming
up towards us, as it turned out that Lukla
Airport had been fogged in for days. The
most intrepid of trekkers could take a bus
from Kathmandu to Jiri and then hike for
eight to ten days to Lukla, although we didn’t
come across a lot of folks that dedicated. It
was a big reminder that, while weather had
completely disrupted many other trekkers’
vacations and had caused the cancellation of
Kent’s planned climb of Island Peak, we had
been extremely lucky. Looks like my chats
with Mother Nature paid off. We were also
very fortunate that we had an extended itinerary.
The traditional trekking itinerary allows
just three days for the return trip from
EBC to Lukla. However, because Kent had
booked a side trip, we had three extra days
to hike down, which allowed us to take our
time rather than rushing down to Lukla only
to be stuck there. This was also advantageous
because I needed extra time: I was still slow
despite the lower altitudes.
With each passing day we got faster and
faster at stuffing our sleeping bags, clothes
and toiletries back into our duffel bags. This
helped to make our mornings more relaxed,
and sometimes we even got to sleep in. We
only had one actual rest day; Ishor recommended
that we stay in Phakding an extra >> 42
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