Trip Reports

Khumbu Climber - 8 Oct to 4 Nov '11

Written by Leader Mungo Ross, November 2011

We met at Heathrow, flew to Lukla, climbed three mountains, then all went home again – another “Khumbu Climber”. Except (as usual) there’s a bit more to it than that!

Most of us did indeed meet at Heathrow, though some of us knew each other already, collected Simon (from Oz) in Kathmandu, before the delayed flight to the No 1 extreme airport in the world (apparently), which meant we had to spend our first night in the Khumbu in Lukla knocking one of our spare days off the itinerary before we had even started walking.

No worries (Australian influence there) ‘cos this was a fit, experienced (finely tuned) group, the weather was great and we had plenty of time. Three weeks of trekking through the Khumbu at it’s best followed – clear blue sky most days, although it has been a colder than usual autumn (brrrr), with a photo opportunity at every bend in the path (until you lose your camera Jackie, bad luck, we’ll all send you copies to remind you), mixing up camping with lodging to complete the experience.

A lot of folk say they would not “do” the Khumbu Valley – too commercialised, busy, and littered, and it is true that you do not go there for the solitude if you stay on the trail and in places like Namche and Gorak Shep. But step off the trail, walk away from the crowds, pitch your tent by a side stream, hang back from the others or go out after dark, and you have the place to yourself – and what a place! The photographs are stunning, but the experience is so much more, as yet another group will testify.

After everyone climbed to the top of Pokalde (and took more photos), a fall of snow cost us our other spare day, so accepting a committment to climb Island Peak, there was the choice of Lobuje (our third mountain) or extra time at Gokyo and in Kathmandu. 7 out of the 9 in our group shared the summit of Imjatse (Island Peak) with (the all too familiar these days) dozens of others on another perfect morning, opting to relax in their individual glories and leave it to Johan to do the honourable thing and climb Lobuje East on their behalf. This he did in fine form, on another fine morning, chasing the others over the Cho La the same day, so concluding our neat little plan to fly out of Lukla a day early.

Not! So much for neat little plans – we got mixed up in the cloud that settled over Lukla for a week, grounding all flights and creating a backlog of several thousand other travellers, so we came up with another little plan; walk out of the mountains and get the bus to Kathmandu, which takes 5 days instead of half an hour on the plane. Apart from some folk being late home for work (most of the group are so old they’re retired), circumstantially we got another few days fabulous walking through the Himalaya, and some more photos (lucky you had you SLR Jackie).

Thanks Summit staff in Kathmandu and especially Stephanie in Sheffield for organising getting us home. Thanks everybody for sharing another month in this most spectacular part of the world, for responding to the demands of our own adventure, for not falling off the path (falling on it is O.K.), for digging deep when needed and relaxing the rest of the time, for pretending to laugh at the jokes (and telling some new ones), and most of all for deciding what you each wanted to do. Enjoy your photographs – wallow in your memories!

Mungo Ross, Expedition Leader « Previous report | Next report »

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