Strong men and women are laid low by this place. Acute mountain sickness, the “Khumbu cough" (also known as the high altitude hack), gastroenteritis, the cold, the food...what makes them want to come here? What made me want to come here? Our friend Paul walks down the hall of tonight’s tea house, remarking on the sounds of hacking and coughing emitting from the guest rooms. “This place is full of crazy people.” And I can’t argue otherwise.

I wondered, before I came to Nepal to hike to Mount Everest Base Camp, whether this might be my new “Hardest Thing.” My old Hardest Thing was made that way by high elevation and its effects, hiking the Bear Creek Trail in the Colorado Rockies at high altitude. This time, I thought I had it handled. A few years older but in better physical condition, I am taking Diamox to help and am much more aware of the effects of altitude.

Starting the Trek to Base Camp

This is day eight of our trek, and we are in the village of Lobuche. At 16,170 feet, it is our last stop before we push on to Base Camp. It is late October 2012, and my husband, Bill, and I are traveling with a small group of Americans, led by both American and Nepalese guides.

Andrew, the youngest member of our group at 30, was the third person to come down with the fever, chills, nausea, and diarrhea associated with acute gastroenteritis brought on by ingesting the wrong thing. Such an affliction is always unpleasant but here particularly so, as spending inordinate amounts of time in the less-than-pristine and always frigid (whether inside or outside) toilet is miserable.

Neither Bill nor I have been struck with the stomach bug yet, but I have been dealing for several days with mild symptoms of acute mountain sickness, or AMS, the proper name for altitude sickness. It began with a headache at 14,000 feet and has gradually worsened, but so far isn’t severe enough to keep me from moving on. Joe, our American guide from Backwoods Adventures, is keeping a close eye on me (and all the others) to make sure we are healthy enough to continue. A severe case of AMS could be deadly and, at some point, a hiker experiencing symptoms must simply descend to cope.

A Peek at Mount Everest on the Approach to Base Camp

Getting this far is an accomplishment. We have hiked 32 miles since our arrival at Lukla, the starting point for the trek, and home to an airport that has the reputation as “The World’s Most Dangerous.” The unusually short airstrip is squeezed between the side of a mountain and a cliff with a nearly 2,000-foot drop. Volatile weather conditions increase the risk, so pilots flying from Kathmandu must choose their timing carefully.

On our first attempt to fly out of Kathmandu, the plane turned back because the landing gear would not retract. Once the mechanical issue was resolved, wind conditions at Lukla prevented departure for several more hours. It was 2 p.m. when we finally left Kathmandu for the 45-minute flight to the village at 9,800 feet elevation. It was a relief to have feet on the ground after the harrowing flight and, after a late lunch, we started to walk. Over the five miles to our lodging in Phakding, we actually descended to 8,700 feet, hiking much of it in the dark.

View of Ama Dablam along the Hike to Everest Base Camp

Our path through the Himalayas follows a well-worn trail first established by real mountaineers who didn’t turn back at the base of Mount Everest. Trekking to Base Camp as a destination began in 1965 when a British mountaineer and former Ghurka officer, Colonel Jimmy Roberts, had the notion that people would pay for the privilege of following in the footsteps of Hillary and Tenzing through the Dudh Kosi River Valley, along the Khumbu Glacier, and to the base of Everest. And they did, with trekking now a big contributor to tourism in Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries.

Accommodations along the trail are in “tea houses,” which exist to provide bed and board to trekkers. While these lodges offer a distinct advantage over tents in the chill of late October, we would be seriously uncomfortable without our zero-degree sleeping bags in the unheated guest rooms. While hiking we have no difficulty staying warm, but each afternoon when we reach our destination we take refuge in sunrooms attached to the tea houses. Unfortunately our arrival seems to coincide with the daily appearance of clouds, which roll down the river valley and obscure the sun. Toward evening, yak dung stoves in the common rooms are fired up and guests gather around, trying to soak up heat for the night ahead. Warmth remains elusive the entire trip. Cold, in fact, is constant.

A Rhododendron Forest Near Deboche

After the easy first leg of our hike from Lukla to Phakding, we climbed 2,500 feet over six miles to Namche Bazaar – a hard day. The trail follows the Dudh Kosi valley north through pine forest, and was crowded with trekkers, porters, natives carrying insanely large loads, and yak trains carrying all manner of goods. Everything up here is carried by man or beast. There are no roads to these villages, and no wheeled vehicles that could reasonably convey loads up these steep, rocky, narrow trails. We have learned to step out of the way of the ubiquitous yaks – or dzopkyos (a cow/yak mix). “Yak attack!” has become our cry when we need to give them room on the trail. They appear docile but have fierce-looking horns. Our pace, it occurs to me, is life at the speed of yak, and for this place, that is plenty fast.

Exploring Along the Way to Base Camp

Thamserku, a 21,679-foot peak, rises to the east of Namche Bazaar and came into view at the village of Mondzo, where we stopped for tea. The trail crosses the river numerous times along our 40-mile path to Base Camp, typically on steel suspension bridges fluttering with prayer flags. Here we used one of the steel structures to cross to the river’s east bank; the remains of the old wooden bridge destroyed by floods in 1985 are visible upriver. Along the trail, the villages are interspersed with forests of rhododendron, magnolia and fir. Prayer wheels decorate the village entrances and mani stones are everywhere – alone or in piles – beside villages, at crossings, along paths and on mountains.

Ama Dablam stands sentinel over the Dudh Kosi River Valley.

Namche Bazaar is the main trading center and tourist hub for this region and there we stayed two days to acclimatize at the 11,306-foot elevation. Our stay at Namche included a hike to the Everest View Hotel which, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is the highest hotel in the world at 12,729 feet. As the name suggests, it also offered our first view of Mount Everest, which reaches more than 29,000 feet above sea level. Its summit cone is almost obscured by other mountains, but is distinctive because of the constantly blowing snow created by high winds at its peak. Here, 22,349-foot Ama Dablam dominates the scenery, its ghost-like shape making it hard to forget. We saw it ahead of us for several days as we walked up the valley. Then, suddenly, it was behind us.

Acclimatizing and Staying Warm

Over the next several days we made slow progress – the trek is timed intentionally to provide plenty of time for acclimatization. Fitness is one thing, having enough oxygen is yet another, and both are critical to success here. From Namche to Phortse to Pangboche, then Pheriche, where we took another rest day, at 14,000 feet. The houses and stone walls of Pheriche scatter along the broad valley of the Khumbu Khola, a tributary of the Dudh Khosi which drains from the Khumbu Glacier at the foot of Everest. Pheriche is home to a high altitude research center at the Himalayan Rescue Association clinic, where we heard a sobering lecture on the effects of high altitude. With an extra day here for acclimatization, we hiked to a ridge between Pheriche and Dingboche, affording spectacular views up and down the river valley.

Eat, hike, sleep, try to keep warm, repeat. Everything has become difficult as we have ascended. Eating enough is a challenge. High altitude suppresses appetite but at the same time, the body needs more and more calories. And the food becomes less and less palatable. Producing food for western tastes on yak dung stoves at 14,000 feet must be difficult. And protein is hard to get. We were warned to avoid eating meat on the way up because of contamination concerns. Seeing halves of pigs carried up the mountain, I could see why.

Susan and Bill Dragoo pause on the final approach to Mount Everest Base Camp.

The push for Lobuche, gaining more than 2,000 feet of elevation in five miles, was another hard day. We followed a wide trail north along the bottom of the valley, a desolate landscape, the trail going directly up the gravelly terminal moraine of the Khumbu Glacier. At the top of a ridge, the path bears left and is covered with memorials to lost climbers and sherpas – piles of stones and masonry pillars, prayer flags everywhere among the wispy clouds and thin air.

I am walking very slowly now. My headache recurred last night and Joe advised me not to overexert, which could exacerbate the AMS. Any exertion at this altitude is acutely felt. I have control over so little – my body responds as it will to the lack of oxygen – but I am trying to be very compliant so I can make it to Base Camp. It is cold inside the “Mother Earth House” lodge in Lobuche, and it will be an even colder night. We have an early start tomorrow, to Gorak Shep then on to Base Camp. It will be a long day.

Hiking on to Mount Everest Base Camp

The first section of the trail from Lobuche follows the gap between the glacial moraine and the mountain wall. To the right, the Khumbu Glacier gurgles under a blanket of rocks and gravel. The landscape grows more desolate, and the trail is marked only by cairns of stones and the dung of yak trains. Soon Kala Pattar comes into view, an 18,192-foot mound of dark mountain rubble which provides perhaps the best view of Mount Everest in the Himalayas and which several of us had hoped to climb. At this point, I have my doubts as I trudge.

Gorak Shep is a small collection of lodges providing basic needs – food and a space to sleep. We stop there and make our sleeping arrangements and continue to Base Camp, a draining scramble starting at the north end of Gorak Shep. My headache is no worse and I am thankful. I walk at a steady pace, optimistic now that I will make Base Camp.

Soon we are there. Base Camp is a semi-permanent village of tents and prayer flags at the bottom of the Khumbu Icefall at 17,519 feet. Everest is not visible from here – it lurks somewhere beyond the icefall. We stay on Base Camp’s edges. There are crowds of people. It is an emotional moment for me, the culmination of this trek. We snap photos and return to Gorak Shep, a place which seems like – and in some ways, is – the end of the earth.

Susan and Bill Dragoo at Mount Everest Base Camp

After a cold night and a headache (I did not attempt to summit Kala Pattar), we begin our descent, which seems like a lark, as oxygen becomes more and more plentiful. On our return to Lukla, we walk through an enchanting rhododendron forest near Diboche, climb to Tengboche Monastery, and visit an old Buddhist nunnery, but become more and more eager for warmth, hot showers, and good food. On Day 14, we walk back into Lukla and I decide, yes, this was definitely my new Hardest Thing. And that’s why I did it.

Need to Know

Information

Nepal is a small, land-locked strip of land tucked between Tibet and the northeastern border of India. Its capital city is Kathmandu, with a population of 1.6 million. Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, with its summit about 29,032 feet above sea level. The mountain is part of the Himalaya Range in Asia.

Best Time to Go

Spring or fall to avoid the summer rainy season. October and November have the best weather for trekking and comprise the high tourist season. The trek itself takes about two weeks and there are travel days before and after, so schedule about three weeks for the whole experience.

Getting There

Several reputable tour companies offer guided treks to Mount Everest Base Camp. Getting to Nepal from the U.S. takes about two days. Our route took us from Los Angeles to Seoul, South Korea, then to Bangkok, Thailand, where we stayed overnight. The next day we flew to Kathmandu, Nepal, staying two nights before flying to Lukla for the start of the trek.

Maps

National Geographic Everest Base Camp Trekking Map

Books

There are many available. Two good choices are Lonely Planet’s Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya and Cicerone’s Everest, A Trekker’s Guide.

About the Author

Susan Dragoo is a writer and photographer living in Norman, Oklahoma who would rather be hiking just about any day of the year.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in Issue 21 of TrailGroove Magazine. You can read the original article here for additional photos and content.