Nepal - Everest Base Camp Trek Part 3 Monjo to Namche Bazaar

16 Apr Nepal – Everest Base Camp Trek Part 3 Monjo to Namche Bazaar

Posted at 03:16h in Travel by Gros Morne Outdoor 0 Comments

0 Likes

April 16th, 2015 – Day 3 Monjo to Namche

We awoke and ate breakfast somewhat giddily knowing of the significant climb we had to Namche Bazar; it almost felt like the true start to the adventure, we were finally getting out of the lower valley, and climbing up into the larger mountains. How would we react to the 600 meter climb? How would crossing the 3000 meter threshold effect us? Namche Bazaar was the Sherpa capital of the area, and perhaps the largest town. Despite being so remote, the town did have a surprising number of business and services; a bakery, disco, pool hall, numerous tea house, hospital, bank & ATM, and dentist…. almost everything you needed. No road.

We met the Scottish family, and our new Slovenian friends on the trail as we were leaving Monjo. The trail dropped quickly outside the town, down to the bottom of the river valley where we had to cross two suspension bridges over the river before continuing up a slight incline (it was a significant drop to the valley floor, more on this post earthquake). The trail was busier today then previous, or perhaps restricted, it narrowed as we climbed out of the valley; large tour groups were descending with weary-eyed travelers, with large tour groups heading up, and combined with the ever present and periodic yak and porter trains, it made for a busy morning. Natalie actually knocked over a young Nepalese girl walking, while turning around…. And Nat had noticed that I had became more “competitive“ on the climb, trying to pass people, which wasn’t necessarily the best idea. The trail twisted and turned up the west side of the gorge until we came to another hanging bridge, this one was quite significantly higher (above the river) then the previous ones we had crossed. We made our way across nervously. After the hanging bridge gauntlet the climb truly started, and the weather started to clear, where we reveled in the views we absorbed looking down the valley we climbed while we rested, and up another valley to the west, to the town of Thame.

The Hanging Bridges – Start of the climb to Namche

Trail to Namche – Steve

Crossing the hanging bridge (wait till after the earthquake!)

Namche Climb – Almost there Nat

The climb was hard! Nat later told me, that she had never seen me struggle so much in the years she had know me – lots of negative talk, not the usually positive Steve. It felt like I couldn’t walk any slower, ever step was made more difficult by my in ability to get enough air, even when I was consciously taking long deep breaths, and my pack, which in the morning had seemed to have only weighed slightly heavy – perhaps 12 kilos – now seemed to weight exponentially heavier with each every increasing small step! Despite my troubles, the crowds had thinned, the trail had widened and it was quite picturesque; climbing through the pine clad forest, we caught glimpses of blooming rhododendrons, small waterfalls on the opposing valley wall, and again, glimpses of high snowy peaks in the distance.

We took several breaks along the way and got to know an Aussie groups of guys .. and Nat even switched packs at one point, covering 200 meters of the 600 meter climb. Again, I should mention the difficulties of altitude! It was a tough day, but it turned out to be a bit shorter then expected, after 3 hours we arrived at the park check entrance just before Namche Bazaar. Namche (short) was set in a steep bowl, with some terraced fields on the out skirts, and above, with a large group of stone houses concentrated in the middle of the bowl – it was literally set on the side of a mountain. The trees gradually gave away to small shrubs, which we thought was the treeline (wrongly), and we were quite happy to be here. As we climbed through the center of town we passed a group of Nepalese women hand wash clothes in a small stream, behind them stood a large gompa – shrine – we climbed past them to the center of town where we found our accommodation, the “famous“ Khumbu Lodge which offered beautiful views of Namche, and the surroundings, and its also where Jimmy Carter and Robert Redford had previously stayed. It was a town at the heart of “Sherpa” land, with numerous shops, and tea houses, and terraces cut into and found on the edge… it was beautiful, and a little dirty

Namche Bazaar

Prayer Flags and Mountains – Views from Namche

View from our “Tea House” – 4 story hotel

Views from Namche

The lodge was a nice spot, we drank some tea, paid for the internet to update everyone on our travels, and found books to steep ourselves in the mythology of Everest; on the first attempts by Mallory, to the conquering by Hillary and Tenzig. Coincidentally as we sat reading and drinking tea, we overheard a group of New Zealand gentleman, in their 60’s, on the table next to us, mentioned “St. Anthony” a town in northern Newfoundland – it was a remote spot in my home province, so I couldn’t help but interject. He was a doctor who had worked at the Grenfell mission, (or Grenfell health), hospital in the 1980’s, and he was traveling with Peter Hillary, Edmund Hillary’s son! They were all trekking to the base camp as well… after our chance encounter, we paid a little more attention to their table, and throughout the evening we caught some golden gems; at one point Peter had read from his father’s journal, he also spoke of the natural flora and fauna everyone would see as they climbed the valley,and we overheard him speaking of a previous expedition where he said (and I’m roughly paraphrasing) you can’t expect perfection, nothing will ever be perfect when leading an expedition, you have to be adaptable, and not impose your will on the circumstances at hand. Deal with what you’ve been given, and make do, the best you can. Nothing is perfect.

April 17th, 2015 – Day 4 Monjo to Namche

We spent two days in Namche, taking a rest day as most people do. On the second day we took a short walk to the west side of the town to the helipad, and caught some nice views again looking west down the valley to the town of Thame – we weren’t heading this way on our trek, but we thought we might do a day trip on our way back down. Myself and Natalie split up here, she went back to the lodge to rest, where I was heading up and over Namche, there was a bit of a climb, through the towns of Khunde and Khumjung – Hillary had established both a school and hospital in the towns. I was hoping to get some nice views, but the clouds thickened throughout the day, and I even got a little snow/sleet as I made my way through a red Oak Forest, and by the Everest View Hotel, which is apparently the highest hotel in the world and offers beauty views of the trail we would be taking tomorrow. I was back to the hotel within a few hours, and before the snow really started to fall….We also had decided to hire a porter after the climb to Namche -Porba. We were stoked to get on the trail to Tengboche tomorrow; we had altered our plans slightly, opting to head directly to Everest Base Camp, instead of the Gokyo Valley and over Cho-La Pass… we weren’t totally dismissing the Cho-La Pass route, but we were already getting a sense of the difficulty of the trek, and didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew.