Powerpoint presentation of my trek to Everest Base Camp.

1. M T . E V E R E S T B A S E C A M P T R E K
N E L S O N C A P E S
March - April 2015

2. K A T H M A N D U T O L U K L A
2 8 4 0 M E T E R S

4. Lukla was about 35 minutes flight time from Kathmandu.
Ordinarily, one lands on the runway with a twin-engine Otter
or similar short-takeoff-and-landing airplane. The runway is
billed as the “most dangerous in the world” because there is a
vertical cliff at each end, and the runway slopes up about 15
degrees. Planes land upslope and takeoff downslope.
However, with our helicopter we were much safer. The runway
at the Lukla airport can be seen in the middle of the next
frame just to the right of the magnetic compass on the center
strut of the windscreen. The next photo after that is a
telephoto of the runway.

7. • Landing at Lukla

8. L U K L A T O N A M C H E
B A Z A A R 3 4 4 0 M E T E R S

9. –
On March 29, 2015 we left Phakding at 8:00 AM
for one of the most difficult days: the hike to
Namche Bazar. Namche is the capitol of the
Sherpa people. It lies in a bowl on a mountain
side at 11,286 feet. Thus we had about 2000
vertical feet to hike, over a distance of 4 km
(about 2 miles) as the crow flies. This sounds
rather easy, but it is definitely not! The trail is
quite rough, with many steps with high (10 to 12
inch) risers. The trail is used both by trekkers and
by livestock herders

12. • Entrance to Everest
National Park

13. • Hillary Bridges over Dudh
Kosi (“Milk River”)

14. • Crossing the bridge

15. –
After the bridge, we started climbing the “Namche
Headwall,” so christened by one of our trekkers. It is a
very steep climb with many switchbacks and steps. Near
the end of the climb, Lopsang, our sirdar (lead sherpa)
offered to carry my backpack, and I was happy to oblige
him. I arrived at our hotel in Namche after a total of 8
hours and 45 minutes of hiking from Phakding. When one
enters Namche, one passes through an ornate gate and
then climbs further up to the center of the town.

16. F I R S T V I E W O F
E V E R E S T

18. • Namche Bazaar

22. N A M C H E T O
T E N G B O C H E

24. • A M A
D A B L A M
2 2 , 3 4 9 F T .

25. –
“Ama Dablam is a mountain in the Himalaya range of eastern Nepal. The
main peak is 6,812 metres (22,349 ft), the lower western peak is 6,170
metres (20,243 ft). Ama Dablam means “Mother’s necklace”; the long
ridges on each side like the arms of a mother (ama) protecting her child,
and the hanging glacier thought of as the dablam, the traditional double-
pendant containing pictures of the gods, worn by Sherpa women.[3] For
several days, Ama Dablam dominates the eastern sky for anyone trekking
to Mount Everest basecamp.
Ama Dablam was first climbed on 13 March 1961 by Mike Gill (NZ), Barry
Bishop (USA), Mike Ward (UK) and Wally Romanes (NZ) via the
Southwest Ridge. They were well-acclimatised to altitude, having wintered
over at 5800 metres near the base of the peak as part of the Silver Hut
Scientific Expedition of 1960-61, led by Sir Edmund Hillary.[4]”

30. E V E R E S T , L H O T S E ,
N U P T S E

31. –
Proceeding further along the trail, we came around a
bend and suddenly, there was Everest, Nuptse,
Lhotse, and Ama Dablam! Everest can just be seen
peeking over the ridge of Nuptse, with a cloud of
snow blowing off it. The summit of Everest is in the
Jet Stream, which causes this plume of snow.
Everest is 29,028 feet high. Lhotse is the fourth
highest mountain in the world (27,940 feet). The
second and third highest mountains are K2 and
Kangchenjunga. K2 is in Pakistan, not Nepal.

33. T E N G B O C H E 3 8 0 0
M E T E R S

36. Our last day in Tengboche was
pretty dull, the only “excitement”
being my first shower since day 1 at
Namche, taken in a cinderblock
basement with a cow “mooing”
outside; and at night the dogs who
sleep all day barking all night. Several
people who had “Nepal tummy” since
eating cold salami appetizer at
Namche were still under the weather.

37. T E N G B O C H E T O
P H E R I C H E 4 4 4 0
M E T E R S

38. –
April 3, 2015 saw our team on the trail from
Tengboche to Pheriche. The hike began with a
very slippery downhill slope into the rhododendron
forest. The trail had a thin layer of ice on it, making
the going very treacherous. After walking through
the rhododendron forest, we descended to the
Dudh Kosi again to cross yet another suspension
bridge.

41. –
After that, we headed out on the trail to
Pheriche. We arrived in Pheriche in the middle of
a blinding snowstorm on a slippery, muddy trail
about 2 feet wide over a 500 foot drop. The next
picture isn’t mine because there was no way I
was going to take a photo under those
circumstances.

43. –
• Pheriche lies at an altitude of almost 14,000 feet. It has a
couple of “hotels” and many cheap shanties that one could stay
in if you were really monetarily distressed. Our hotel was the
Himilaya Hotel. This was by far the most primitive and dirtiest
of any tea house so far. My room was even colder than usual,
and one of the two toilets was so disgusting that it’s
unmentionable. It gets so cold at night that the pipes freeze
and the toilet can only be flushed by taking a dipper of water
from a nearby barrel.
• It was at Pheriche that I first noticed that I was getting
bronchitis. There is a high-altitude medical clinic here that
services trekkers and climbers with acute mountain sickness
(AMS). We had a lecture by one of the doctors with a group of
trekkers and climbers from other expeditions. April 4 was a free
day in Pheriche. I have to confess that I don’t remember very
much about it. By this time, my bronchitis was really getting
pretty bad. Apparently, we did an acclimatization hike above
Pheriche, because I am in the next photo (blue parka, middle

45. P H E R I C H E T O L O B U C H E
B A S E C A M P 4 8 1 5 M E T E R S

46. –
April 5 saw the team hiking from Pheriche to
Lobuche.
From Pheriche, the trail lies along a very stony
valley and streams where it’s quite difficult
footing. Then we climbed up a trail ascending
high above the valley with views back toward
Pheriche.

50. –
Finally, we reached a ridge where we
could look down on the IMG Lobuche
Base Camp, well below us at the
bottom of a snowslope. You can see
a yellow parka on the right of the
photo. Lobuche Peak towers above
the base camp. Our climbers would
use this as a practice climb within a
few days.

52. –
The snowslope was actually a lot steeper
than it looks, and very slippery. You can
see the trail on the lower ground on the left,
with the trail to base camp branching off to
the right. I and my fellow trekkers did not
have crampons or even mini-spikes, so this
was quite treacherous. Fortunately, Lopsang
directed each of the Sherpas to take hold of
each trekker and guide them down so that
they didn’t slip and reach base camp in an
unexpected and unpleasant way!

53. –
After an unnerving plod down this slope, we
finally reached Lobuche base camp (about
16,000 feet) where I collapsed into my tent,
totally exhausted. My tent is the one with the
open flap on the left of the photo. As you can
see, the Sherpas had done a great job of
clearing away the snow and building tent
platforms, but the snow was still 12 to 18
inches deep with a hard crust that you broke
through when walking to the dining tent or the
toilet tents–that’s right, toilet tents! I had no
sooner closed the tent vents to keep out the
cold air and crawled into my sleeping bag,
then the dinner gong rang. With a groan, I
struggled out of the bag and tottered to the
dining tent.

55. –
After dinner in the cold dining tent, I donned my headlamp and walked
back to my tent. My “zero degree” sleeping bag beckoned. I slid into it
fully clothed and tried to get some sleep. It didn’t work. Cheyne-Stokes
respiration is a very frightening experience, and is due to the body not
getting enough oxygen. You wake up with a feeling that you have stopped
breathing (which is actually the case), resulting in the need to gasp for air.
For me, this seemed to happen every couple of minutes all night long. On
top of that, my “zero degree” sleeping bag was anything but. I had on just
about every piece of clothing and still could not get warm. As if all this
wasn’t enough, I had been taking Diamox since Kathmandu in order to try
to avoid altitude sickness. One of the side effects of this drug is that it is a
diuretic, i.e., it causes you to urinate frequently. Fortunately, I had a pee
bottle with me i the tent. If I had had to crawl out of the sleeping bag, put
on boots, and stumble to the toilet tent through the snow every hour –
well, it would have been even more unpleasant.
The result was that I got almost no sleep after a very exhausting day on
the trail. I was also suffering from what I thought was severe bronchitis. It
apparently was something worse.

56. –
On the morning of April 6, after an extremely unpleasant
night, I decided that I could not face two more nights of
Cheyne-Stokes respiration at Lobuche, followed by three
nights 1700 feet higher at Everest Base Camp. I had also
heard reports about how difficult the trail was, passing
through Gorak Shep, a collection of uninsulated concrete
block buildings with corrugated steel roofs. This trail is also
very treacherous hiking, with round rocks that invite
spraining an ankle. To this point, I had had to watch every
step, and this, too, adds to the exhaustion. So with great
sadness but not reluctance, i asked our trekking company
base camp manager to request an evacuation helicopter by
satellite phone.

58. E V E R E S T B A S E C A M P
5 3 3 4 M E T E R S