Tom (The Tank) has already landed in Hong Kong and I finished up packing my gear and stuff for the trek to Mt. Everest Base Camp. I leave tomorrow and travel to India and the entire team meets in Kathmandu on Wednesday. This is the first time I am the leader of an international trek of this kind. It was hard work but a lot of fun. Let me give you some behind the scenes information.

Our team is made up of some of my closest friends and I designed this trip almost a year ago. Actually I have been planning this trip since the last time I was at Everest. Here is the team:

• Richard Campbell (Canada)
• Tom Howe (USA)
• Mychal Howe (USA)
• Gautam Gujral (USA)
• Remi Caron (Netherlands)
• Joel Semeniuk (Canada)
• Rod Giesbrecht (Canada)
• Vasseto Terziev (Bulgaria)
• Linda Varoli (USA)
• Tom (the Tank) Djurdjevich (USA)

Some old Sherpa buddies helped me out on the Nepal side, but I planned out a great trip based on my previous visits to Nepal. I wanted to start the trek with a flight to Lukla on Friday (Sept 5th) so I wanted everyone to arrive in Asia on Tuesday (Sept 2) and Kathmandu on Wednesday (Sept 3). This is really for two reasons, one is to get everyone here on time with some extra wiggle room due to the crazy airlines canceling flights (which did happen to 5 of us!) and second is that I can do a gear check on Wednesday so we can buy any missing supplies in Kathmandu on Thursday before we fly.

Here is the trek schedule that we have posted on this blog before. It is different than most Everest Base Camp treks insofar as I have planned a lot of extra time in the schedule to accommodate flight delays (in and out of Kathmandu) and bad weather, which there is a lot of.

Sept 5: Fly to Lukla. Lukla (9,000’) to Phakding (9,500’) Overnight at Phakding

For starters we fly to Lukla on Friday, this can be a problem since there are no lights in Lukla and it gets fogged in a lot. There is a 50% chance that we won't fly on Friday and have to fly on Saturday, or worse on Sunday! So if all goes well we will stay in Phakding and acclimate, if our flights are late we will head straight to Namche Bizarre from Lukla.

Sept 6: Phakding (9,500’) to Namche Bizarre (11,500’) Overnight in Namche

Sept 7: Acclimation day in Namche Bizarre (11,500’) Overnight in Namche

It is very important to rest in Namche and see how we are doing with the altitude. At this point altitude is usually not a problem with anyone. That is why it is very safe to build up the red blood cells here.

Sept 8: Namche (11,500’) to Pangboche (12,700’) Overnight at Pangboche

First spot where altitude can start to be a problem. Hopefully the extra night at Namche worked.

Sept 9: Pangboche (12,700’) to Pheriche (14,000’) Overnight in Pheriche

Sept 10: Acclimation day in Pheriche (14,000’) Overnight in Pheriche

Pheriche is higher than any point in the lower 48 states of the USA and all of Western Europe. We spend an extra day here

Sept 11: Pheriche (14,000’) to Loboche (16,000’) Overnight in Loboche

Sept 12: Loboche (16,000’) to Gorak Shep (16,800’) Overnight in Gorak Shep

This is when people will start to feel bad. That is why the next two days are very different than most treks to Everest.

Sept 13: Visit Everest Base Camp (17,400’). Overnight in Gorak Shep

Sept 14: Summit Kala Pattar (18,700’) Gorak Shep (16,800’) to Loboche (16,000’) Overnight in Loboche

The 13th or 14th (or 14th and 15th if we are day behind) we visit base camp as well as climb a nice high mountain Kala Pattar. Most treks do both in the same day, get up early, climb Kala Pattar and then come down and go to base camp. We will split this into two days since if there is bad weather we will go to base camp (since there is not much to see) and use the good weather day for the views from on top of Kala Pattar. If we are two days behind schedule we will do both in one day. This gives us tons of flexibility.

Sept 15: Loboche (16,000’) to Kumjum (12,500’) Overnight in Kumjum

If we are stuck behind again, we can go straight to Namche.

Sept 16: Kumjum (12,500’) to Namche (11,500’) Overnight in Namche

Sept 17: Namche (11,500’) to Lukla (9,000’) overnight in Lukla

Sept 18: Fly to Katmandu (weather permitting) Overnight at Katmandu

What is critical to me is that we put in extra days in Phakding and Gorak Shep for acclimation and rest as well as to give us wiggle room if someone gets sick or if there is bad weather.

What happens if someone gets altitude sickness (or if the Tank has blackberry withdrawal and we decide to leave him in Namche?) No problem, Namche is our hub, so if someone gets sick or tired, or does not want to continue, we'll take them to Namche and a sherpa will wait with them until we return. At absolute worst they will have to wait a week for us. Most likely what will happen is that if someone gets sick it will be at Loboche or Gorak Shep. So we will send them down to Pheriche to wait for us to come pick them up in a few days.

This is our trek. We will try to blog every day from now until September 21st when we come home. Most days on the trek we will not have coverage or Internet, so if we can get the sat phone to work perma-guest Jack will post for us via our messages on the sat phone.

Posted by Steve in New York

Mt. Everest Trek 2008

Sunday, August 31, 2008 11:03:48 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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