From October 1st to 18th 2018, Dayton Little, Private Client Senior Practitioner in our Chippenham office headed off on a trip of a lifetime. Here he tells his story...
I have always been a keen walker, although mainly in the UK. I have completed the National Three Peaks Challenge and have a Bucket List of trips I would like to do. So, when the opportunity came up to realise one of these dreams and join a group to Trek up to Everest Base Camp I seized the opportunity with both feet!
After a day of travelling to get to Nepal, and a day’s sightseeing in Kathmandu, we eagerly (with some trepidation) awaited an internal flight to Lukla (known as the most dangerous airport landing in the world).
Having survived the landing, ahead of us lay 12 continuous days of trekking through the most amazing and diverse scenery imaginable. The plan was to take 8 days to get to Everest Base Camp (incorporating 2 acclimatisation days as we ascended) and then 4 days for the trek back to Lukla and that “interesting” flight back to Kathmandu.
The following days saw us trekking up and down the paths (“flat” doesn’t exist in Nepal!) alongside glacial rivers and through valleys weaving in and out of Yak and mule trains carrying supplies for the villages further up, gradually gaining altitude towards our goal, staying in “tea houses” – local lodges - each night for a welcome meal and hot drink. We started off by walking in trousers and T-shirts through beautiful wooded valleys, which were soon left behind in exchange for more barren terrain surrounded by majestic snow-capped mountains. As we gained height, the air got thinner making the walking harder and the layers went on as the temperature dropped!
Our final night in the tea house at Lobuje before the attempt at Base Camp saw temperatures down to -12 degrees, and it was still -6 degrees when we set off the next morning. After 3 hours we stopped at a very basic and barren settlement called Gorak-Shep for breakfast, and then the final 2 hour push to the Everest Base Camp which stands at 5,365 metres (almost £17,500 feet) above sea level. The euphoria and team spirit of reaching our goal was absolutely amazing.
The whole trip was incredible and hard to put into words. The camaraderie of 14 strangers was fantastic and created such a bond that even six months later we are still in touch. The Nepalese people were lovely and so welcoming and our Sherpa Sirdar, guides and porters couldn’t do enough for us – we certainly wouldn’t have made it without them.
