Everest Base Camp Trip Statistics: Rotary Climb for a Better Tomorrow

Number of Participants:  14

Oldest participant: 64

Youngest participant: 26 (me)

Reached Everest Base Camp: 12

Summited Kala Pathar: 4

Cups of tea personally consumed:  62 (roughly 4 to 5 per trekking day)

Photos taken: 1,108 (just on the trek itself, not including Kathmandu and Pokhara)

Highest elevation reached:  18,129ft./5,545m

I had such an amazing time on this trip and learned so much that it’s hard to know where to start in describing it and deciding how to narrow down which photos to share.  When I came to Malaysia through the graces of Rotary, I never imagined I would find myself trekking in the Himalaya!  For a girl from Alaska who loves mountains, my heart and soul were elated to have this opportunity.  Although I was very excited, once I arrived in Kathmandu, I felt the way I feel about many adventures I indulge in here, whether it be deep water soloing in the S.Andaman Sea or visiting Angkor Wat.  Leading up to it, it all seems very exotic and unique, but then once you arrive in the “location” it/you don’t feel as special because everyone else is there doing the same thing.  For example, when I arrived in Kathmandu, there were over 800 trekking related businesses in the small tourist district of Thamel!  So although I stressed about having the right gear and being able to get water purification tablets, once I arrived I found out that everything you need is easily purchasable and for a cheap price.  When you told people you were trekking to Everest Base Camp, the reaction was more like oh..yeah…everyone does it.  And there were a lot of trekkers!

But that didn’t dampen my anticipation or wipe the huge smile off my face as we began our trek.  Plus, ours was no ordinary trek, it was Rotary’s A Climb for a Better Tomorrow!  Some of the Malaysians I climbed Mt. Kinabalu (13,435ft./4,095m) with were further inspired to go bigger.  They set their sights on the Mt. Everest Base Camp (17,598ft./5,364m) and used the journey as sort of a trek-a-thon to raise money for Rotary projects back in Malaysia, specifically for Rotary Club of Bandar Utama’s (not my host club here, but another one of many that I have been closely involved with) Music Dream Center.  In particular, to send autistic students from the club's Music Dream Center who show promising advancement on to higher music education at the college level through scholarships.  Additionally, we were able to donate school supplies to some Sherpa villages along the way. 

Last minute supplies available on the "streets" of Lukla.

There are so many interesting details that I can't possibly describe everything, but I'll try through a stream of consciouness.  From Kathmandu, you fly into the "village" of Lukla about 30-40 minutes east.  I was slightly nervous about this flight 1)  because my uncle had described his memories of flying there over 30 years ago and said he could still remember his girlfriend screaming and her intense death grip on his arm as they landed, and 2) it has been described by many sources as the most dangerous airport in the world (see this History Channel piece).  It was constructed in 1964, instigated by Sir Edmund Hillary (first to summit Everest in 1953) as a a way to shave a week off the time it took to get materials and supplies to the Khumbu region for schools and other aid projects he was involved with.  It is said that he provided endless supplies of Sherpa beer to locals to stay up all night and stomp down/compact the runway since there was no heavy equipment for hundreds of miles.  Now it brings more than 500 trekker tourists daily to the region during the high seasons of April-May and October-November.  It wasn't even paved until 2001 and it has a 12% grade to aid in slowing down aircraft on landing.  Sloping uphill keeps the planes from slamming into the mountain at the end of the runway.  It reminds me of an Alaska airport...Lukla could be the counterpart to the Kodiak airport, but instead of an ocean at one end of the runway, there is a 2,000ft. cliff!    

Tenzing-Hillary (Lukla) Airport runway.