Everest Base Camp via Gokyo Lakes (Part 4 of 7)
Autumn colors and glacial lakes
Trekking Day 10: From Phorse Thanga to Machhermo (4,470m/14,665ft)
In the middle of the night, after tossing and turning in bed and hearing the other do the same, we both got desperate and popped Benadryls. Since the stuff has always made me sleepy in 30 minutes, it was a shocking surprise to find myself continually wide awake.
The skies refused to clear up by the time we were on our way — thick fog and clouds all around hid whatever mountains were in the horizon.
The hike today involved stretches of undulating trail, a bit deceiving considering we would gain 800 meters in elevation. Was that too much in one day? The Czech trio were planning to stop in Dole, 3 hours and 600 meters of elevation gain away, instead of risking the push to Machchermo.
The problem was that we arrived in Dole at 10:40 am. N. felt good, I was riding high on the seeming benefits of Benadryl (maybe meds have the opposite effect in high altitude?), and the trail was an easy one. So we had a tea break and pushed on.
The clouds never went away, but in a sense, they gave us the opportunity to notice the hillsides in a Himalayan autumn: juniper bushes and short brush in yellows, oranges and reds, punctuated by large mossy boulders. At one point, our guide pointed to yak grazing on the steep hillsides. At this elevation, yak did all the heavy lifting — we no longer saw jopke or donkeys.
We kept running into trekkers coming down the trail, enough of them to make us worry. When our guide asked for updates, the first few were downers: Cho La Pass was snowed in, seemingly closed for the foreseeable future. That meant there was no open trail to the EBC from where we were.
Closer to Machchermo, we ran into a solo Korean trekker who had planned on completing the Three Passes Trek but instead tried to, because of the recent bad weather, make the best of a Zero Passes Trek. A bit later, we rain into an older Korean couple who were coming down from Gokyo and gave us the news we wanted to hear: they had seen a large group headed to Cho La Pass because news had arrived that it had finally been opened.
A new class of trekkers busy around the trails were women carrying the traditional baskets… full of yak dung patties. These loads looked heavy — and most of them wore slides or flip flops on a day when I was wearing rain coat and pants and boots. ATG explained that in this area, yak dung, used for fuel, was very valuable.
Our fast trek to Dole and the push to Machchermo led to a scheduling problem: it was lunch time, but it was still another hour to our destination. Another challenge: N. had been on Diamox since Namche, so he was feeling the classic symptoms — tingling fingers and a constant need to pee. Thank heavens it was just me, our guide and one porter around.
We arrived in Machchermo (elevation 4,470 m/14,665ft) tired and hungry. Thankfully the teahouse was a bit more comfortable than last night’s — rooms in a single floor with a well equipped bathroom with large sinks. The kitchen also produced more substantial food.
However well equipped, the one thing the teahouse could do nothing about was the bone-chilling cold seeping in from outside. The main dining room had a yak-dung burning stove.
We saw beautiful stars at night but didn’t linger because of the cold.
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Trekking Day 11: From Machhermo to Gokyo (4,790m/11,715ft)
Who needs morning coffee when the water from the faucet is glacial? And why didn’t they turn on the yak dung stove in the morning?!? Actually, it made no sense to burn precious fuel: trekkers had a quick breakfast and then hit the trail. In the mountains, every resource was precious.
It was supposed to be just another trekking day. And according to our guide, the trail today was mostly gentle hills. And we had just seven kilometers (4 miles) to our next destination.
The morning brought clear skies and crispy cold air. And we were finally able to see the snow-peaked hills around the tea house, especially Tobuche and Cholatse. It was interesting how N. and I were agog at the views, and a couple of girls from the teahouse ignored what they saw everyday and instead were laying out collected yak dung to dry in the sun — with gloves on. Just another daily chore.
We started from Machchermo around 8 am. Once we turned the bend in the first hill, the trail was pretty much a straight shot on the side of a very long mountain range. To our right ran the Dudh Kosi River; beyond the river, more peaks and peaks and peaks. And in front of us rose the majestic Cho Oyu (8,188m/26,864ft), the sixth highest mountain in the world.
We noticed the colder air, the low vegetation — no more trees in sight — and our slower steps. We were rising just 320 meters, but what a difference 320 meters make! I felt that I needed to inhale twice just to get a single good breath. I paced the group since I was the slowest; I walked a few steps, stopped, and breathed as if I had just run the 100 meters dash.
By the time we got to the first Gokyo Lake, we were trekking through snow that had come down as rain in lower elevations. Because we had waxed poetic about lakes, at one point, ATG led us to the edge of Gokyo II Lake. The problem was that the lakeside was covered in about a foot of snow. Every step into wet slushy snow made our boots — supposedly waterproof — very wet. (This fact would present both a problem and opportunity later.). I felt tired, hungry, cold and cranky.
As soon as we arrived in our tea house, I burrowed into my sleeping bag.
After our dinner meeting, we discussed our options for the trail ahead. They mostly involved discussions about Cho La pass — it was open but heavy snow in the area meant that trekking would be slow and difficult. I tried to get our guide to be specific. Did it mean that we would have to sink our boots into snow? Yes. How deep? Bob head. Two feet? Bob head and shrug shoulders.
Did we have any other options?
It was out-of-character for me to start thinking of turning back, while N. was insistent that we continue on. The best solution our guide had to offer was that we cover our boots in the thick plastic sheeting the porters use to cover the bags when it rains. All I could think was, “Are you mad?”
During this discussion, a man who had been quietly listening to our conversation — he could not help it since I was raising my voice a bit in dismay at the idea of plastic-wrapped boots — made some sympathetic noises about the challenging condition of the trail. (He turned out to be one of the owners of the teahouse.) Mercifully, he spoke good English. Thinking of giving up in Gokyo and trying to find an easy way down the mountains, I asked, “can we get a helicopter in Gokyo?”
“Why yes. In fact, if you want to avoid Cho La Pass altogether you could take a helicopter from Gokyo to Lobuche and continue on to EBC from there. And if you pay a bit more, you could even include an aerial tour of Cho Oyu…” I inwardly wished this man were our guide.
While N. and I were discussing the advantages of this choice — we had already asked our guide to contact the trekking office and make arrangements — another young man walked into the teahouse. He was the younger brother of the teahouse boss, and we shared our predicament with him. He also approved the idea of the helicopter ride to Lobuche, and this led a great conversation about his life in Nepal. (He had lived and worked in Europe and the US, but was one of the few young people who had decided to return to his country. He and his brother ran the teahouse business in the high trekking season; the rest of the yea, they lived near Namche.
For tomorrow’s trek to Gokyo Ri, our guide at first suggested that we leave at 4 am. He also mentioned that it would be an arduous hike — 4 hours up and 2 hours down. Oh, by the way, we would be doing this without breakfast. Later, after speaking with the trekking office, he told us they recommended instead that we start after breakfast at 9am.
(Both suggestions turned out to be wrong: we didn’t need to see the sunrise, but we did need to start early enough to beat the clouds from covering the mountain peaks. The right time to start the hike would have been 7 am.)
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