EBC Day 15: Surkey Helipad...

Eventually we came across this funny little sign. We turned down that narrow path past more houses. Luckily it widened out just enough for us to get out of the way of our final mule train.

We walked along some cornfields and then reached our destination: a grassy field next to a small teahouse. We arrived around 10 a.m., two hours after we left Lukla, just as Ishor had predicted. 

 

The skies were white above, but clear down below. 

We were relieved when we arrived to only find ten other trekkers there before us, as we were concerned that there might have been dozens.  

Veronica had warned me about leeches as she was bit by 11 of them when she trekked in the Himalayas back in 2014. Perhaps because we were at higher elevations, we had never seen any until our final unscheduled two-hour hike. Luckily it had only hitchhiked on my hiking pole.

It was quite exciting when the first helicopter arrived even though we knew that it was for one of the other two groups waiting.

As soon as the first helicopter left, another was preparing to land; alas, that was also not ours. 

No sooner had the second one left that the clouds closed in. Our hopes to escape turned to worry that we might be stuck in that tiny teahouse overnight (we learned later that around 80 trekkers, including our former teammates, had been stuck there two nights previously with many sleeping on the floor).

It had started to rain, so we hunkered down and ordered hot drinks. Just as we were contemplating ordering lunch (either dal bhat or stir-fried noodles as they’d run out of all other options), Ishor rushed in to stop us as he claimed that our helicopter was on its way. As we’d heard that before and it was still raining, we weren’t too hopeful. We were pleasantly surprised about ten minutes later when we heard the familiar whirring sound of the blades and the helicopter appeared through the mist.