EBC Day 15: Escaping the Himalayas...

As soon as the pilot had finished his cup of coffee, we were told to grab our daypacks and start running. Our porters were already loading our duffel bags onboard. Unlike the pilot of one of the other helicopters, who we witnessed giving a safety briefing to his passengers before boarding, ours didn’t bother.

As the smallest, we chose Terri to get in the front and the rest of us piled into the back after quick hugs with Ishor. Sebastian got in before me, so he had the window seat. I wasn’t thrilled that I didn’t have a seatbelt (it was stuck under the seat), but luckily I lived to tell the tale. 

Perhaps our pilot was a bit of a cowboy or just a crazy risk taker, but he took off in the rain without saying a word to us. Eventually he tried putting on his seatbelt and needed Terri’s help. Luckily it didn’t rain for the entire 51-minute journey.

I wasn’t by a window, but the views were still incredible. We followed the river for much of the trip and saw lots of waterfalls (Terri took this photo). 

It was 40 minutes before I noticed the first road and cars; otherwise all of the villages and terraced farms that we saw along the way had to be reached by foot or by animal.

Overall the journey was smooth, but there were occasional worrisome shakes.

Even with all the drama, it was a damn fine way to end an epic journey.

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.

EBC Day 15: Falling for One Last Waterfall....

After getting distracted while trying to take a photo of this waterfall, I managed to lose my footing.

I felt like an idiot for slipping in the mud, but jumped right back up. Teresa and Carlin were concerned and asked if I wanted to rest, but I turned them down as I figured that just in case I actually was injured it would be best to let the adrenaline carry me along; it turned out that I just had two small cuts and a bruise on my right hand and a cut behind my right knee. Frankly, it was pretty incredible that I only slipped once time during the 14 days of hiking as I am quite a klutz.

Ishor prematurely announced that our helicopter had left Kathmandu. We thought it would be landing just minutes behind us, but that’s not quite how it worked out. Shortly before the last stretch of trail, we saw a calf in the doorway of a house. As we paused to grab a photo, our porters walked out of the door. We never did find out if that calf was one of their family pets, but it’s a sweet idea.

EBC Day 15: Lukla to Surkey Helipad....

The big surprise that morning was that we were going to hike yet again. Rather than sitting out the clouds in Lukla, we were going to descend another 2,000 feet (600 meters) to 7,200 feet (2,200 meters) in an attempt to catch a helicopter ride off the mountain. Sebastian and his guide joined our group of five with either me or Ishor setting the pace.

We started by going on a narrow path hugging the fence to the airstrip. 

Eventually we got to the end of the fence and could see firsthand how the runway just ends at a cliff.

We then slowly made our way mostly down, but sometimes up, in the usual Nepali way. Unlike our other paths, we weren’t in trekker territory anymore, but rather a rural area with houses interspersed.

It was actually a lovely trail as the terrain became more tropical like a rainforest. As always, the steps were uneven, and we had to hop from rock to rock to avoid getting too muddy.

EBC Day 14: Buddha Lodge...

We checked into the Buddha Lodge, the same place that we ate our boxed breakfast on the first day of the trek. Our room was ensuite and a decent size, so we were pleased. We hoped that we’d only be spending one night there. The menu was limited due to the lack of incoming flights bringing food and supplies.

We were pleased to arrive on our originally scheduled day with flights booked to Kathmandu for the next day and then flights back to the Netherlands for the day after that. However, since there were still no planes flying in or out of Lukla, we turned our attention to chartering a helicopter to make our escape. At lunch we met a solo trekker with Himalayan Wonders, 19-year-old Sebastian, who quickly joined our group as he didn’t want to miss his international flights either. It soon became evident that we wouldn’t be flying out that day as no helicopters were able to take off or land at the airport either, so we worked on our journals, played gin and read. We treated Sagar and Raj, our porters, and Ishor to dinner as is the tradition on the last night. Even though we didn’t know for sure if it was our last night, it was the last night that room and board were included as part of our trekking package.

EBC Day 14: We Did It!

Even after all that time together, I was still very impressed by Ishor’s intuition for when it would rain. It started to rain less than five minutes after he suggested we don our ponchos.

We were very surprised when we went up a hill to discover that we had already reached the entrance to the national park and the official end to our EBC trek.

After trying to escape the Himalayas by helicopter for a few days, we had resorted to Plan A: Hike the entire way to EBC and back.

Terri might have been disappointed, but I was thrilled that she was with us as we completed the official trek. This time around I was much more observant during our walk through the village of Lukla; I noticed that it had proper flat paving down its main “street” and evenly spaced stairs rather than the usual uneven steps made of rocks that we found in all of the other villages. It was so foggy that we couldn’t even see the runway when we walked past it.

EBC Day 14: Mule Train and a Monkey....

 There’s a saying that “timing is everything in life.”

Ishor’s timing was definitely perfect when he stopped to “take a pee” as it meant we weren’t trapped on our final suspension bridge when a long mule train wanted to cross.

It also gave him a vantage point to spot a white monkey high in a tree. He said it was the first time he’d ever seen one in the region.

He later spotted a musk deer just as it was running away from us, but I wasn’t fast enough to snap a photo.

EBC Day 14: Phakding to Lukla....

I woke up at 6:40 a.m. and was sad to see white skies. So much for hoping today would be the day we made our escape from the Himalayas.

Instead we packed up, had breakfast, settled our bills for incidentals and set off hiking.

On what we expected to be our last day of hiking, we could occasionally see waterfalls, but most of the beautiful views were obscured by dense clouds .

More Sightings of Porters...

It was truly fascinating to see what was carried up and down the mountain by porters. The front fellow here was carrying a mini-frig with lots of cables being carried behind him.

We saw both full and empty water bottles being hauled by humans. 

Much of the cargo looked back breaking...

...especially this massive amount of rebar. 

You can tell the importance of toilet paper when you see that it is wrapped in plastic then covered in more plastic and kept under an umbrella when it rained.