Gokyo Lakes Trek

NEPAL-- Everest and Gokyo Lake Trek -- November 1994

I am so glad to be back in Nepal one of my favorite places, Pete and Norma Walker and I arrived from India last night and we are now at the Potala Guest House the headquarters for all of Peter Owens Treks. Pete and Norma arrived with miserable colds and coughs and I have been having trouble with the stomach and dysentery. This is not a great way to start our trek.

Our Trek Leader Peter, who has a hat for every occasion.

We are up early this morning and we have the usual tea and cake in Peter's room. Our duffels are packed and are carried by the porters to where we meet our Bus. It is a very long bus ride to Jiri where we start to trek. We arrived in Jiri about 4 p.m. Then the sky opened up and it rained and hailed, our duffels got soaked, I had not put my stuff in plastic bags, consequently a lot of my clothes are wet. We walked for awhile and then stopped for the night. The Cooks had put up a large tarp for the kitchen, so I was able to hang up my wet clothes and get them dry by morning.

We have had an easy morning climb up 1600 ft and then down 2000 ft. The elevation at Jiri is 6250 ft and we will drop down to 5750ft for the night. We had a great flat camp site near a river. The weather is cold when the sun goes down, tonight it was 32F. We had singing and dancing by the Porters and were in bed at 8.30 p.m. Peter had given us song sheets so we could sing the Nepali words, it was great fun.

This trek is a classic walk through the Sherpa homeland of Solu-Khumbu and is classified as a tough trek, it is hoped that we will have good views of Mt. Everest and Ama Dablam as well as the Lhotse wall. This is all located in the Sagarmatha National park.

Marge and her favorite Porters

We were up early this morning and started out climbing 3000ft over Deurali Pass at 8900ft. We had our lunch on the ridge and nearby were a cheese factory and a school. After lunch, down we went for 3000ft and camped for the night, all of us are a little weary.

These past few days, which I have not described were hard trekking days, climbing up and then down. Everyone is a little sick and I seem to have stomach problems, I have been throwing up each day. I hope I have not brought a bug from India with me. I had been there for six weeks prior coming to Nepal.

We have gone over rickety bridges, saw very tall rhododendron trees, had lunch in a smoky teahouse and now today we have hiked up and over Lunjim Pass 11,580 ft and down to Traktor to Junbesi, where we camp and walk up to the Serlo Monastery.

Whenever we camp, the children come and they love to see pictures of where you come from and your family. My limited Nepalese did allow me to tell them who the pictures were of. The Children in the Sherpa country are better dressed than any other area. It is a very popular trekking area.

This morning I was up early and the water was frozen. At every camp, the Sherpas dig a hole and then erect a toilet tent over the hole. Early this morning I had the need to go to the toilet and as I was going in, I slipped on some frozen mud and of course one foot and one hand went into the hole. What a mess.

We are now sitting by the river, at Ringmo after an easy four hour walk. We actually came around the mountain which is not normal, we always seem to go up and over and down to get to the next river which is our water source. Now we go back up to Takshindu Pass at 10,125 ft. then down to a teahouse where we will spend the night inside, what a treat it is warmer inside. I still do not have much appetite and am managing to throw up each time I eat along with the dysentery.

Inside of the tea house where it is still cold but no wind.

I woke up this morning really tired and today was another day of ups and downs; we crossed the first water from Everest, the river Dudh Kosi (Milk River) - because of all the rock flour that comes down. During the past few days we had our first real look of the Everest Range, the mountains were wonderful.

Children belonging to the teahouse owners

This day we enter Sagarmatha Park and I have decided to leave the trek, I am throwing up all my food, along with the dysentery which has me up three or four times during the night, this has taken all my energy and I am worn out. Peter our trek leader has been giving me medicines each day, but none are helping. This is the day we climb steeply to Namche Bazar, and on the way we intersect with a trail that leads to Lukla. The group goes left and I go right, and keeping me company is the Sirdar named Jai and Head Porter Choy Sun Lama, who incidentally is a Thanka painter and on one of my other trip to Nepal he painted a Thanka which I purchased. It was done on paper not on cloth, I paid $2.00 and treasure it to this day, he painted it on the trail as we were trekking.

Lukla is an airport village with a really short runway. In the two pictures below you see a plane landing, it had to make a sharp right turn to get in line for the runway. It must also make a sharp right hand turn at the end of the picture or it will hit a mountain. the second picture shows a plane getting ready for takeoff.

At the end of this trek the entire group will helicopter from here back to Kathmandu so Peter has given me my ticket to fly. Once there, I find I cannot get out to-day so Jai and Choy Sun Lama put me in a guest house for the night and the proprietor feels I will get a plane or helicopter tomorrow morning. It felt good to be inside and warm, I was in bed by seven p.m. I did not sleep well during the night; I had many trips to the toilet which was outside and around the building. I thought I would get out of Lukla today and even gave the manager an extra $20 to get me on any kind of carrier. I thought I had it made along with fifteen other people as the Royal Nepalese Airlines planned to put an extra flight on, to get caught up. At 1.30 p.m. we got word from Kathmandu there would not be another flight to-day.

Since this means another day in Lukla, I will see what I can do to clean myself up. They have jugs of cold water to wash with; however I gave my towel to Sonja a lady on the trek, so I cannot even take a sponge bath. I am still throwing up, I am terribly dirty and in the need of a shower, my clothes are starting to smell, you notice it more when you are in a warm building, and I lost my comb three or four days ago. What a mess. I cannot go far from the guest house due to toilet needs, so I hang out by the fire all afternoon.

Next day, I really hope to get out on a flight today, and the manager seems confident I will. Last night I slept in a prayer room used for visiting Monks. It was decorated with lots of pictures of the Dali Lama and beautiful carpets and wall hangings. There was an Altar with many silver bowls filled with water along with hanging drums and a canopy over the Altar. I think you had to be an important Monk to rate this room.

I got out on the morning flight to Kathmandu and what a really short runway, after a few seconds you drop right off the edge of the mountain. The flight was very scenic; once we landed I took a taxi to the Potala Guest house and had a real long shower. I then phoned my husband who was visiting our son in Seattle and told him to wait there for me and we could drive back to Idaho together.

Then starts the long flights back home, all on 'standby'...in hindsight I wish I had taken Peter Owens advice. Go on the Trek first and then go to India, I am sure that is where I picked up the bug.

(back to top)