EVEREST BASE CAMP TREK…
Day 1 Kathmandu to Phakding via
Lukla Airport!
On Thursday the 19th January 2017 we arrived at Everest Base Camp – this is the story of how we got there…
Lukla Airport Runway
Let’s trek to Everest Base Camp he said – OK I said, let’s fly to Lukla he said – absolutely, most definitely not I said!
2 days later we were sat in the Kathmandu Airport domestic departure lounge with our guide Rabin bound for what’s considered to be one of the worlds most dangerous airports – this was NOT what I’d signed up for!
Inspired by mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary and built in the 1960’s Lukla airport has acquired its hairy reputation for several reasons. The postage stamp sized runway is only 527m long. With a 600m drop at one end and a mountain at the other it leaves little room for pilot error allowing one chance only at getting it right. Getting it wrong means hitting a wall or dropping off a precipice! To make things even more tricky the runway was built with a 12% gradient to aid breaking on landing and acceleration on take off – the 60m difference from top to bottom makes for quite a ride in both directions. Operating without navigational aids, flights to Lukla are extremely weather dependant. Set high in the Himalayas at an elevation of 2,845m the conditions here are unpredictable and delays are a regular occurrence, sometimes for days, not just hours. Many accidents and near misses have occurred here over the years…
Now I have no idea how I got talked from point A to point B, but as we sat out a 4 hour delay because of snow on the Lukla runway I was bitterly regretting my apparent moment of weakness in agreeing to this madness…
As the sun rose in Lukla so the snow melted on the minuscule runway and the go ahead was given for our plane to set off on its way. We boarded a bus, which took us to our tiny Goma Air plane (with gaffer taped door), we chose our seats and were given boiled sweets and cotton wool (for our ears!).
We were preparing for take off when I noticed the pilots wiping condensation from the cockpit window with their sleeves!!! Knowing that landing and takeoff at Lukla are carried out using pilot skill and intuition only, fogged up windows were most definitely not OK…
The take off and majority of the flight were actually pretty smooth, marred only by a short bout of turbulence around the mid way point which seemed expected as the hostess (yes there is one) had just scooted through the tiny craft to check that all seat belts were fastened.
25 minutes of spectacular mountain scenery later and the inevitable and dreaded landing was upon us. From a distance the runway looked like a challange, as we flew closer it looked like an impossibility…
Steve squeezed my hand and I squeezed his back as banking right we seemed to be heading straight for the mountain.
The crash landing warning alarms sounded throughout the cabin (luckily I’d done my research and knew this was normal) just before touching down and coming, thankfully, to an ubrupt, but controlled halt. Our safe landing was rewarded with a round of applause by all on board…
The weather closed in behind us and our flight was to be the first and last of the day!
Don’t ever make me do that again!
Joined by Rabin our guide and Padam our porter we set off for Everest Base Camp – we couldn’t have been more excited.
Padam, Rabin and Steve
Our afternoon trek was a beautiful and easy introduction to what lay ahead. We walked through the snow that had prevented us from flying earlier in the day, past numerous prayer wheels and rocks carved with Tibetan Buddhist mantras.
We arrived at our first tea house in Phakding (2610m) and settled in for the first of many chilly nights in the mountains.
It was here that we met Elle, an American, who was to become the first of our newly made trekking buddies to be flown off the mountain with Acute Mountains Sickness (AMS) only a few of days later.
Looking forward to day 2!