8. Leboche to Gorak Shep to EBC!!

This morning it was a 6 o'clock start, which was rough after a 24km Route the previous day, which was extremely difficult.
However we woke with a spring in our step as today we would be visiting Everest Base Camp. We had a 3 hour walk up the Khumbu Glacier to Gorak Shep, which was slow due to the popularity of the route to EBC. A fairly mellow walk with only a few hills today which our legs were grateful for and seeing glimpses of Base Camp and the Khumbu Ice fall spurred us on.
We got to Gorak Shep (roughest place so far) which was 5200mtrs and had some lunch. We then set off for Everest Base Camp 5364mtrs which was super exciting. As we were walking we were having glimpses of Everest (real name - Chomalungma, bloody brits swooping in and changing the actual name). As we arrived at base camp, it was extremely busy with over 150 different teams as it was Summit Season, they only have a small gap in May when it's possible due to the weather. There was huge ice peices and the Khumbu Ice fall was extremely intimidating (we were told by Phure during April and May over 8 people die attempting to get to Camp 1, via avalanches or falling into crevasses). We had a few photos by the big rock with EBC which was exciting to finally be here and a must do. It was not as messy as we had been told and all the tents seemed strategically placed and tidy. We spent about an hour at Base Camp walking pretty close to the Ice Fall, you couldn't actually see Everest at the camp but we had some good views on the way. We left to hike back along the Glacier to Gorak Shep and had about an hour and a half before we had to Hike another mountain called Kala Patthar 5535 mtrs, to watch the sunset across Chomalungma (Everest) we climbed to about 5400mtrs and left Gorak Shep at 4.00pm. Unfortunately our guide completely messed up the time as Sunset wasn't until 6.50 pm which was a very long wait at - 10 to 15 degrees. Grace lasted about 2 hours, and then had to go down, I was very jealous she was going to get warm as it was bloody freezing. Our water bottles had frozen and then it seemed to take forever for the sun to go down. However it hit about 6.40pm and Everest literally glowed the brightest golden colour, it was so special and definitely worth the 3 hour sub temperature wait. We took some pictures and then ran back to the tea house to warm up. What an experience and sights I will never forget.
We had some dinner and neither me or Grace could eat as being at 5200mtrs for a long period of time was making us feel abit wierd. We went to sleep and surprisingly slept really well both having a solid 9 hours.Read more