September 17, 2024 • 54 mins
Ever wondered what it takes to embark on a life-changing journey to Mount Everest Base Camp? Join me, Josh Bogle, as I recount my transformative trek, from the initial spark of inspiration ignited by travel vloggers Kara and Nate, to the exhilarating and nerve-wracking experience of landing at Lukla, the world’s most dangerous airport.
Immerse yourself in the meticulous preparation that made this adventure possible, especially during the pandemic when the mountains beckoned stronger than ever. I’ll walk you through the physical training, the selection of the perfect guide company, and the essential acclimatization strategies crucial for tackling challenges such as altitude sickness. Feel the rush of emotions as I detail the breathtaking journey through the Khumbu Valley, the heart-stopping crossing of the Hillary Bridge, and the humbling strength of the Sherpa people.
Finally, share in the emotional and physical trials of the trek to Mount Everest Base Camp. Experience the awe of seeing Mount Everest from Namche Bazaar, the exhaustion of navigating treacherous terrain at over 17,000 feet, and the profound sense of accomplishment upon reaching base camp. This episode is not just about the destination, but the incredible journey—the resilience, determination, and the unforgettable moments that make it a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Tune in to be inspired and to gain a deeper appreciation for the raw beauty and emotional impact of trekking to one of the most iconic places on Earth.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Flight 527, runaway, 8km cleared for takeoff.
This is your captain speaking.
If you love travel and we knowyou do, buckle your seatbelts
and keep your tray tables in theupright position.
You should be seeing theilluminated fun signs throughout
the aircraft because we'reabout to take off on a chat of
(00:21):
epic proportions.
Welcome to Tray Tables and TimeZones, the podcast where travel
isn't just about takingvacations, it's about enriching
your life.
We'll dive into the highs, thelows and the downright absurd
moments that come with exploringthe world.
Whether it's food poisoning ona long-haul flight, trekking to
(00:43):
Mount Everest Base Camp ortraveling to Disney parks
worldwide, we cover it allSerious at moments, but mostly
we're here to laugh and sharesome brutally honest travel
stories.
So let's do it one time zone ata time.
This is Trey Tableson TimeZones, and this is your host.
Josh Bogle Tables and TimeZones, and this is your host.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Josh Bogle.
Hey everyone and welcome backto the Trade Tables and Time
Zones podcast.
I'm your host, josh Bogle.
On this episode I'm going to doa deep dive into my trek to
Mount Everest Base Camp.
But before I get into theactual story of the trip itself,
I kind of want to share somebackground on how I came to this
(01:29):
trip.
It's really a microcosm of howI began my international travel
life and how I got to where I amas far as how I travel and what
I look for and kind of theadventure that I like to chase
on some of my travels.
So, not to bog down the story,but I do want to share a little
bit of that background.
(01:50):
I guess it really will go backto around 2015, 2016.
I had gotten interested intraveling more internationally.
It just it was something thatat that point in my life it was.
It was starting to interest memore and more.
You know we had traveled a lotin the United States trips
throughout the U?
(02:10):
S, including Disney, and we haddone some Disney cruises and
things like that and those weregreat, really got into those,
but kind of wanted more.
Right, I wanted to goexperience more.
There's such a big world outthere.
I wanted to see more of it and,luckily enough, my wife shared
that same sentiment.
And so, you know, we kind ofstarted looking around and
(02:33):
trying to understand, you know,how to travel internationally
and learn more about it, whatwas out there and how to handle
it and where to go and thingslike that.
And so, as one does these days,we turn to YouTube.
You know, that was really early, I guess, in a lot of of the
travel vlogging genre in YouTube, where folks were documenting
(02:55):
their travels all around theworld and showing you different
locations that you'd neverreally thought of.
And that was certainly the casefor me.
You know, it was like kind of awhole new world being opened up
to me.
And we came across this oneburgeoning YouTube channel, and
actually it was really small atthe time when we came across it,
but we liked the couple.
It was a couple that traveledtogether and they had just
(03:17):
gotten started, right, they werejust now starting their journey
and I think the plan was atthat time for them to travel for
a year straight, and that'skind of what they had saved up
to do.
Obviously, they were, you know,putting out content and they
were new and and you know theywere trying to figure it all out
and it was really cool to kindof follow that, you know,
because we were learning aboutthe travel side.
(03:37):
And then you had this humanelement of them learning how to
do things Right, and thatchannel at the time was very
small, but now I believe theyare approaching 4 million
subscribers.
And that would be Kara and Nate.
If you're into travel, you'veprobably come across their
videos.
If you're not a follower or asubscriber, you've at least
heard of them.
They've really done a ton ofdifferent travel around the
(04:00):
world.
And then Nate kind of got intothese challenges of doing these
different, you know, differentadventure challenges around the
world.
I think he actually just readthe Leadville 100.
So very, very, uh, very muchinto them and and got into
following their stuff.
And one of the things theyended up doing, I think in 2016,
was trekking to Mount Everestbase Camp and at the time I had
(04:24):
never really heard of theopportunity to trek to Mount
Everest Base Camp.
I knew of Mount Everest, I knewthat there was a base camp, I
knew that's where mountaineerswould go and would start their
attempts to summit Mount Everest, but I didn't know anything
about the treks that you coulddo from essentially Lukla, which
(04:47):
is kind of the start of thetrail, all the way to Mount
Everest Base Camp, and that'sjust one of the you know
multiple treks and climbs andthings that you can do in that
region of Nepal.
But I had no idea that wassomething you could do.
I had no idea that wassomething you could do and at
the time I was like man, thereis no damn way I'm going to drag
my ass up a mountain at likecrazy altitudes all the way up
(05:13):
there to see Mount Everest.
I was like man, if I ever wantto see Mount Everest, I will get
in a helicopter and fly upthere and check it out and then
fly back Right, because I swearI was in my life.
I was in that kind of place.
I wasn't looking for crazyadventures or challenges.
So I kind of discounted theactual trek part.
(05:34):
I knew it occurred and youcould do it, but I kind of just
discounted it right, it wassomething I was never going to
do.
I love the idea of landing atLukla, because Lukla which is
like again, it's kind of whereyou start your trek is
considered the most dangerousairport in the world.
And so I thought, you know, ohman, that'd be cool to fly into
there and land and then maybestay a couple of days in Lukla
(05:57):
and just kind of hang out andcheck out the vibe, right, and
then jump back on the plane andtake off from there too.
So, being a kind of an aviationnerd, that seemed really
awesome.
But the actual Trek part, Ireally wasn't into it.
So, you know, time progressedand we started traveling, right,
we started doing moreinternational travel in Asia and
(06:18):
in Europe and things like that.
And obviously we were followingNate and Kara as well and
getting more and more ideas.
And for some we were followingNate and Kara as well and
getting more and more ideas.
And for some reason, in theback of my mind, that Everest
trek was stuck there and wouldjust pop into my brain every
once in a while, really kind ofannoying, but it wouldn't go
(06:38):
away.
Right, I was always just therewas something about it kept
drawing me back in.
I was always just there wassomething about it kept drawing
me back in, and so I startedgetting interested in it.
I'm like you know, what am Idoing?
This is not really my gig.
I don't know, man, I don't knowif I want to.
You know, try to do somethinglike that.
It's crazy, it's high, it'shard, it's.
You know, I was.
(07:00):
I was traveling pretty free andeasy at that point, and not
necessarily looking for a toughchallenge, but it just wouldn't
get out of my brain.
And then the world shut down,right?
And so now I couldn't do it,right, you couldn't go anywhere.
Hell, you were lucky to leaveyour house, and so it made it
(07:20):
even more appealing.
You know the thought of beingout amongst the mountains and
the clean air and trekkingthrough this beautiful scenery
and being surrounded by thetallest mountains in the world.
You know, it seemed really,really good, and so when things
started opening back up, itbecame not an obsession, but it
(07:44):
certainly became something.
At that point, I realized, look,time is limited.
You know, something couldhappen the next day.
That changes, you know, yourability to travel and move
freely throughout the world, andI don't want to miss out on
things.
Right, I don't want to miss outon those experiences, and
that's really furthered my shiftthat had started, you know, in
(08:07):
2015, 2016 range of moving awayfrom things and moving more into
experiences.
Right, I wanted my life filledwith experiences.
I didn't really care aboutthings.
I cared about those experiencesthat I would carry with me
through the rest of my life, andthis became an experience that
I just I had to try right.
(08:27):
Even if I didn't make it, evenif something happened and I
couldn't make it all the way, Ihad tried and had got to
experience it.
And that's what I did.
I started reading about it andwatching more and more videos
and trying to figure everythingout, you know, reading on
message boards and Reddit andall these things about people
(08:49):
that had done it and had madethis trek and how to how to do
it, how to best go about it.
And then I started reading upon the different tour companies
and the guide services that wereavailable and there's a lot of
them, right, so it's hard tochoose.
There's some really big ones.
There's some that organize theorganize the trek but really
(09:09):
don't have a huge presence inNepal.
There's some that are ownedlocally in Nepal.
It runs the gamut and Iremembered that to that Nate and
Kara series on on trekking inNepal and over that time after
their trek trekking in Nepal,and over that time after their
trek, they had become friendswith the owners of the company
(09:30):
that they trekked with, and thatwas a company called iTrek
Everest.
And it turns out that the owner, or one of the owners, of iTrek
Everest, a guy by the name ofRick Neuf, lives in the US.
He lives in Colorado and he'sbeen featured on their channel a
couple of times.
Well, anyway, I got in touchwith him and, you know, started
inquiring about the trip and itworked out to where they they
(09:56):
seemed like the best choice.
I kind of clicked with them,made me feel comfortable with
the trip, and so I decided screwit, I'm going to go for this.
So that's what I did book thetrip.
And so I decided screw it, I'mgoing to go for this.
So that's what I did.
Booked the trip, but before Ileft, I put in a ton of work
because, frankly, coming out ofthe pandemic, I wasn't in the
best shape.
I'd gotten lazy and, you know,kind of sedimentary, and I had
(10:19):
to get my ass in better shapebecause there was no way that I
was going to be able to do thistrip at my current fitness level
, uh, to put it nicely to myself.
So another great portion ofthis was that it motivated me to
get up off my ass and actuallystart working out, and that's
(10:39):
what I did.
So I, you know, joined the gymand started walking and running
and hiking and lifting weightsand doing all the things that I
was learning I needed to do todo this trek.
It worked out well.
I gained a lot of muscle,gained a lot of endurance and
lost some weight and worked outgreat.
(11:00):
One of the other things I did isused a altitude tent.
So what this is is it's a tentand it has a oxygen type of
altitude generator that connectsto it, and you spend as much
time as you can in this tent andit's able to simulate altitude.
And the reason I did this isbecause I basically live at sea
(11:21):
level I mean maybe a couple ofhundred feet above sea level at
best, and so there was no way toreplicate being in the
mountains.
Right, I couldn't spend all mytime in Colorado, I couldn't
move to Colorado or wherever fora couple of months to train at
altitude.
(11:42):
Family and a job and neitherdon't you know, neither one of
those would be too kindly to mejust taking off for several
months and, you know, living anomadic lifestyle and training
in the altitude.
So I had to figure out anotherway to do it.
And so I got this tent and Islept in it and I would work in
it and I would hang out in it asmuch as I could, right, and
(12:04):
that way I could build up atolerance for the altitude Right
, so I wouldn't get altitudesickness when I was on the
mountain, because that's thelast thing I wanted was for my
trip to be ruined because I gotsick from altitude sickness.
There's so many otherchallenges on this trip.
There's so many otherroadblocks that I didn't want
the altitude one to become thatroadblock blocks, that I didn't
(12:25):
want the altitude one to becomethat roadblock.
And so I use that tent all theway up until like a day or two
before I left, because I had toship the tent and all the
equipment back, because I justrented it, I didn't buy it, and
so I did as much prep as Ithought I could do for this trip
.
And in February of 2023, Ijumped on a plane.
I flew from Houston to Delhi,had a layover in Delhi and, by
(12:48):
the way, in a future episode I'mgoing to have a few things to
say about Delhi's airport, butthat's later on and then flew
from Delhi to Kathmandu, andwhat a whirlwind.
That was right.
Land in Nepal.
I have no idea of what's goingon, as far as you know.
It's a new city, it's chaotic,it's loud, it's.
(13:11):
You know, there's things goingeverywhere and I'd been in a lot
of chaotic cities and a lot ofloud cities.
But you know, kathmandu wascertainly on a on a different
level of of just chaos occurringall over the place.
Really cool place butdefinitely chaotic.
So anyway, landed at the airport, got through getting my visa
(13:31):
cleared up as a visa on arrival,got that handled, got some
local currency at the ATM, gotmy luggage and met up with the
representative.
I think now he may actually bea co-owner, or he was a co-owner
at the time even of I TrekEverest in Nepal, and that was
(13:53):
Sonam Sherpa, and Sonam isactually in Nate and Carrie's
video.
He's the one that guided themup to base camp and back, and so
he was there waiting for me.
So I instantly recognized him.
It was almost, like you know,seeing an old friend, right,
even though I'd never met him,never talked to him at that
point.
Uh, but I had seen him so muchin videos and such that you know
(14:16):
he felt like a friend.
I felt instantly comfortable,which I really enjoyed.
It was it was nice to feelcomfortable in a place where you
know you were new and didn'tknow anyone and it was kind of
everything had been done for meat that point, right, you know,
like when I was going to fly upto the mountain and where I was
staying and all that.
You know I trick and handle allthat.
(14:37):
So I almost felt a littledisconnected.
So to have a friendly face thatI had at least seen before in
some former fashion was reallyreally comforting.
And so we went to the hotel.
It was a hotel called NapoliGar.
It was really nice, really oldschool, looking, you know, had
this kind of open staircase inthe center, a lot of carved wood
(14:58):
, really nice hotel, right.
And so went there and basicallycrashed out because I was jet,
lagged like a son of a bitch,and crashed out for most of the
day, went to dinner with sanamthat night, along with my guide
up the mountain, uh, someone whoI would come to respect a huge
(15:20):
amount, uh, fury llama.
And fury was.
He was a beast I'll talk moreabout fury shortly, but yeah, he
was, he was the man went todinner, had a great dinner and
then the next day we went onkind of a cultural little tour
around katmandu, right, got tosee a lot of the sites durbar
square, some of the more famousold school places in this tamil
(15:43):
region of of katmandu reallycool to see.
Actually, got to see the kumari,which, if you don't know what
the kumari is in nepal, they'rea, a living goddess.
She's a living goddess, right.
So she's a young girl thatcomes from a certain family line
in a certain valley in Nepaland they have to go through this
(16:07):
process to be chosen, and thenbasically they move into this
house in Kathmandu and thisgoddess enters their body and
they become this goddess, theliving embodiment of this
goddess, and so it's reallyreally cool to see, if you get a
chance to see her.
And we were in the courtyardand she came to the window and
(16:31):
kind of looked over the crowdand it was.
That was a pretty cool moment,right.
I mean, even though I'm not youknow, that's not my religion or
anything else to see that wasreally really cool.
And to see the reaction ofeverybody in the courtyard when
she actually came to the windowwas really, really neat.
So, really, if I would havegotten to do nothing else but
that while I was in Kathmandu, Iwould have been happy because
(16:53):
that was such a cool experience.
So we did that, went back tothe hotel, got a nice night's
sleep, because the next morningcame real early.
I think we got up around fiveo'clock to get to the airport,
because the flights start veryearly into Lukla.
Now, this flight, let me justtell you, is a wild, wild, wild
(17:16):
experience.
It is on a very small plane,and I mean very small, and you
take off from Kathmandu and it'sabout a 30, 45 minute flight
where most of the time themountains are higher than the
airplane right.
They're at a higher altitudethan the airplane.
You're flying through themountains, not above them, which
(17:37):
is a surreal thought.
And then you basically have toland at what many consider the
most dangerous airport in theworld, and the reason for that
name is twofold, actuallyprobably threefold.
One, there's been severalcrashes.
We'll skip over that part.
(17:58):
Two, it is perched in a villageon the side of the mountain
right and the runway isperpendicular to the mountain.
So once the airplanes start ontheir final approach, they have
to land because there is nowhereelse to go.
They can't gain enough altitudequickly enough to get up and
(18:20):
over the mountains that surroundthe airfield.
So once you turn in on final,you're committed and it's a
non-controlled airport, meaningthere's no air traffic control
telling you when to land.
Right, there's a tower thattalks to the airplanes but
there's no approvals for land.
Basically, the pilots almosthandle it themselves, right, and
(18:43):
they stagger the flight time sothat it all works out.
But I mean it's, it's aninteresting ride, right, I had a
cool seat.
I had a window seat and I couldsee up through the cockpit so I
could see out the cockpitwindow of the runway coming into
view.
And I love to fly and I don'tmind it being bumpy.
But the absolute pucker factorwhen I saw that damn runway come
(19:07):
into view out the cockpitwindow and realized just how
small it was and that's where wewere landing, there was
definitely an oh shit momentwhere I was like what am I doing
with my life that I am on thisplane flying onto this runway?
This is the dumbest shit I'veever done.
But then my aviation geekkicked in and I was like this is
(19:30):
the coolest shit I've ever done.
So you know it's, it's.
It was a rollercoaster ofemotions.
So we land and all of a sudden,the second we hit the ground, we
are moving right, we get offthe plane, you get out of the
way because the airplanes turnaround extremely fast, like five
minutes.
Right, you unload, they unloadall the gear, you turn around,
(19:53):
load it back up and anothergroup flies out.
Right, and they do it as fastas they can, because the weather
can turn at any time and theconditions can change to where
they can't fly in or out, andthen it just backs up Lukla and
backs up Kathmandu and flightsget delayed and canceled.
It becomes a mess.
So they're trying to move asfast as they can.
(20:14):
So you jump off the plane, theybring your bags into kind of a
baggage area.
You see your bag get set down,you're with your guide and then
the next thing you know, yourporter comes and grabs your bag
and he's calling it off.
And you're following yourporter in Lukla and it's just a
whirlwind, right, you're walkingby the airport, you're watching
(20:35):
their planes land, you know.
So you're in awe of that, andthen you're taking in just the
raw, unfiltered beauty of whereyou're at and start to realize
oh shit, this is, this is prettyamazing.
I'm pretty high already andthis isn't even the big ones,
right, the big ones are yet tocome.
You're at the very bottom ofthe kumbu valley and you haven't
(20:58):
seen shit yet.
So you're overwhelmed, or atleast I was.
We stopped and had somebreakfast at a little tea house
in Lukla and then we got startedand our first day was a short
hike to Fat King where we weregoing to stop and spend the
night, kind of an ease into itday.
But I will tell you.
And that day may have turnedinto my most miserable, worst
(21:24):
day of the entire trip.
And the reason was I was soamped up, I was so fired up for
the trip that I forgot everydamn piece of advice that you
should follow on this trip.
I mean every one of them.
I just pissed down the drainand it was stupid.
(21:46):
I knew better and I knew itactually a couple of times when
it was happening and I stilldidn't correct it and I paid for
it in spades.
So we start hiking along thetrail and it's not a lot of
altitude gain that first day.
It's up and down, but it's kindof what they call Napoli flat
(22:06):
right.
It's undulating.
You know, up and down, up anddown, you're gaining some
altitude and then you lose some.
Then you gain a little bit andyou lose some.
But I was going way too fast.
Right, I was hiking way too fast.
I was, you know, fired up withadrenaline and everything else
and I was walking too fast.
I was fired up with adrenalineand everything else and I was
walking too fast.
I wasn't paying attention to mysteps enough.
(22:28):
I had too much clothing on asfar as I was.
You know, I was having to shedlayers like crazy because I had
too many on for the first dayand I didn't drink enough water,
which is pretty much thedeadliest of the deadly sins on
the trail, right.
So by the time we were gettingclose to Fat King, I was
(22:53):
dehydrated to hell and back, andat that point it was too late.
Right, I was already dehydrated.
We were not too far, alreadydehydrated.
We were not too far, and I wasgetting ready to pay for it,
because the last little bit intoour tea house, we had to kind
of go up and around this village, because the little walkthrough
area was being rebuilt, right.
(23:15):
So they had it blocked off andthey were, they were building
the trail, and so you had tokind of go up and around and on
that, up and around, my legsjust locked up, right.
I mean cramps wouldn't work, itwas just horrible.
I was so beaten and just soworn out that I couldn't believe
(23:38):
it, and I hadn't hiked hardlyany and my body was just wrecked
.
I hadn't hiked hardly any andmy body was just wrecked.
And so we get to the tea houseand, god forbid, my room is
upstairs.
So I try to climb these stairsand my legs will not hardly work
.
So instantly I'm freaked out,right.
I'm like, oh shit, I havescrewed the pooch already and
(24:00):
this is going to be miserable.
I'm never going to make itbecause I can't make it this far
, right, and this is nothing.
This is the easy first day.
And so I had a couple of hoursof absolute self-doubt that I
had to fight my way through.
You know it's, it's a hardthing when that that fear, it's
fear and it's self-doubt andit's not trusting yourself kind
(24:23):
of creeps in.
You know, cause your body'sstressed, you're at higher
altitude than you used to.
I mean, there's a lot offactors pounding on you.
Right, I was by myself, so youknow I didn't.
I didn't have any other folksto talk to or things to relate
to at that point, and I didn'treally feel comfortable yet with
my guide to talk to him aboutit.
Right, I didn't feelcomfortable enough to do that,
(24:46):
so I kind of fought through iton my own for a while and, you
know, got myself by the nextmorning into a mental place
where I was ready to go.
Right, I was.
I realized my mistakes, Irealized that I wasn't a
superhuman, you know trekkerthat was going to be able to
just burn through this, that Iwas going to have to take my
(25:08):
time.
I was going to be very aware ofmy water intake, of my food
intake, of of everything.
Right, because you know, I'mnot some world class athlete.
I've got to be more careful.
And so that was a valuable,valuable lesson, and one that I
would, you know, really suggestto people that they try to avoid
(25:28):
.
If there's any way that you canavoid that first day, just kind
of rush, go, go, go, throweverything out the window
because you're excited andyou're nervous.
You've got to avoid thatbecause that shit will come back
to bite you.
That shit will come back tobite you, and it damn sure did
me.
And while I made it to basecamp.
There were days where it cameback to haunt me just from being
(25:51):
stupid on that first day.
So you know it was more of astruggle at times than it
probably should have been.
So the next day is one of themonumental days on the trip and
that is up to Namche Bazaar,right?
So you trek to Namche Bazaar.
This is a long day, so we hadbeen trekking along and we
started going over thesuspension bridges that you see
(26:12):
in some of the videos, and Ithink we're making a lot of
progress and I'm feeling.
I'm feeling pretty good.
My legs are still pretty,pretty achy and such from
cramping up so bad the daybefore, but you know, fight
through it and get to this areawhere you kind of come around a
bin and you look up and there isthe Hillary bridge.
Now, the Hillary bridge is asuspension bridge across the
(26:39):
river and it's right before youstart the climb up to Namche.
And even though I had watchedvideos on this hike and
everything, you can appreciatereally, one, how high the
Hillary bridge is and two, theclimb that comes after it.
So we made the steady climb upto the Hillary bridge and went
(26:59):
to walk across it, which I ammildly afraid of heights.
I've got some.
I can handle heights in a lotof situations, but there's some
situations that it bothers meand I will admit, on the Hillary
bridge you were so high up Ihad my camera pointed down so
that you could see just how highI was, but my eyes were
(27:22):
straight ahead.
I refused to look down.
The wind is blowing its ass offdown through this valley and
you're on this suspension bridgehanging out over this big
valley below you with this river, and it was definitely a moment
of panic here and there as Iwalked across the bridge, made
(27:43):
it across and was excited asshit to say that I had done it,
because that's a cool thing tobe able to go across is the
Hillary Bridge.
What I didn't realize is justhow bad the climb from Hillary
Bridge up to Namche was going tobe.
It is a switchback through thetrees nightmare.
(28:05):
I mean.
I don't know how long it tookme to get up this climb.
I'm sure it took me a lotlonger than more fit, younger
folks can do it in, but for meat least, it whipped my ass and
I'll tell you that's when thefirst moment of humbling truly
came in to be on this trip was,as I'm climbing up this
(28:31):
switchback route toward Namche,there are porters who are
carrying duffel bags, multipleduffel bags, of the trekkers,
including mine, and alsocarrying supplies to the
villages.
Right, I mean, they carryeverything in their backs.
They carry metal, wood doors,clothes, food, I mean anything
(28:58):
and everything you can imagine.
These guys are carrying ontheir backs, right, everything
you can imagine these guys arecarrying on their backs, right,
and here I am huffing andpuffing and just getting my ass
whipped trying to climb up this,this switchback to namche.
These porters would actuallyturn and you would see these
little trails and at first Ididn't realize what they were.
(29:19):
The porters would turn and gostraight up the mountain with
all of this weight on theirbacks to avoid going on the
switchbacks.
And these guys are in likesweatpants and jeans and
t-shirts and tennis shoes and,you know, just normal street
(29:40):
clothes and they're goingstraight up this hill like it is
nothing right, and I'm justlike what the hell?
Right, I'm about to die.
These guys are carrying Godknows how much more weight than
I am and they're just burning itright up the mountain and I'm
just like God damn it.
I mean, it was a humblingexperience.
(30:02):
And what even humbled me morewas when I came around a
switchback and there was aresting point and all these
porters were sitting theretaking a break and they're all
smoking cigarettes.
I'm like how in the hell areyou smoking a cigarette at this
altitude?
I'm about to die from no oxygenand these guys are over there
(30:28):
having a frigging chat andsmoking a cigarette like it's
nothing.
I mean humbling, humblingexperience.
You just you kind of have to putit past, you know, put it in
the back of your mind and saythese guys live here, they're
Sherpa people, you know theythey're, they're experienced in
this.
They're just a different breed.
I mean, frankly, I was in aweof my guide and the porters and
(30:54):
other guides that we got to hangaround with, of the tea houses
and talk to.
First of all, they've got great, these great amazing stories of
adventure and and and tragedyand success and it's amazing to
hear their stories right, but atthe same time you look at these
guys and they're, you know,slider, build, you know just
(31:15):
regular looking guys and theyare just machines in the
mountain.
I mean they're not breathinghard, they're not tired.
If they are, they certainlydon't show it.
I mean it is some impressive,impressive stuff.
I mean I bow down to the Sherpaall day long.
(31:35):
I mean those dudes are, are themost legit hardcore athletes
that you could ever imagine.
And they're not even trying tobe athletes, they're just.
That's just life, right, that'sjust their every day.
It is truly along with themountains.
Watching the Sherpa perform inthe mountains is one of the
coolest experiences of theentire trip.
(31:57):
So, anyway, back to my slog upthe Everest track.
So we're in Namche and you stayin Namche two days, right,
because you need an extra restday, an extra acclimatization
day, because you're reallystarting to get at some altitude
.
So we got in Namche, I crashedout, had some dinner, crashed
out, you know, woke up the nextday.
We did a little acclimatizationhike to help get used to the
(32:19):
altitude, went up to thisviewpoint, which is really cool.
There's a statue up at thisviewpoint for Tenzing Norgay,
and Tenzing Norgay is the Sherpathat was along with Sir Edmund
Hillary when they climbed MountEverest for the first time, and
it's a really cool statue to seeand the way they've placed the
(32:40):
statue up on this high viewpoint.
While you're up there you canlook beyond the statue and you
get your first real glimpse ofMount Everest.
And I don't know how long we setup there, but I sat there and
just stared at it forever.
Because here I was.
I'm sitting here and I'mstaring at Mount Everest in
(33:01):
person, right, not on a video,not in a picture, I'm looking
directly at it.
And that was probably the firstreal holy shit moment.
I'm actually in Nepal, I'mlooking at the tallest mountain
in the world and that it almostchoked me up.
(33:23):
In fact, I think it may havechoked me up.
I may have had a few tearsbecause it was so beautiful and
it was so awe-inspiring.
And to see something like thatsomething that you probably, I
mean, at least for me I neverthought I would see, right, I
never thought there would be atime in my life where I would
see Mount Everest, thought therewould be a time in my life
(33:47):
where I would see Mount Everest.
So to be able to see it waspretty damn special.
I mean, I will remember thatmoment for the rest of my life
of getting to see that mountainand there was several of those
moments along this trip justbecause of the raw natural
beauty of it.
It's hard to explain.
Pictures don't do it justice,videos don't do it justice
Certainly my words can't do itjustice of just how amazingly
(34:12):
beautiful this region is and howawe-inspiring the mountains are
.
So we finish up ouracclimatization hike, we go back
down again, have dinner, hangout in the tea house, hang out
by the fire, and that's a reallycool experience.
All along the trip you kind ofare moving at the same pace as
(34:32):
some other climbers or someother trekkers, right.
So you tend to see a lot of thesame people in the tea houses.
And this was pretty early inthe season this was in February
and so a lot of the tea houseshadn't even opened up yet in the
season.
This was in February, and so alot of the tea houses hadn't
even opened up yet.
The season really doesn't kickoff, you know, for another month
or so.
In fact, they're starting prepwork, you know, for setting up
(34:54):
base camp for the Everest climbsin the in the um the upcoming
months during that time.
So you're just then starting tosee a lot of activity, uh,
starting to head toward basecamp.
So there wasn't a ton of peopleon the, on the track at that
time, which was pretty amazing.
It was still pretty cold, whichwas great.
Uh, I love the cold weather, soI was, I was pretty happy with
the cold, but there wasn't a tonof people, like I said, you
(35:16):
know, on the trail.
So the ones that you would seeis you would get to know,
because only a couple of the teahouses be open and you know, so
you'd hang out, set by the fire.
You know, tell stories, youknow, just just shoot the shit,
you know, just just hang out.
Uh, people from all over theworld, right, and there was a
guy from australia, a guy fromgermany, you know, myself being
(35:36):
from america, we ran into acouple of british guys, just
from all over the world, right,it's really pretty cool.
It's kind of an internationalgroup, and so you've always you
sit around and you sit by thefire to stay warm at night and
you and you tell stories andabout your day's adventure and
where you're from, and it'sreally a cool bonding experience
.
So we left out of namche and wewe started this progression,
(36:00):
right, it's basically you hikein the morning, you stop for
some tea mid-morning, you stopfor lunch to take a break, and
then you finish out the rest ofthe day's hike and you try to be
at the next village, you knowmid-afternoon, and then that way
you can have some rest time,some downtime before you have
dinner and before you hang out.
(36:21):
And then you go to bed and youstay in tea houses.
That's what they're basicallycalled and it's kind of an all
in one, right.
So it's a restaurant, it'swhere you, it's where your room
is, where you sleep, it's thehangout spot to where you hang
out in the evenings.
It's kind of an all in one.
And it's a little store, right.
They always have, you know,bottles of water and snacks and
(36:42):
stuff like that that you canalso buy, and kind of the
thought is theirs is, the roomsaren't that expensive, but it's
expected that if you stay in theroom that you also take all of
your meals there.
And the Sherpas handle all thatfor you, right.
They handle setting up whereyou're going to be staying.
You know they will come andthey'll talk to you about you
know what do you want for dinner, and they'll set up a time for
(37:04):
when you get your dinner, youknow.
And then that night before yougo to bed, they'll figure out
what you want for breakfast andthey'll make sure that that's
ordered.
And so when you come down, youknow whatever set time you guys
decide on, you know yourbreakfast is there and so it's.
It's really pretty seamless asfar as you not having to do too
much, which is a good thingbecause, frankly, you're
stressed half the time.
You're at altitude, you're, youknow your body is is being
(37:26):
assaulted by everything underthe sun, and so to remember
those types of things is ispretty difficult.
So to have the Sherpa there,your guides, to handle those
things for you really makes it,makes it great.
So we track, you know, out ofNamche and that's the.
That's the kind of rhythm we'reinto you trek and then stop,
(37:47):
trek and stop, trek and stop.
One of the villages along theway that was particularly cool
was Tingbushae.
In Tingbushae there's amonastery, a Buddhist monastery,
and they also have a bigfestival there every year, which
I would have loved to have beenaround for, but it was a
different time of the year thanwhen I was there, but we went
(38:08):
into the monastery and to seethat monastery and the monks
right, there was a few monks upthere at that time because it
was like, again, it was in thecolder seasons and some of them
leave that monastery for theseason.
It was really really cool forthe season.
It was really really cool.
Again, a really cool experience, cultural experience.
Right, to see, you know notonly how the Buddhists, you know
(38:35):
, worship and the integral partthat the temple plays and the
monastery plays in the villages,in the community.
It's kind of like the centerpoint, right, you know it's the
center of the community, and tosee that was really really cool.
And to trek to the next village,sleep and then finally trekked
(39:07):
to Gorik Shep.
And Gorik Shep is the lastvillage on the trail and it is
up there, it's, it's right nextto the kumbu glacier, it is sets
next up on this hill to thisdry lake bed and from gorick
(39:29):
shep you're looking directly atwhat?
Three of the five largestmountains in the world.
It's spectacular from there,but it you are high and it is
cold.
And I remember walking intoGork Shep that day and I was
(39:53):
just whipped, just whipped, youknow it's, you're getting,
you're finally there, right,you're finally almost to base
camp and you are pretty beatenby that point.
You know you have been eatingvegetarian on the trail because
of you know you can't eat themeat up there Because you know,
(40:15):
at least my American stomachwould not handle it up there,
because you know, at least myamerican stomach would not
handle it because it's it's notnecessarily refrigerated.
You know the way we would beused to it being and it's been
carried up, you know, on eitheron somebody's back or maybe on a
helicopter, but more thanlikely on somebody's back, and
you know you've been eating, soyou've been eating vegetarian
the entire time.
You know you've been sleepingon on beds that aren't super
(40:37):
comfortable, you know, and thenthere's no heat so it's
extremely cold, you know.
You just, you're just tired,you're, you're, you're pretty
beaten down and you're dealingwith the effects of really high
altitude.
You know 16, 17, 000 feet, youknow to anybody is is pretty
tough to deal with.
That's not extremely used tobeing at that high level of
(41:01):
altitude.
So we make it to Gorick ship andwe go in and we eat lunch and
that was the first time I hadseen someone really affected by
the altitude.
There had been a guy fromAustralia that had been hiking
along the same timeline as usand he, he would pass me every
day and I long lost the, the,the shame of being passed on the
(41:24):
trail.
I didn't care, I, at that point, I was in survival mode, I was
just trying to get there, but hewould pass me every day and he
was really nice.
I mean we we would chat onbreaks and and in the tea houses
and stuff along the way, and hewas, he was a really nice guy.
And we walked into the teahouse at Gork Shep for lunch and
he was in there and he was justhead, was just laid on the
(41:46):
table and he looked like hell.
I mean he was, he was reallypale and he looked really rough
and his guide was taking hisblood oxygen level readings and
was checking on him and hedidn't look good.
And when we left we decided togo ahead and make the attempt to
go from Gork ship to base campthat afternoon.
(42:10):
So fury and I actually left.
And when we left the, the teahouse to make the, the push to
base camp, the australian guywas still in the tea house and
he didn't look good.
And so you know, we we kind ofsaid, well, you know, you hope
you feel better and andeverything like that, and we
decided to head on and so wemade the trek to base camp and
(42:36):
I'm gonna tell to tell you whatI was super excited but that
seemed like maybe one of thehardest parts outside of like
climbing up the, the switchbacksto Namche.
Getting to base camp itself wasone of the hardest sections of
the track that I that I canremember, for a couple of
reasons.
One, like I just said, I wasdead ass tired.
(42:58):
I was just worn out Right.
And two, you're at the highestaltitude that you've been.
You know you're over 17,000feet.
Three, it's you're hikingbasically over the spoils of
this glacier.
So it's a ton of rock right,boulders and gravel and all
(43:18):
these rocks and things that havebeen chewed up by this big ass
glacier that had been depositedon the sides.
That's what you're trekkingover.
So there was hardly any trail.
It was, you know, uneven stepsand moving rocks and you know
every kind of unsteady path thatyou could think of.
(43:39):
You know we went over and thenwe get up on the glacier and
there's, you know you're havingto go around crevasses and you
know more rock and ice and Imean it was, it was, it was a
tough hike in.
But I will tell you, all ofthat faded away when we kind of
went around this one crevasseand this one little rock field
(44:01):
on the glacier.
And there it was.
There was the rock, this kindof oval shaped rock with mount
everest base camp and thealtitude spray painted on it as
kind of the symbolic monument towhere base camp truly began.
(44:24):
And I couldn't believe it.
I had done it.
I had drug my ass all the wayup that trail to Mount Everest
Base Camp and there I waslooking at base camp where all
these people come to start theirclimb of Mount Everest.
(44:48):
I was there and there's thesegiant, monstrous 26, 27, 28 and
man ever, it's 29 000 foot peakssurrounding me and I'm kind of
(45:09):
in this bowl, right that the endof this glacier, and it's it's
like a u-shape, I guess, morethan a bowl, it's like a u-shape
, I guess more than a bowl it'slike a U-shape.
And I'm kind of at the veryclose to the bottom part where
it curves around and it's justthese magnificent, monstrous
mountains around me and Icouldn't believe it.
(45:34):
And the coolest thing, fury andI were the only ones there.
There was no one else at basecamp at that time on that day,
so it was just quiet glacier andthe wind coming down through
(45:57):
the glacial valley off themountains and you could see the
clouds and the amount of windblowing these clouds across the
peaks of the mountains.
It was outside of my weddingday, that feeling on your
wedding day or when your kidsare born, outside of those
(46:18):
moments.
It was one of the mostawe-inspiring things I'd ever
seen.
I I'll never forget it.
It.
I absolutely cried.
I I cried from relief frommaking it, I cried from the joy
of making it and I cried at justhow beautiful and how
(46:44):
awe-inspiring that site was.
And it wasn't through a camera,it wasn't on a picture, it
wasn't on a screen, it was rightthere in front of me.
And I don't know how many peopleget to see that.
But I will tell you, if you getthe chance and you're able and
(47:12):
frankly I don't give a shit howyou get there If you do the trek
, hey great.
If you get on a damn helicopterand fly up to base camp and
stand at base camp and look atit, you know what.
You still saw it.
I mean, I know there's a lot ofdivisiveness about, you know,
the flying it versus trekking it, but I would encourage you, no
matter what, if you have theopportunity to see it, to see
(47:36):
mount everest, to see thosemountains from that location
from that spot.
It's just, it's just one of themost magnificent things you'll
ever see.
I I would highly recommendanyone put that on your list as
one of those things that youneed to do before you die,
because it's just thatspectacular, it's that great,
(48:01):
it's that worth it, it's worththe effort, it's worth the
hassle and the training and thetraveling and the cold and the
hungry and the pain.
It's all worth it and that'sthe thing right.
It's all worth it and that'sthe thing right.
Once you see it at least for me,all those other things fell
(48:23):
away and it didn't really matter.
You know all the, all the all,the misery and and cold and all
that it it did not matter.
I was truly in the moment ofseeing it and I'll never forget
it, never as long as I live,we'll forget that moment it was.
It was truly awe inspiring andI hated leaving one because I
(48:45):
didn't want to.
I didn't want to leave the siteof that, and the other one was
I didn't want to walk backacross that God forsaken gravel
boulder trail back to gork ship.
But I did and we finally madeit back to gork ship and had a
(49:07):
meal that was probably the besttasting one of the whole trip
because of of making it to basecamp and slept easily.
What was in the coldest room Ihad experienced, probably ever
in my life, in the tea house upat Gork Shep.
Because, man, there's not a lotof creature comforts at 17,000
(49:27):
feet, trust me, and there's notmuch in Gork Shep.
It is take what you can get andfight through the rest, because
it is cold and it is desolateand it is lonely up there that
high up that far back in thekumbu.
So anyway, eventually we makeit back down to lukla.
(49:48):
You know you ride the high ofof seeing base camp, get back to
lukla, hop on a plane, fly, flyout of Lukla, which was equally
as cool, although the flightback to Kathmandu did take about
an hour because we had todivert for weather and we got
the shit beat out of us for alittle while on that little
plane which is a little bit of apucker factor.
(50:11):
I mean, we were getting thrownaround pretty good and you're on
a pretty damn small plane, soit's certainly a level of pucker
.
But made it back to Kathmandu,spent a couple of days in
Kathmandu and then flew back tothe United States, having gained
the ability to say that I hadbeen to Bound Everest Base Camp
(50:32):
and that I had trekked it andthat I had seen Mount Everest
with my own eyes.
And it was a very proud momentfor me.
I was, I was very proud and Istill am to this day of of
making that, that track, becauseit is not easy and, you know,
the older you get, you know forsomebody like me I, I tracked it
(50:54):
when I was what I would havebeen 44 at the time, and so it's
not the easiest thing as youget older.
But I, I'd set that goal formyself and I did it and I was
super proud.
And so I would encourage anyonethat hears this man, it doesn't
have to be Mount Everest.
(51:15):
If you get the chance to go toMount Everest, to trek Mount
Everest, to see it, do it.
But it doesn't have to be MountEverest, it can be anything.
If there is an adventure or aplace or an event that you find
yourself being drawn to, thatyou find that spark of interest,
(51:36):
that spark of yearning to do inyour brain or in your heart or
wherever it comes from, man, goout there and do all you can to
do it.
It's worth the struggle, it'sworth whatever it takes to get
there because it will besomething that you will remember
forever.
(51:56):
Like I said before, I'm in noway, you know, some type of
world-class athlete or mountainclimber or long distance trekker
.
I love the outdoors.
I love, you know, hiking in themountains, I love camping.
I love all those things, butI'm certainly no world-class
athlete.
But I set my mind to it to makeit to Mount Everest base camp
(52:21):
and I was lucky enough to getthere and so I'm a better person
for it.
I've got an experience that noone can ever take from me and
it's just, it's the best feelingin the world.
So if you've got a place, thatthat is your place for something
like that.
(52:41):
If there's an activity, a place, man, just go do it.
Try, no matter what you have todo to get there, put in the
work, put in the effort and gosee it, experience it, do it.
It is absolutely worth it.
I hope everyone that hears thisgets to experience that moment
(53:02):
of awe and joy and excitement,like I did that day at Mount
Everest Base Camp.
So that's my story of gettingin Mount Everest Base Camp.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
There'll be plenty more comingafter this, but this is
certainly one that I hope you'reable to get some inspiration
from and enjoyment from.
(53:23):
It's quite the adventure.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
This has been Trade Tables and Time Zones.
Worldwide travel is one of thefunnest things you can do in
life and it's our passion totalk about the good, the bad,
the funny and the ugly.
Nothing is off limits.
We hope you've enjoyed the show.
If you did, make sure to like,rate and review.
(53:47):
We'll be back soon, but in themeantime, find us on Instagram
at Trade Tables and Time Zones,and for questions or comments,
send your email to TraysAndTimesat gmailcom.
Take care and see you next timeon Trade Tables and Time Zones.
Flight 527, runaway, 8km cleared for takeoff.
This is your captain speaking.
If you love travel and we knowyou do, buckle your seatbelts
and keep your tray tables in theupright position.
You should be seeing theilluminated fun signs throughout
the aircraft because we'reabout to take off on a chat of
(00:21):
epic proportions.
Welcome to Tray Tables and TimeZones, the podcast where travel
isn't just about takingvacations, it's about enriching
your life.
We'll dive into the highs, thelows and the downright absurd
moments that come with exploringthe world.
Whether it's food poisoning ona long-haul flight, trekking to
(00:43):
Mount Everest Base Camp ortraveling to Disney parks
worldwide, we cover it allSerious at moments, but mostly
we're here to laugh and sharesome brutally honest travel
stories.
So let's do it one time zone ata time.
This is Trey Tableson TimeZones, and this is your host.
Josh Bogle Tables and TimeZones, and this is your host.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Josh Bogle.
Hey everyone and welcome backto the Trade Tables and Time
Zones podcast.
I'm your host, josh Bogle.
On this episode I'm going to doa deep dive into my trek to
Mount Everest Base Camp.
But before I get into theactual story of the trip itself,
I kind of want to share somebackground on how I came to this
(01:29):
trip.
It's really a microcosm of howI began my international travel
life and how I got to where I amas far as how I travel and what
I look for and kind of theadventure that I like to chase
on some of my travels.
So, not to bog down the story,but I do want to share a little
bit of that background.
(01:50):
I guess it really will go backto around 2015, 2016.
I had gotten interested intraveling more internationally.
It just it was something thatat that point in my life it was.
It was starting to interest memore and more.
You know we had traveled a lotin the United States trips
throughout the U?
(02:10):
S, including Disney, and we haddone some Disney cruises and
things like that and those weregreat, really got into those,
but kind of wanted more.
Right, I wanted to goexperience more.
There's such a big world outthere.
I wanted to see more of it and,luckily enough, my wife shared
that same sentiment.
And so, you know, we kind ofstarted looking around and
(02:33):
trying to understand, you know,how to travel internationally
and learn more about it, whatwas out there and how to handle
it and where to go and thingslike that.
And so, as one does these days,we turn to YouTube.
You know, that was really early, I guess, in a lot of of the
travel vlogging genre in YouTube, where folks were documenting
(02:55):
their travels all around theworld and showing you different
locations that you'd neverreally thought of.
And that was certainly the casefor me.
You know, it was like kind of awhole new world being opened up
to me.
And we came across this oneburgeoning YouTube channel, and
actually it was really small atthe time when we came across it,
but we liked the couple.
It was a couple that traveledtogether and they had just
(03:17):
gotten started, right, they werejust now starting their journey
and I think the plan was atthat time for them to travel for
a year straight, and that'skind of what they had saved up
to do.
Obviously, they were, you know,putting out content and they
were new and and you know theywere trying to figure it all out
and it was really cool to kindof follow that, you know,
because we were learning aboutthe travel side.
(03:37):
And then you had this humanelement of them learning how to
do things Right, and thatchannel at the time was very
small, but now I believe theyare approaching 4 million
subscribers.
And that would be Kara and Nate.
If you're into travel, you'veprobably come across their
videos.
If you're not a follower or asubscriber, you've at least
heard of them.
They've really done a ton ofdifferent travel around the
(04:00):
world.
And then Nate kind of got intothese challenges of doing these
different, you know, differentadventure challenges around the
world.
I think he actually just readthe Leadville 100.
So very, very, uh, very muchinto them and and got into
following their stuff.
And one of the things theyended up doing, I think in 2016,
was trekking to Mount Everestbase Camp and at the time I had
(04:24):
never really heard of theopportunity to trek to Mount
Everest Base Camp.
I knew of Mount Everest, I knewthat there was a base camp, I
knew that's where mountaineerswould go and would start their
attempts to summit Mount Everest, but I didn't know anything
about the treks that you coulddo from essentially Lukla, which
(04:47):
is kind of the start of thetrail, all the way to Mount
Everest Base Camp, and that'sjust one of the you know
multiple treks and climbs andthings that you can do in that
region of Nepal.
But I had no idea that wassomething you could do.
I had no idea that wassomething you could do and at
the time I was like man, thereis no damn way I'm going to drag
my ass up a mountain at likecrazy altitudes all the way up
(05:13):
there to see Mount Everest.
I was like man, if I ever wantto see Mount Everest, I will get
in a helicopter and fly upthere and check it out and then
fly back Right, because I swearI was in my life.
I was in that kind of place.
I wasn't looking for crazyadventures or challenges.
So I kind of discounted theactual trek part.
(05:34):
I knew it occurred and youcould do it, but I kind of just
discounted it right, it wassomething I was never going to
do.
I love the idea of landing atLukla, because Lukla which is
like again, it's kind of whereyou start your trek is
considered the most dangerousairport in the world.
And so I thought, you know, ohman, that'd be cool to fly into
there and land and then maybestay a couple of days in Lukla
(05:57):
and just kind of hang out andcheck out the vibe, right, and
then jump back on the plane andtake off from there too.
So, being a kind of an aviationnerd, that seemed really
awesome.
But the actual Trek part, Ireally wasn't into it.
So, you know, time progressedand we started traveling, right,
we started doing moreinternational travel in Asia and
(06:18):
in Europe and things like that.
And obviously we were followingNate and Kara as well and
getting more and more ideas.
And for some we were followingNate and Kara as well and
getting more and more ideas.
And for some reason, in theback of my mind, that Everest
trek was stuck there and wouldjust pop into my brain every
once in a while, really kind ofannoying, but it wouldn't go
(06:38):
away.
Right, I was always just therewas something about it kept
drawing me back in.
I was always just there wassomething about it kept drawing
me back in, and so I startedgetting interested in it.
I'm like you know, what am Idoing?
This is not really my gig.
I don't know, man, I don't knowif I want to.
You know, try to do somethinglike that.
It's crazy, it's high, it'shard, it's.
You know, I was.
(07:00):
I was traveling pretty free andeasy at that point, and not
necessarily looking for a toughchallenge, but it just wouldn't
get out of my brain.
And then the world shut down,right?
And so now I couldn't do it,right, you couldn't go anywhere.
Hell, you were lucky to leaveyour house, and so it made it
(07:20):
even more appealing.
You know the thought of beingout amongst the mountains and
the clean air and trekkingthrough this beautiful scenery
and being surrounded by thetallest mountains in the world.
You know, it seemed really,really good, and so when things
started opening back up, itbecame not an obsession, but it
(07:44):
certainly became something.
At that point, I realized, look,time is limited.
You know, something couldhappen the next day.
That changes, you know, yourability to travel and move
freely throughout the world, andI don't want to miss out on
things.
Right, I don't want to miss outon those experiences, and
that's really furthered my shiftthat had started, you know, in
(08:07):
2015, 2016 range of moving awayfrom things and moving more into
experiences.
Right, I wanted my life filledwith experiences.
I didn't really care aboutthings.
I cared about those experiencesthat I would carry with me
through the rest of my life, andthis became an experience that
I just I had to try right.
(08:27):
Even if I didn't make it, evenif something happened and I
couldn't make it all the way, Ihad tried and had got to
experience it.
And that's what I did.
I started reading about it andwatching more and more videos
and trying to figure everythingout, you know, reading on
message boards and Reddit andall these things about people
(08:49):
that had done it and had madethis trek and how to how to do
it, how to best go about it.
And then I started reading upon the different tour companies
and the guide services that wereavailable and there's a lot of
them, right, so it's hard tochoose.
There's some really big ones.
There's some that organize theorganize the trek but really
(09:09):
don't have a huge presence inNepal.
There's some that are ownedlocally in Nepal.
It runs the gamut and Iremembered that to that Nate and
Kara series on on trekking inNepal and over that time after
their trek trekking in Nepal,and over that time after their
trek, they had become friendswith the owners of the company
(09:30):
that they trekked with, and thatwas a company called iTrek
Everest.
And it turns out that the owner, or one of the owners, of iTrek
Everest, a guy by the name ofRick Neuf, lives in the US.
He lives in Colorado and he'sbeen featured on their channel a
couple of times.
Well, anyway, I got in touchwith him and, you know, started
inquiring about the trip and itworked out to where they they
(09:56):
seemed like the best choice.
I kind of clicked with them,made me feel comfortable with
the trip, and so I decided screwit, I'm going to go for this.
So that's what I did book thetrip.
And so I decided screw it, I'mgoing to go for this.
So that's what I did.
Booked the trip, but before Ileft, I put in a ton of work
because, frankly, coming out ofthe pandemic, I wasn't in the
best shape.
I'd gotten lazy and, you know,kind of sedimentary, and I had
(10:19):
to get my ass in better shapebecause there was no way that I
was going to be able to do thistrip at my current fitness level
, uh, to put it nicely to myself.
So another great portion ofthis was that it motivated me to
get up off my ass and actuallystart working out, and that's
(10:39):
what I did.
So I, you know, joined the gymand started walking and running
and hiking and lifting weightsand doing all the things that I
was learning I needed to do todo this trek.
It worked out well.
I gained a lot of muscle,gained a lot of endurance and
lost some weight and worked outgreat.
(11:00):
One of the other things I did isused a altitude tent.
So what this is is it's a tentand it has a oxygen type of
altitude generator that connectsto it, and you spend as much
time as you can in this tent andit's able to simulate altitude.
And the reason I did this isbecause I basically live at sea
(11:21):
level I mean maybe a couple ofhundred feet above sea level at
best, and so there was no way toreplicate being in the
mountains.
Right, I couldn't spend all mytime in Colorado, I couldn't
move to Colorado or wherever fora couple of months to train at
altitude.
(11:42):
Family and a job and neitherdon't you know, neither one of
those would be too kindly to mejust taking off for several
months and, you know, living anomadic lifestyle and training
in the altitude.
So I had to figure out anotherway to do it.
And so I got this tent and Islept in it and I would work in
it and I would hang out in it asmuch as I could, right, and
(12:04):
that way I could build up atolerance for the altitude Right
, so I wouldn't get altitudesickness when I was on the
mountain, because that's thelast thing I wanted was for my
trip to be ruined because I gotsick from altitude sickness.
There's so many otherchallenges on this trip.
There's so many otherroadblocks that I didn't want
the altitude one to become thatroadblock blocks, that I didn't
(12:25):
want the altitude one to becomethat roadblock.
And so I use that tent all theway up until like a day or two
before I left, because I had toship the tent and all the
equipment back, because I justrented it, I didn't buy it, and
so I did as much prep as Ithought I could do for this trip
.
And in February of 2023, Ijumped on a plane.
I flew from Houston to Delhi,had a layover in Delhi and, by
(12:48):
the way, in a future episode I'mgoing to have a few things to
say about Delhi's airport, butthat's later on and then flew
from Delhi to Kathmandu, andwhat a whirlwind.
That was right.
Land in Nepal.
I have no idea of what's goingon, as far as you know.
It's a new city, it's chaotic,it's loud, it's.
(13:11):
You know, there's things goingeverywhere and I'd been in a lot
of chaotic cities and a lot ofloud cities.
But you know, kathmandu wascertainly on a on a different
level of of just chaos occurringall over the place.
Really cool place butdefinitely chaotic.
So anyway, landed at the airport, got through getting my visa
(13:31):
cleared up as a visa on arrival,got that handled, got some
local currency at the ATM, gotmy luggage and met up with the
representative.
I think now he may actually bea co-owner, or he was a co-owner
at the time even of I TrekEverest in Nepal, and that was
(13:53):
Sonam Sherpa, and Sonam isactually in Nate and Carrie's
video.
He's the one that guided themup to base camp and back, and so
he was there waiting for me.
So I instantly recognized him.
It was almost, like you know,seeing an old friend, right,
even though I'd never met him,never talked to him at that
point.
Uh, but I had seen him so muchin videos and such that you know
(14:16):
he felt like a friend.
I felt instantly comfortable,which I really enjoyed.
It was it was nice to feelcomfortable in a place where you
know you were new and didn'tknow anyone and it was kind of
everything had been done for meat that point, right, you know,
like when I was going to fly upto the mountain and where I was
staying and all that.
You know I trick and handle allthat.
(14:37):
So I almost felt a littledisconnected.
So to have a friendly face thatI had at least seen before in
some former fashion was reallyreally comforting.
And so we went to the hotel.
It was a hotel called NapoliGar.
It was really nice, really oldschool, looking, you know, had
this kind of open staircase inthe center, a lot of carved wood
(14:58):
, really nice hotel, right.
And so went there and basicallycrashed out because I was jet,
lagged like a son of a bitch,and crashed out for most of the
day, went to dinner with sanamthat night, along with my guide
up the mountain, uh, someone whoI would come to respect a huge
(15:20):
amount, uh, fury llama.
And fury was.
He was a beast I'll talk moreabout fury shortly, but yeah, he
was, he was the man went todinner, had a great dinner and
then the next day we went onkind of a cultural little tour
around katmandu, right, got tosee a lot of the sites durbar
square, some of the more famousold school places in this tamil
(15:43):
region of of katmandu reallycool to see.
Actually, got to see the kumari,which, if you don't know what
the kumari is in nepal, they'rea, a living goddess.
She's a living goddess, right.
So she's a young girl thatcomes from a certain family line
in a certain valley in Nepaland they have to go through this
(16:07):
process to be chosen, and thenbasically they move into this
house in Kathmandu and thisgoddess enters their body and
they become this goddess, theliving embodiment of this
goddess, and so it's reallyreally cool to see, if you get a
chance to see her.
And we were in the courtyardand she came to the window and
(16:31):
kind of looked over the crowdand it was.
That was a pretty cool moment,right.
I mean, even though I'm not youknow, that's not my religion or
anything else to see that wasreally really cool.
And to see the reaction ofeverybody in the courtyard when
she actually came to the windowwas really, really neat.
So, really, if I would havegotten to do nothing else but
that while I was in Kathmandu, Iwould have been happy because
(16:53):
that was such a cool experience.
So we did that, went back tothe hotel, got a nice night's
sleep, because the next morningcame real early.
I think we got up around fiveo'clock to get to the airport,
because the flights start veryearly into Lukla.
Now, this flight, let me justtell you, is a wild, wild, wild
(17:16):
experience.
It is on a very small plane,and I mean very small, and you
take off from Kathmandu and it'sabout a 30, 45 minute flight
where most of the time themountains are higher than the
airplane right.
They're at a higher altitudethan the airplane.
You're flying through themountains, not above them, which
(17:37):
is a surreal thought.
And then you basically have toland at what many consider the
most dangerous airport in theworld, and the reason for that
name is twofold, actuallyprobably threefold.
One, there's been severalcrashes.
We'll skip over that part.
(17:58):
Two, it is perched in a villageon the side of the mountain
right and the runway isperpendicular to the mountain.
So once the airplanes start ontheir final approach, they have
to land because there is nowhereelse to go.
They can't gain enough altitudequickly enough to get up and
(18:20):
over the mountains that surroundthe airfield.
So once you turn in on final,you're committed and it's a
non-controlled airport, meaningthere's no air traffic control
telling you when to land.
Right, there's a tower thattalks to the airplanes but
there's no approvals for land.
Basically, the pilots almosthandle it themselves, right, and
(18:43):
they stagger the flight time sothat it all works out.
But I mean it's, it's aninteresting ride, right, I had a
cool seat.
I had a window seat and I couldsee up through the cockpit so I
could see out the cockpitwindow of the runway coming into
view.
And I love to fly and I don'tmind it being bumpy.
But the absolute pucker factorwhen I saw that damn runway come
(19:07):
into view out the cockpitwindow and realized just how
small it was and that's where wewere landing, there was
definitely an oh shit momentwhere I was like what am I doing
with my life that I am on thisplane flying onto this runway?
This is the dumbest shit I'veever done.
But then my aviation geekkicked in and I was like this is
(19:30):
the coolest shit I've ever done.
So you know it's, it's.
It was a rollercoaster ofemotions.
So we land and all of a sudden,the second we hit the ground, we
are moving right, we get offthe plane, you get out of the
way because the airplanes turnaround extremely fast, like five
minutes.
Right, you unload, they unloadall the gear, you turn around,
(19:53):
load it back up and anothergroup flies out.
Right, and they do it as fastas they can, because the weather
can turn at any time and theconditions can change to where
they can't fly in or out, andthen it just backs up Lukla and
backs up Kathmandu and flightsget delayed and canceled.
It becomes a mess.
So they're trying to move asfast as they can.
(20:14):
So you jump off the plane, theybring your bags into kind of a
baggage area.
You see your bag get set down,you're with your guide and then
the next thing you know, yourporter comes and grabs your bag
and he's calling it off.
And you're following yourporter in Lukla and it's just a
whirlwind, right, you're walkingby the airport, you're watching
(20:35):
their planes land, you know.
So you're in awe of that, andthen you're taking in just the
raw, unfiltered beauty of whereyou're at and start to realize
oh shit, this is, this is prettyamazing.
I'm pretty high already andthis isn't even the big ones,
right, the big ones are yet tocome.
You're at the very bottom ofthe kumbu valley and you haven't
(20:58):
seen shit yet.
So you're overwhelmed, or atleast I was.
We stopped and had somebreakfast at a little tea house
in Lukla and then we got startedand our first day was a short
hike to Fat King where we weregoing to stop and spend the
night, kind of an ease into itday.
But I will tell you.
And that day may have turnedinto my most miserable, worst
(21:24):
day of the entire trip.
And the reason was I was soamped up, I was so fired up for
the trip that I forgot everydamn piece of advice that you
should follow on this trip.
I mean every one of them.
I just pissed down the drainand it was stupid.
(21:46):
I knew better and I knew itactually a couple of times when
it was happening and I stilldidn't correct it and I paid for
it in spades.
So we start hiking along thetrail and it's not a lot of
altitude gain that first day.
It's up and down, but it's kindof what they call Napoli flat
(22:06):
right.
It's undulating.
You know, up and down, up anddown, you're gaining some
altitude and then you lose some.
Then you gain a little bit andyou lose some.
But I was going way too fast.
Right, I was hiking way too fast.
I was, you know, fired up withadrenaline and everything else
and I was walking too fast.
I was fired up with adrenalineand everything else and I was
walking too fast.
I wasn't paying attention to mysteps enough.
(22:28):
I had too much clothing on asfar as I was.
You know, I was having to shedlayers like crazy because I had
too many on for the first dayand I didn't drink enough water,
which is pretty much thedeadliest of the deadly sins on
the trail, right.
So by the time we were gettingclose to Fat King, I was
(22:53):
dehydrated to hell and back, andat that point it was too late.
Right, I was already dehydrated.
We were not too far, alreadydehydrated.
We were not too far, and I wasgetting ready to pay for it,
because the last little bit intoour tea house, we had to kind
of go up and around this village, because the little walkthrough
area was being rebuilt, right.
(23:15):
So they had it blocked off andthey were, they were building
the trail, and so you had tokind of go up and around and on
that, up and around, my legsjust locked up, right.
I mean cramps wouldn't work, itwas just horrible.
I was so beaten and just soworn out that I couldn't believe
(23:38):
it, and I hadn't hiked hardlyany and my body was just wrecked
.
I hadn't hiked hardly any andmy body was just wrecked.
And so we get to the tea houseand, god forbid, my room is
upstairs.
So I try to climb these stairsand my legs will not hardly work
.
So instantly I'm freaked out,right.
I'm like, oh shit, I havescrewed the pooch already and
(24:00):
this is going to be miserable.
I'm never going to make itbecause I can't make it this far
, right, and this is nothing.
This is the easy first day.
And so I had a couple of hoursof absolute self-doubt that I
had to fight my way through.
You know it's, it's a hardthing when that that fear, it's
fear and it's self-doubt andit's not trusting yourself kind
(24:23):
of creeps in.
You know, cause your body'sstressed, you're at higher
altitude than you used to.
I mean, there's a lot offactors pounding on you.
Right, I was by myself, so youknow I didn't.
I didn't have any other folksto talk to or things to relate
to at that point, and I didn'treally feel comfortable yet with
my guide to talk to him aboutit.
Right, I didn't feelcomfortable enough to do that,
(24:46):
so I kind of fought through iton my own for a while and, you
know, got myself by the nextmorning into a mental place
where I was ready to go.
Right, I was.
I realized my mistakes, Irealized that I wasn't a
superhuman, you know trekkerthat was going to be able to
just burn through this, that Iwas going to have to take my
(25:08):
time.
I was going to be very aware ofmy water intake, of my food
intake, of of everything.
Right, because you know, I'mnot some world class athlete.
I've got to be more careful.
And so that was a valuable,valuable lesson, and one that I
would, you know, really suggestto people that they try to avoid
(25:28):
.
If there's any way that you canavoid that first day, just kind
of rush, go, go, go, throweverything out the window
because you're excited andyou're nervous.
You've got to avoid thatbecause that shit will come back
to bite you.
That shit will come back tobite you, and it damn sure did
me.
And while I made it to basecamp.
There were days where it cameback to haunt me just from being
(25:51):
stupid on that first day.
So you know it was more of astruggle at times than it
probably should have been.
So the next day is one of themonumental days on the trip and
that is up to Namche Bazaar,right?
So you trek to Namche Bazaar.
This is a long day, so we hadbeen trekking along and we
started going over thesuspension bridges that you see
(26:12):
in some of the videos, and Ithink we're making a lot of
progress and I'm feeling.
I'm feeling pretty good.
My legs are still pretty,pretty achy and such from
cramping up so bad the daybefore, but you know, fight
through it and get to this areawhere you kind of come around a
bin and you look up and there isthe Hillary bridge.
Now, the Hillary bridge is asuspension bridge across the
(26:39):
river and it's right before youstart the climb up to Namche.
And even though I had watchedvideos on this hike and
everything, you can appreciatereally, one, how high the
Hillary bridge is and two, theclimb that comes after it.
So we made the steady climb upto the Hillary bridge and went
(26:59):
to walk across it, which I ammildly afraid of heights.
I've got some.
I can handle heights in a lotof situations, but there's some
situations that it bothers meand I will admit, on the Hillary
bridge you were so high up Ihad my camera pointed down so
that you could see just how highI was, but my eyes were
(27:22):
straight ahead.
I refused to look down.
The wind is blowing its ass offdown through this valley and
you're on this suspension bridgehanging out over this big
valley below you with this river, and it was definitely a moment
of panic here and there as Iwalked across the bridge, made
(27:43):
it across and was excited asshit to say that I had done it,
because that's a cool thing tobe able to go across is the
Hillary Bridge.
What I didn't realize is justhow bad the climb from Hillary
Bridge up to Namche was going tobe.
It is a switchback through thetrees nightmare.
(28:05):
I mean.
I don't know how long it tookme to get up this climb.
I'm sure it took me a lotlonger than more fit, younger
folks can do it in, but for meat least, it whipped my ass and
I'll tell you that's when thefirst moment of humbling truly
came in to be on this trip was,as I'm climbing up this
(28:31):
switchback route toward Namche,there are porters who are
carrying duffel bags, multipleduffel bags, of the trekkers,
including mine, and alsocarrying supplies to the
villages.
Right, I mean, they carryeverything in their backs.
They carry metal, wood doors,clothes, food, I mean anything
(28:58):
and everything you can imagine.
These guys are carrying ontheir backs, right, everything
you can imagine these guys arecarrying on their backs, right,
and here I am huffing andpuffing and just getting my ass
whipped trying to climb up this,this switchback to namche.
These porters would actuallyturn and you would see these
little trails and at first Ididn't realize what they were.
(29:19):
The porters would turn and gostraight up the mountain with
all of this weight on theirbacks to avoid going on the
switchbacks.
And these guys are in likesweatpants and jeans and
t-shirts and tennis shoes and,you know, just normal street
(29:40):
clothes and they're goingstraight up this hill like it is
nothing right, and I'm justlike what the hell?
Right, I'm about to die.
These guys are carrying Godknows how much more weight than
I am and they're just burning itright up the mountain and I'm
just like God damn it.
I mean, it was a humblingexperience.
(30:02):
And what even humbled me morewas when I came around a
switchback and there was aresting point and all these
porters were sitting theretaking a break and they're all
smoking cigarettes.
I'm like how in the hell areyou smoking a cigarette at this
altitude?
I'm about to die from no oxygenand these guys are over there
(30:28):
having a frigging chat andsmoking a cigarette like it's
nothing.
I mean humbling, humblingexperience.
You just you kind of have to putit past, you know, put it in
the back of your mind and saythese guys live here, they're
Sherpa people, you know theythey're, they're experienced in
this.
They're just a different breed.
I mean, frankly, I was in aweof my guide and the porters and
(30:54):
other guides that we got to hangaround with, of the tea houses
and talk to.
First of all, they've got great, these great amazing stories of
adventure and and and tragedyand success and it's amazing to
hear their stories right, but atthe same time you look at these
guys and they're, you know,slider, build, you know just
(31:15):
regular looking guys and theyare just machines in the
mountain.
I mean they're not breathinghard, they're not tired.
If they are, they certainlydon't show it.
I mean it is some impressive,impressive stuff.
I mean I bow down to the Sherpaall day long.
(31:35):
I mean those dudes are, are themost legit hardcore athletes
that you could ever imagine.
And they're not even trying tobe athletes, they're just.
That's just life, right, that'sjust their every day.
It is truly along with themountains.
Watching the Sherpa perform inthe mountains is one of the
coolest experiences of theentire trip.
(31:57):
So, anyway, back to my slog upthe Everest track.
So we're in Namche and you stayin Namche two days, right,
because you need an extra restday, an extra acclimatization
day, because you're reallystarting to get at some altitude
.
So we got in Namche, I crashedout, had some dinner, crashed
out, you know, woke up the nextday.
We did a little acclimatizationhike to help get used to the
(32:19):
altitude, went up to thisviewpoint, which is really cool.
There's a statue up at thisviewpoint for Tenzing Norgay,
and Tenzing Norgay is the Sherpathat was along with Sir Edmund
Hillary when they climbed MountEverest for the first time, and
it's a really cool statue to seeand the way they've placed the
(32:40):
statue up on this high viewpoint.
While you're up there you canlook beyond the statue and you
get your first real glimpse ofMount Everest.
And I don't know how long we setup there, but I sat there and
just stared at it forever.
Because here I was.
I'm sitting here and I'mstaring at Mount Everest in
(33:01):
person, right, not on a video,not in a picture, I'm looking
directly at it.
And that was probably the firstreal holy shit moment.
I'm actually in Nepal, I'mlooking at the tallest mountain
in the world and that it almostchoked me up.
(33:23):
In fact, I think it may havechoked me up.
I may have had a few tearsbecause it was so beautiful and
it was so awe-inspiring.
And to see something like thatsomething that you probably, I
mean, at least for me I neverthought I would see, right, I
never thought there would be atime in my life where I would
see Mount Everest, thought therewould be a time in my life
(33:47):
where I would see Mount Everest.
So to be able to see it waspretty damn special.
I mean, I will remember thatmoment for the rest of my life
of getting to see that mountainand there was several of those
moments along this trip justbecause of the raw natural
beauty of it.
It's hard to explain.
Pictures don't do it justice,videos don't do it justice
Certainly my words can't do itjustice of just how amazingly
(34:12):
beautiful this region is and howawe-inspiring the mountains are
.
So we finish up ouracclimatization hike, we go back
down again, have dinner, hangout in the tea house, hang out
by the fire, and that's a reallycool experience.
All along the trip you kind ofare moving at the same pace as
(34:32):
some other climbers or someother trekkers, right.
So you tend to see a lot of thesame people in the tea houses.
And this was pretty early inthe season this was in February
and so a lot of the tea houseshadn't even opened up yet in the
season.
This was in February, and so alot of the tea houses hadn't
even opened up yet.
The season really doesn't kickoff, you know, for another month
or so.
In fact, they're starting prepwork, you know, for setting up
(34:54):
base camp for the Everest climbsin the in the um the upcoming
months during that time.
So you're just then starting tosee a lot of activity, uh,
starting to head toward basecamp.
So there wasn't a ton of peopleon the, on the track at that
time, which was pretty amazing.
It was still pretty cold, whichwas great.
Uh, I love the cold weather, soI was, I was pretty happy with
the cold, but there wasn't a tonof people, like I said, you
(35:16):
know, on the trail.
So the ones that you would seeis you would get to know,
because only a couple of the teahouses be open and you know, so
you'd hang out, set by the fire.
You know, tell stories, youknow, just just shoot the shit,
you know, just just hang out.
Uh, people from all over theworld, right, and there was a
guy from australia, a guy fromgermany, you know, myself being
(35:36):
from america, we ran into acouple of british guys, just
from all over the world, right,it's really pretty cool.
It's kind of an internationalgroup, and so you've always you
sit around and you sit by thefire to stay warm at night and
you and you tell stories andabout your day's adventure and
where you're from, and it'sreally a cool bonding experience
.
So we left out of namche and wewe started this progression,
(36:00):
right, it's basically you hikein the morning, you stop for
some tea mid-morning, you stopfor lunch to take a break, and
then you finish out the rest ofthe day's hike and you try to be
at the next village, you knowmid-afternoon, and then that way
you can have some rest time,some downtime before you have
dinner and before you hang out.
(36:21):
And then you go to bed and youstay in tea houses.
That's what they're basicallycalled and it's kind of an all
in one, right.
So it's a restaurant, it'swhere you, it's where your room
is, where you sleep, it's thehangout spot to where you hang
out in the evenings.
It's kind of an all in one.
And it's a little store, right.
They always have, you know,bottles of water and snacks and
(36:42):
stuff like that that you canalso buy, and kind of the
thought is theirs is, the roomsaren't that expensive, but it's
expected that if you stay in theroom that you also take all of
your meals there.
And the Sherpas handle all thatfor you, right.
They handle setting up whereyou're going to be staying.
You know they will come andthey'll talk to you about you
know what do you want for dinner, and they'll set up a time for
(37:04):
when you get your dinner, youknow.
And then that night before yougo to bed, they'll figure out
what you want for breakfast andthey'll make sure that that's
ordered.
And so when you come down, youknow whatever set time you guys
decide on, you know yourbreakfast is there and so it's.
It's really pretty seamless asfar as you not having to do too
much, which is a good thingbecause, frankly, you're
stressed half the time.
You're at altitude, you're, youknow your body is is being
(37:26):
assaulted by everything underthe sun, and so to remember
those types of things is ispretty difficult.
So to have the Sherpa there,your guides, to handle those
things for you really makes it,makes it great.
So we track, you know, out ofNamche and that's the.
That's the kind of rhythm we'reinto you trek and then stop,
(37:47):
trek and stop, trek and stop.
One of the villages along theway that was particularly cool
was Tingbushae.
In Tingbushae there's amonastery, a Buddhist monastery,
and they also have a bigfestival there every year, which
I would have loved to have beenaround for, but it was a
different time of the year thanwhen I was there, but we went
(38:08):
into the monastery and to seethat monastery and the monks
right, there was a few monks upthere at that time because it
was like, again, it was in thecolder seasons and some of them
leave that monastery for theseason.
It was really really cool forthe season.
It was really really cool.
Again, a really cool experience, cultural experience.
Right, to see, you know notonly how the Buddhists, you know
(38:35):
, worship and the integral partthat the temple plays and the
monastery plays in the villages,in the community.
It's kind of like the centerpoint, right, you know it's the
center of the community, and tosee that was really really cool.
And to trek to the next village,sleep and then finally trekked
(39:07):
to Gorik Shep.
And Gorik Shep is the lastvillage on the trail and it is
up there, it's, it's right nextto the kumbu glacier, it is sets
next up on this hill to thisdry lake bed and from gorick
(39:29):
shep you're looking directly atwhat?
Three of the five largestmountains in the world.
It's spectacular from there,but it you are high and it is
cold.
And I remember walking intoGork Shep that day and I was
(39:53):
just whipped, just whipped, youknow it's, you're getting,
you're finally there, right,you're finally almost to base
camp and you are pretty beatenby that point.
You know you have been eatingvegetarian on the trail because
of you know you can't eat themeat up there Because you know,
(40:15):
at least my American stomachwould not handle it up there,
because you know, at least myamerican stomach would not
handle it because it's it's notnecessarily refrigerated.
You know the way we would beused to it being and it's been
carried up, you know, on eitheron somebody's back or maybe on a
helicopter, but more thanlikely on somebody's back, and
you know you've been eating, soyou've been eating vegetarian
the entire time.
You know you've been sleepingon on beds that aren't super
(40:37):
comfortable, you know, and thenthere's no heat so it's
extremely cold, you know.
You just, you're just tired,you're, you're, you're pretty
beaten down and you're dealingwith the effects of really high
altitude.
You know 16, 17, 000 feet, youknow to anybody is is pretty
tough to deal with.
That's not extremely used tobeing at that high level of
(41:01):
altitude.
So we make it to Gorick ship andwe go in and we eat lunch and
that was the first time I hadseen someone really affected by
the altitude.
There had been a guy fromAustralia that had been hiking
along the same timeline as usand he, he would pass me every
day and I long lost the, the,the shame of being passed on the
(41:24):
trail.
I didn't care, I, at that point, I was in survival mode, I was
just trying to get there, but hewould pass me every day and he
was really nice.
I mean we we would chat onbreaks and and in the tea houses
and stuff along the way, and hewas, he was a really nice guy.
And we walked into the teahouse at Gork Shep for lunch and
he was in there and he was justhead, was just laid on the
(41:46):
table and he looked like hell.
I mean he was, he was reallypale and he looked really rough
and his guide was taking hisblood oxygen level readings and
was checking on him and hedidn't look good.
And when we left we decided togo ahead and make the attempt to
go from Gork ship to base campthat afternoon.
(42:10):
So fury and I actually left.
And when we left the, the teahouse to make the, the push to
base camp, the australian guywas still in the tea house and
he didn't look good.
And so you know, we we kind ofsaid, well, you know, you hope
you feel better and andeverything like that, and we
decided to head on and so wemade the trek to base camp and
(42:36):
I'm gonna tell to tell you whatI was super excited but that
seemed like maybe one of thehardest parts outside of like
climbing up the, the switchbacksto Namche.
Getting to base camp itself wasone of the hardest sections of
the track that I that I canremember, for a couple of
reasons.
One, like I just said, I wasdead ass tired.
(42:58):
I was just worn out Right.
And two, you're at the highestaltitude that you've been.
You know you're over 17,000feet.
Three, it's you're hikingbasically over the spoils of
this glacier.
So it's a ton of rock right,boulders and gravel and all
(43:18):
these rocks and things that havebeen chewed up by this big ass
glacier that had been depositedon the sides.
That's what you're trekkingover.
So there was hardly any trail.
It was, you know, uneven stepsand moving rocks and you know
every kind of unsteady path thatyou could think of.
(43:39):
You know we went over and thenwe get up on the glacier and
there's, you know you're havingto go around crevasses and you
know more rock and ice and Imean it was, it was, it was a
tough hike in.
But I will tell you, all ofthat faded away when we kind of
went around this one crevasseand this one little rock field
(44:01):
on the glacier.
And there it was.
There was the rock, this kindof oval shaped rock with mount
everest base camp and thealtitude spray painted on it as
kind of the symbolic monument towhere base camp truly began.
(44:24):
And I couldn't believe it.
I had done it.
I had drug my ass all the wayup that trail to Mount Everest
Base Camp and there I waslooking at base camp where all
these people come to start theirclimb of Mount Everest.
(44:48):
I was there and there's thesegiant, monstrous 26, 27, 28 and
man ever, it's 29 000 foot peakssurrounding me and I'm kind of
(45:09):
in this bowl, right that the endof this glacier, and it's it's
like a u-shape, I guess, morethan a bowl, it's like a u-shape
, I guess more than a bowl it'slike a U-shape.
And I'm kind of at the veryclose to the bottom part where
it curves around and it's justthese magnificent, monstrous
mountains around me and Icouldn't believe it.
(45:34):
And the coolest thing, fury andI were the only ones there.
There was no one else at basecamp at that time on that day,
so it was just quiet glacier andthe wind coming down through
(45:57):
the glacial valley off themountains and you could see the
clouds and the amount of windblowing these clouds across the
peaks of the mountains.
It was outside of my weddingday, that feeling on your
wedding day or when your kidsare born, outside of those
(46:18):
moments.
It was one of the mostawe-inspiring things I'd ever
seen.
I I'll never forget it.
It.
I absolutely cried.
I I cried from relief frommaking it, I cried from the joy
of making it and I cried at justhow beautiful and how
(46:44):
awe-inspiring that site was.
And it wasn't through a camera,it wasn't on a picture, it
wasn't on a screen, it was rightthere in front of me.
And I don't know how many peopleget to see that.
But I will tell you, if you getthe chance and you're able and
(47:12):
frankly I don't give a shit howyou get there If you do the trek
, hey great.
If you get on a damn helicopterand fly up to base camp and
stand at base camp and look atit, you know what.
You still saw it.
I mean, I know there's a lot ofdivisiveness about, you know,
the flying it versus trekking it, but I would encourage you, no
matter what, if you have theopportunity to see it, to see
(47:36):
mount everest, to see thosemountains from that location
from that spot.
It's just, it's just one of themost magnificent things you'll
ever see.
I I would highly recommendanyone put that on your list as
one of those things that youneed to do before you die,
because it's just thatspectacular, it's that great,
(48:01):
it's that worth it, it's worththe effort, it's worth the
hassle and the training and thetraveling and the cold and the
hungry and the pain.
It's all worth it and that'sthe thing right.
It's all worth it and that'sthe thing right.
Once you see it at least for me,all those other things fell
(48:23):
away and it didn't really matter.
You know all the, all the all,the misery and and cold and all
that it it did not matter.
I was truly in the moment ofseeing it and I'll never forget
it, never as long as I live,we'll forget that moment it was.
It was truly awe inspiring andI hated leaving one because I
(48:45):
didn't want to.
I didn't want to leave the siteof that, and the other one was
I didn't want to walk backacross that God forsaken gravel
boulder trail back to gork ship.
But I did and we finally madeit back to gork ship and had a
(49:07):
meal that was probably the besttasting one of the whole trip
because of of making it to basecamp and slept easily.
What was in the coldest room Ihad experienced, probably ever
in my life, in the tea house upat Gork Shep.
Because, man, there's not a lotof creature comforts at 17,000
(49:27):
feet, trust me, and there's notmuch in Gork Shep.
It is take what you can get andfight through the rest, because
it is cold and it is desolateand it is lonely up there that
high up that far back in thekumbu.
So anyway, eventually we makeit back down to lukla.
(49:48):
You know you ride the high ofof seeing base camp, get back to
lukla, hop on a plane, fly, flyout of Lukla, which was equally
as cool, although the flightback to Kathmandu did take about
an hour because we had todivert for weather and we got
the shit beat out of us for alittle while on that little
plane which is a little bit of apucker factor.
(50:11):
I mean, we were getting thrownaround pretty good and you're on
a pretty damn small plane, soit's certainly a level of pucker
.
But made it back to Kathmandu,spent a couple of days in
Kathmandu and then flew back tothe United States, having gained
the ability to say that I hadbeen to Bound Everest Base Camp
(50:32):
and that I had trekked it andthat I had seen Mount Everest
with my own eyes.
And it was a very proud momentfor me.
I was, I was very proud and Istill am to this day of of
making that, that track, becauseit is not easy and, you know,
the older you get, you know forsomebody like me I, I tracked it
(50:54):
when I was what I would havebeen 44 at the time, and so it's
not the easiest thing as youget older.
But I, I'd set that goal formyself and I did it and I was
super proud.
And so I would encourage anyonethat hears this man, it doesn't
have to be Mount Everest.
(51:15):
If you get the chance to go toMount Everest, to trek Mount
Everest, to see it, do it.
But it doesn't have to be MountEverest, it can be anything.
If there is an adventure or aplace or an event that you find
yourself being drawn to, thatyou find that spark of interest,
(51:36):
that spark of yearning to do inyour brain or in your heart or
wherever it comes from, man, goout there and do all you can to
do it.
It's worth the struggle, it'sworth whatever it takes to get
there because it will besomething that you will remember
forever.
(51:56):
Like I said before, I'm in noway, you know, some type of
world-class athlete or mountainclimber or long distance trekker
.
I love the outdoors.
I love, you know, hiking in themountains, I love camping.
I love all those things, butI'm certainly no world-class
athlete.
But I set my mind to it to makeit to Mount Everest base camp
(52:21):
and I was lucky enough to getthere and so I'm a better person
for it.
I've got an experience that noone can ever take from me and
it's just, it's the best feelingin the world.
So if you've got a place, thatthat is your place for something
like that.
(52:41):
If there's an activity, a place, man, just go do it.
Try, no matter what you have todo to get there, put in the
work, put in the effort and gosee it, experience it, do it.
It is absolutely worth it.
I hope everyone that hears thisgets to experience that moment
(53:02):
of awe and joy and excitement,like I did that day at Mount
Everest Base Camp.
So that's my story of gettingin Mount Everest Base Camp.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
There'll be plenty more comingafter this, but this is
certainly one that I hope you'reable to get some inspiration
from and enjoyment from.
(53:23):
It's quite the adventure.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
This has been Trade Tables and Time Zones.
Worldwide travel is one of thefunnest things you can do in
life and it's our passion totalk about the good, the bad,
the funny and the ugly.
Nothing is off limits.
We hope you've enjoyed the show.
If you did, make sure to like,rate and review.
(53:47):
We'll be back soon, but in themeantime, find us on Instagram
at Trade Tables and Time Zones,and for questions or comments,
send your email to TraysAndTimesat gmailcom.
Take care and see you next timeon Trade Tables and Time Zones.
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