Everest Three High Passes Trek

Kathmandu or Ramechhap, depending on the month

Out of the two busiest stretches of the year the flight leaves Kathmandu and takes about 35 minutes. Through most of March to May and late September to November, air traffic control moves Lukla departures to Manthali airport at Ramechhap to take the pressure off Kathmandu. That means a four to five hour drive leaving Kathmandu around two in the morning, then a twenty minute flight. It is the same trek and a considerably worse night. We tell you which one applies to your dates before you book, not after.

Fifteen kilos, and it is weighed

The allowance is 15 kg in total: 10 kg checked and 5 kg of hand baggage. Excess is charged at roughly $1.50 a kilo and it is enforced, because the aircraft is a nineteen-seat Twin Otter or Dornier and the runway is 527 metres long on a slope. Anything you are not taking up the hill is stored free at our office in Kathmandu.

Delays, and what we do about them

Lukla is closed by cloud several times a month in every season. A day lost is common, two is not rare, and that is exactly what the slack in days 18 and 19, which can be walked as one very long day is for. If the flight is cancelled for more than three days we change the itinerary to an equally good trek at a lower altitude rather than compress this one, and we do not charge you for the change. If you would rather fly out by helicopter on the day, that is around $500 a seat and we can usually arrange it within a few hours.

Book your flight home with a day to spare

Whatever your itinerary says, book an international ticket that leaves at least one clear day after your scheduled return to Kathmandu. It is the cheapest insurance on the whole trip and the thing we most often wish people had done.

21 nights, and what each one is

Heat, hot water, power and signal

Heating

One stove in the dining room, lit at dusk. Bedrooms are not heated at any altitude.

Hot shower

Up to Gokyo, $5–8, gas or solar. Nothing above Gokyo.

Charging

$3–5 a device, and on this route it is the real constraint. Lungden, Thangnak and Dzongla are solar and rationed and there are stretches of three days with almost nothing. Two power banks, and sleep with them.

Wifi

Everest Link cards, about $10 for 10 GB, working in patches. Between Thame and Gokyo assume nothing.

Phone signal

Ncell and NTC cover Namche, Thame, the Base Camp valley and Chhukung. The Bhote Koshi above Marlung, Thangnak and Dzongla have nothing.

Water

Boiled water $1–4 a litre depending on altitude. Do not take water from the Gokyo lakes: they are a Ramsar site and a sacred one.

Sleeping bag

Provided, rated to −15°C. Yours to use, ours to keep.

Bedding

A mattress, a pillow and a blanket. The bag goes on top of that, not instead of it.

If you eat differently

Twelve weeks, and what to do in each of them

Written for somebody who walks a bit and does not train. If you already run or cycle regularly, start at the eight-week block. Nothing here needs a gym.

1. 1

   Before you book

   The prerequisite

   A previous Himalayan trek of two weeks or more, on which you were comfortable at 5,000 m rather than merely got through it. This is the one trip we turn people down for, and we would rather do that at the enquiry than at Lungden. If you have not done one, do Base Camp or Gokyo first; you will enjoy this far more in two years' time.

2. 2

   Sixteen weeks out

   Build a real base

   Four cardio sessions a week, 45 to 60 minutes, mostly conversational with one harder session. Eighteen days on the trail is an endurance problem before it is anything else, and the base is what carries you into the third week.

3. 3

   Fourteen weeks out

   Strength, and mean it

   Two strength sessions a week: squats, step-ups, lunges, calf raises, single-leg work. The descents on this trek are what break people. The east side of the Cho La and the drop off the Kongma La are both long, loose and late in the day.

4. 4

   Twelve weeks out

   Long hill days with a pack

   One weekend day of five to six hours with 800 m of ascent, carrying the daypack you will actually use, loaded to 7 kg, in the boots you will actually wear. Every week from here.

5. 5

   Nine weeks out

   Three days back to back

   The specific thing this trek needs. Long, medium, medium on consecutive days, once a month from here. Eighteen days with one rest day is a cumulative problem and a single long walk tells you nothing about it.

6. 6

   Six weeks out

   The big one

   Eight hours, 1,000 m of ascent and 1,000 m of descent, carrying your pack. That is a Kongma La day without the altitude. If you finish it able to eat a meal and sleep normally, you are on track.

7. 7

   Four weeks out

   Cold and dark

   Two walks starting before dawn in whatever winter you have. Three of the days on this trek begin in the dark at around minus fifteen and the useful thing to learn beforehand is that you can function at that hour.

8. 8

   Two weeks out

   Taper

   Halve the volume, keep the frequency, break in nothing new. Nothing you do now makes you fitter and quite a lot of it can injure you.

What we do about it, in order

1. 1

   Twice a day above Namche, we measure

   Your guide carries a pulse oximeter and records your oxygen saturation and pulse every evening and any morning you are not right. Over eighteen days that record is the single most useful document on the trek, because a slow decline across a fortnight is invisible day to day and obvious in a column of numbers.

2. 2

   Each pass is a decision, made the day before

   Three times on this trek we decide in the evening whether the party crosses in the morning: at the Renjo La camp, at Thangnak and at Lobuche. Each of those is a place where turning round is straightforward, and each pass has a point beyond which it is not. The decision is the guide's and it is made on the numbers.

3. 3

   Any pass can be skipped without ending the trek

   This matters and most itineraries do not say it. If the Cho La is not on, we go back over the Renjo La or round via Dole and rejoin the Base Camp route from Namche. If the Kongma La is not on, we walk out from Lobuche through Dingboche. You lose a pass, not the trip, and it happens most seasons to somebody.

4. 4

   If it is not going well, we go down

   Descent is the only treatment that works. From Gokyo, from Lobuche and from Chhukung it is a straightforward day or two to thick air. From the top of a pass it is not, which is the whole reason for the previous two steps.

5. 5

   If we have to, we fly

   Helicopters reach Gokyo, Lobuche, Gorak Shep, Dingboche and Chhukung. They do not reach Thangnak or Dzongla dependably and they cannot land on a pass. This is what your insurance is for: $3,000 to $5,000, and the aircraft will not lift without a guarantee.

6. 6

   There is a hospital on the route

   The Himalayan Rescue Association clinic at Pheriche, 4,371 m, is staffed by volunteer doctors through both seasons and is within reach from Dzongla, Lobuche and Chhukung.

Who walks with you

A senior government-licensed guide with wilderness first aid training and specific experience of all three passes, and from five trekkers a second guide rather than from nine. That is the staffing difference that matters on this trek: on a pass descent the party stretches out badly, and one guide cannot be at the front and the back of it. One porter carries for every two trekkers, and the guides carry microspikes and a rope for the Cho La.

What a porter carries, and what they do not

Twenty kilos, which is your duffel and one other. That is below the 25 kg the trekking association permits and well below what you will see on the trail. If your bag is over, it is split rather than piled on. Porters carry loads, not daypacks: your water, camera, jacket and the day's snacks stay with you.

How they are paid and insured

Salary, insurance, food and lodging for every guide and porter are inside the price you pay, not something raised on the trail. Every one of them is insured for altitude and for helicopter evacuation on the same terms we ask of you. There is a long history in this industry of porters carrying too much in the wrong boots for money nobody would take at home, and the only way not to be part of it is to pay for it in the package price.

Tipping

Customary, not compulsory, and never a substitute for the wage. What is usual for this trip is $250 to $400 per traveller for the whole team, handed over together on the last evening rather than daily. Your guide will not ask and will be embarrassed if you do it in front of the group.

Water, and the bottles we do not sell you

A traveller drinking bottled water gets through around 50 plastic bottles on this trip, every one of which was carried in and has to be carried out again. Boiled water is available at every lodge for a dollar or two a litre and we would rather you bought that. Take purification as a backup, not as your plan.

What we carry out

Everything we carry in that is not food. The Khumbu has a rubbish problem it did not create and cannot solve on its own, and the least any operator can do is not add to it.

Where the money stays

The lodges are family businesses in the villages you pass through. The guides and porters live in this district. The permits fund Sagarmatha National Park and the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality. Almost all of what you pay is spent within a few days' walk of the trail, which is the argument for using a Nepali operator rather than a foreign one that subcontracts to us anyway.

It is a place people live

Ask before photographing anybody. Walk on the mountain side of a mule train, not the drop side, and let it pass. Monasteries welcome visitors and they are not attractions; take your hat off and your shoes off, and if a service is happening, wait.

The valleys you have to yourself

Between Thame and Gokyo you walk through villages that see a fraction of the traffic Namche does, and where a party of eight arriving unannounced is a significant event for a two-building settlement. Our guides book ahead where there is a phone and warn ahead where there is not, and we ask you to be patient with what a place like Lungden can produce for dinner at 4,600 m. The alternative to that patience is these valleys learning to cater for people who are not patient.

How to start

Write to us, and tell us what you have already done. This is the one trip in our catalogue with a genuine prerequisite: a previous Himalayan trek of two weeks or more on which you were comfortable at 5,000 m. We will ask, we do turn people down, and we would much rather do it at the enquiry than at Lungden on day 8.

The deposit

Thirty per cent to hold your dates, and the balance when you arrive in Kathmandu, in cash or by card. We ask for a passport copy, your insurance certificate and any dietary or medical notes at the same time.

Paying

Bank transfer, or card through a secure link. Card payments carry the bank's fee of about 4 per cent, which we show you before you pay rather than after. The balance in Kathmandu can be US dollars, pounds, euros or Nepali rupees.

If you cancel

More than 30 days out, the deposit transfers to any other date or trip we run, with no time limit. Inside 30 days the deposit is retained, because the permits, the flights and the crew are booked by then. If we cancel for any reason other than weather, you get everything back.

Private, or with a group

Both cost the same for a party of five or more. A private departure runs on your dates at your pace and can be arranged for one person; a group departure runs on the dates in the table above. Most people book privately and are surprised it costs no more.

Booking late

Six weeks, and preferably three months. The season for this trek is narrower than for Base Camp, the departures are fewer, and we want time to have a proper conversation about your experience before either of us commits.