Kanchenjunga Base Camp Trek

23 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 Ghunsa, $3–5, and it is a bucket, gas or solar. Nothing above Ghunsa.

Charging

$3–5 a device, solar and rationed above Ghunsa and absent at Lhonak. Two power banks for four weeks.

Wifi

Ghunsa has an intermittent connection from its micro-hydro scheme. Nothing else on the route does.

Phone signal

NTC reaches Taplejung, Chirwa and patches of the Ghunsa valley. Assume you are uncontactable for two weeks and tell people so.

Water

Boiled water $1–3 a litre. Carry purification: there are fewer safe water stations here than anywhere else we go.

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

What we do about it, in order

1. 1

   Every evening from Ghunsa, we measure

   Oxygen saturation and pulse recorded each evening above 3,400 m, and again on any morning you are not right.

2. 2

   If it is mild, we drop to Ghunsa

   Six hundred metres down, to the best lodges and the only reliable communications on the route. Most cases end here.

3. 3

   If it is not, we walk out

   Descent is the only treatment that works, and here it is measured in days rather than hours. That is the trade this trek asks you to accept in exchange for the emptiness.

4. 4

   If we have to, we fly, and it is not quick

   Helicopters reach Ghunsa dependably and Lhonak in good conditions, and Kathmandu is a long way east. The bill runs $4,000 to $6,000, higher than the Khumbu, and the aircraft will not lift without a guarantee.

Who walks with you

A government-licensed guide with wilderness first aid training leads every departure, and one porter carries for every two trekkers. From 7 trekkers a second guide joins, so nobody is ever at the back of a long line on their own. Our guides are from the hills they take you into.

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 $300 to $450 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 60 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 Kanchenjunga Conservation Area 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 conservation area is managed by a council of local user groups rather than by the government, which is unusual in Nepal, and the permit money stays in the district. 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.

How to start

Write to us with your dates and tell us what you have walked before. This is a restricted area, so we need passport scans early, and it is four weeks, so we would rather have an honest conversation about the length before anybody pays a deposit.

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 three months is better. The restricted area permit is issued against named passports on working days, and the eastern flights are thin.