It’s only about 30 miles from Lukla, Nepal, to the Mt. Everest base camp. A fast-walking Sherpa might do that in two days.
But if you add the ups and downs and twists and turns of the Himalayan trails, it’s probably twice as long. Plus, the thin air tends to slow you down, as Slave Lakers Tammy Lukan and Lesley Emes found out on a recent 23-day trek through the Khumbu region of Nepal.
“You’re barely moving,” says Emes, speaking of a scramble up one high ridge. “You can barely breathe.”
They started at Lukla on Apr. 19, at about 9,000 feet. That would be very thin air for somebody from Slave Lake, but it was mostly uphill from there, into even rarer air. The highest they got was probably at a place called Gokyo. At over 18,000 feet, or 5,500 metres, it was higher than any mountain in the B.C. or Alberta Rockies. But it’s a dwarf compared with the giants that surrounded the two hikers and their guides for three weeks.
Each view as they went along the trail, says Emes, “was more breathtaking than the last.”
The adventurous pair were originally booked to start their trek eight days walk short of Lukla. But because of communist guerilla activity in that part of the country, the agency through which they booked their trek decided to have them fly from Kathmandu – the capital of Nepal – to Lukla, hopefully taking them out of harm’s way. So with an extra week to spend on the trail, they accepted the offer to do a couple of side trips. On the Gokyo excursion they both came down with altitude sickness.
“We laid in a tent for about 16 hours,” says Lukan. “You couldn’t sleep because your head hurt so bad.”
That was the worst of the trip, and it wasn’t nearly bad enough to spoil the overall experience. They are both very happy they decided to put aside their apprehensions and go for something completely different.
“We were both kind of looking for something more,” says Lukan. “I wanted to do something where you’d have time to think – good for your body and soul.”
Still, Nepal is far from the first place that comes to mind when most people plan vacations. It’s probably not even in the top 20. A man-on-the-street poll in Slave Lake would likely turn up plenty of people who couldn’t find it on a map.
Lukan says she started thinking about Nepal for a possible hiking holiday late last year. She’d just finished reading Jon Krakauer’s landmark Everest book ‘Into Thin Air’, when a documentary television program about Nepal aired on CBC. Then she heard of a friend of a friend who’d been. She found a willing partner in Emes.
“I wanted to do something,” says Emes.
The clincher was hearing from a local doctor who’d been on a similar trek in Nepal and told them it changed her life.
“From then on there wasn’t a doubt,” says Lukan.
Adds Emes: “All the warnings – we turned a blind eye.”
In Kathmandu their local guide was waiting for them, ready to take care of all arrangements. Those arrangements included a crew of ten, plus three pack animals, to start from Lukla. For a cost of $2,900 they got their three meals a day, their camp set up and broken down, and all the heavy stuff carried by a type of cow called ‘dzopkyo’ – a sort of low-altitude version of the yak.
There was a chef, three assistant chefs and a ‘yak man’ to look after the animals. Plus the ‘sirdar’ or leader of the hired hands, three assistant guides and a porter.
“All we had to do was walk,” says Emes. “Considering the ruggedness of the trip, we were spoiled rotten.”
Two other paying customers - a Toronto woman and a man from Oregon – rounded out the group.
Hiking in Nepal – unless you are up very, very high – is far from a wilderness experience. People are everywhere – building, hauling, herding, farming and of course serving the tourist trade. Thanks to the political unrest in the country, visitors from abroad are few at the moment.
The trekkers would rise about six in the morning and find breakfast already simmering. They’d head out first in the company of one or two guides, only to be passed later in the morning by the crew, who would have lunch waiting at a designated spot. Same story for supper and camp.
They ate yak steaks, “lots of potatoes,” soup, occasionally some rice, among other dishes. Their crew ate strictly ‘dhalbat’ a mixture of lentils, rice and curried vegetables. Emes and Lukan were very impressed by their native attendants. They worked much harder, ate only twice a day, and yet had energy to burn.
“You’d be tired – they’d be playing volleyball (with a taped up piece of tarp).”
They were irrepressibly cheerful as well – as were most of the people they met along the way. Among the poorest people in the world, the mountain-dwelling Sherpas of the Khumbu region seemed happier – much happier than the average Canadian. It provided considerable food for thought.
“The people were amazing,” says Emes. “It changes your perspective on everything.”
The trekkers would be toiling up a slope in the morning and here would come a group of children skipping along, unsupervised, on their way to school, an hour-and-a-half away. This on trails “that would be against the law here,” says Emes.
The trek eventually led them to the base camp where 22 climbing teams awaited a chance to ascend the world’s highest mountain. Emes says the camp of a Canadian team was somewhat in disarray. One of its members had died of a heart attack and another had broken his leg in a crevasse. On top of that, avalanches were making climbing even more hazardous. Emes says as they approached the base camp at the foot of the Khumbu glacier, they could hear the rumble of the avalanches.
Then they turned back and walked more down than up for a few days, through the villages of Pangboche, Tengboche, the market town Namche Bazaar, on down the valley of the Dudh Khosi. They approached Lukla with mixed feelings – happy to be going home, but sad to be saying goodbye to people and an experience unlike anything in normal life.
“It’s life-changing,” says Lukan.
“One of the things I loved about it the most,” says Emes, “is that there’s no option to drive or fly. These (trails) are their highways.”
Such circumstances promote self-reflection, and also a rare closeness with your traveling companions. If you’re unlucky, this can lead to extreme dislike, but this was not their experience. They express a keen fondness for both the members of their group and also of the locals they encountered along the way.
“It’s hard to express how close and attached you get to these people,” says Emes.
Both agree that it would be hard to top the experience. But they’re already thinking about it.

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