I have dreamed about doing the trek to Everest Base Camp for 13 years! Since that infamous milestone climb up Kilimajaro just before I turned 50, a trip that changed my life, I have put Nepal as my ultimate challenge adventure.

Well, 2025 became the year! It wasn’t planned but it was always in the back of my mind driving me forward with goals that would make me stronger and get me prepared. After testing my legs on the highest mountain in Indochina – Mount Fansipan, the journey to my ultimate trekking challenge was coming to life.

I really don’t like talking about the pandemic, it’s done and overwith and should stay that way. The problem is my body did not recover as quickly as my social and shopping habits did. As someone who turned 60 during the pandemic, it was a big personal kick in the gut. Canada dealt with the longest lockdowns in the world by 100 days and there were a lot of bad habits, work pressures and health issues that I found very difficult to overcome. I had spent 8 years as a strong, fit badass completing challenges I never imagined, starting over physically was a hard pill to swallow.

In the wise words of Winston Churchill, “… failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts”.

I never lost the desire to continue taking on limitless challenges. That’s the real lesson here, don’t give up on your dreams! Show yourself grace, create micro goals, build on your successes and take it a day at a time. I pursued, experimented with new approaches and uped the goals when I met with success. If I didn’t feel challenged, it wasn’t hard enough and I increased my expectations of myself. Slow and steady improvements over time.

Back to Nepal planning! Our adventures begin at the planning stage. I follow pages on social media related to the adventure and country, get recommendations from reviews on Tripadvisor and other sites, read books and follow those who’ve completed the challenge. Research gets me excited and sends me down an adventure rabbit hole that starts the manifestation process.

My Adventure Buddy and I plan and book every aspect of our trip and (so far) have never signed up for a group adventure. We prefer private treks for 2 reasons; 1. we can customize exactly what we want, 2. we enjoy each others company and these adventures standout as our fav times together. There’s always a bit of risk with groups but there are some awesome companies we keep ‘running into’ on our adventures who do what we enjoy doing. One day we’ll try it.

Our prime goal was Everest Base Camp and the summit of Kala Patthar. We then added Cho La Pass and Gokyo Lake as a preference so we could continue into the Himilayas with new experiences rather than repeat the same steps going down that we had already covered. This plan was 14 days of trekking with the opportunity to take a helicopter from Gokyo.

Day 1 – October 2nd was a flight from Kathmandu to Lukla which is the most dangerous airport due to the mountains and a very short runway. Our wonderful guide, Bibek Gurung of Hikers Himilaya Pvt.Ltd had already proven himself invaluable welcoming us at the airport 4 days earlier and unexpectedly helping us get around and feel safe in Kathmandu shortly after the protests. He ensured we got on an early flight to Lukla to avoid the common cancellations and backlogs at the airport. It’s important to add extra days to your trip, many had to cut their treks short due to flight issues. Flights over and into the world’s highest mountain range have unique weather and safety challenges and changes.

Lukla (2840m/9318ft) to Phakding (2610m/8562ft)

Altitude and acclimation are essential considerations in planning our trek. We basically live our life at sea level 76m/249ft in Canada and our arrival in Kathmandu was already a significant increase in elevation for us at 1400m/4600ft. We spent 4 days at that altitude then flew to Lukla which doubled our elevation. The fast ascent can be an issue for some, the trek to Phakding at a lower elevation would help us adjust. It would only be 8km but we were told it would take 3-4 hours, slow wins the race in the mountains.

It was difficult! The altitude change, developing my 1st cold in years and rain the whole day made the rocks slippery and the air heavy. Despite all this it was easy to appreciate and take it the 360 degree wonder that surrounded us. Beauty multiplied and the mountain communities were filled with entrepreneurs catering to trekkers in lovely mountain valleys.

Bibek would be watching us carefully and testing our oxygen regularly to determine if it’s safe to continue climbing. The only way to train for altitude is to be in altitude, that’s a challenge living at sea level. Altitude illness can hit anyone at anytime, it’s not a reflection of training but more our bodies way of setting a boundary and protecting itself. The human body is a resilient thing!

At this point, our oxygen is in the high 80’s. We’ve built in several extra climatization days for this trek to help ensure we hit our goals. This is the beauty of finding our own private guide so we can customize everything, group treks have a set itinerary.

Our guide Bibek and Mangla, our cheerful porter, went out of their way to support us and ensure our comfort. We carry 20-25lbs in our bags each day and Mangla carries our overflow. There are serious limits on how much you can take on the Lukla flight and how much the porter will carry. They are strong but it’s important to be respectful about what you bring, changing clothes isn’t a thing on multi day treks. Just bring layers for weather conditions, it’s not a time to be fashion focused.

Night 1 we settled into an awesome mountain lodge/teahouse. Quaint and very much a trekker meeting place. We’re already seeing familiar faces from the flight, airport and trail so far as we continue on our journey. Hearing their stories is a great inspiration and sometimes distraction as the day goes on.

Day 2 – Phakding to Namche Bazaar (3440m/11286ft)

Suprisingly, today is known to be the most difficult day. It’s a significant altitude change and the body hasn’t yet caught up with the change it’s already gone through the last few days. If it’s possible for something to be brutal and beautiful at the same time, today was that day. The beauty of nature and the Buddhist elements all along the trail, the brutal of pushing ourselves beyond desired limits.

We’d be happy not to see another stair we did around 3000 stairs muddy, uneven stairs. There were so many switcbacks, everytime we turned a corner and had to descend instead of ascend we knew we would have to redo all those up steps again We focused on the view and imagining our next warm ginger lemon tea along with sleeping bags at our next lodge/teahouse.

It was raining on and off throughout the day with it becoming a downpour in the later half. In addition, it’s getting colder as we go higher but the climbing keeps our bodies warm. Just don’t stop for too long!

We were very happy to arrive in Namche Bazaar! The infamous ‘most difficult day’ took us 8 hour (1.5 hour breaks) with an 830 metre elevation change (2723ft). For distance it’s only 12km but when it’s almost all up and your body is trying acclimate to new altiude, it’s understandable how long it takes.

Not only have I developed a cold since the plane trip from Canada, but I’m already dealing with significant digestive issues (a rarity for me). Today started with me trekking from bathroom to bathroom or porceline hole to hole in some instances. I’ll be living on tea, boiled eggs and soup the rest of the trek. Sanitation isn’t a focus in the mountains, fortunately we bring a medicine bag with us. My oxygen is fluctuating between high 70’s to low 80’s.

Reading reviews when planning our trek, this is where we added an extra day to acclimate. We have 2 days and 3 nights to enjoy this beautiful mountain village, do some hiking in the area and heal our bodies. We upgraded our room in Namche so we have a private bathroom, also a heating blanket. Keep in mind nothing is as in Canada; the water isn’t warm, the internet is spotty, the electricity is often shutdown. Heated blankets sounded like a great add-on but I wouldn’t pay for it again. They weren’t turned on until 7pm then electricity was shutdown at night LOL. There will be less as we go higher so there is something to be said about ‘thinking’ you might be spoilt with heat at night while we can! We enjoyed the 2 hours and hopefully were fast asleep when they were turned off. (PS – you need to have a connector with you for Nepal, they all had blankets with Western plugs).

Day 3 – Namche Bazaar – Monsoon and Climatization Day

I woke up at 5am this morning thinking of the other trekkers on the trail yesterday. All ethnicities, ages, shapes and physical readiness. We would continually pass others then they would catch up and words would be shared along the way. Many accomplished trekkers, some wanting to prove something to themselves, many have dreamed of Nepal for years (like me), celebrating milestone birthdays, sharing the experience with their kids, groups of singles bound by the same goal.

All great motivating stories but the most motivating part was watching their progress, seeing their determination as it got harder and harder. This inspired me greatly yesterday, in fact, I hope I see some of them again to tell them.

There was one point where someone or maybe both were having a total breakdown, in the arms of each other crying, balling actually. As we passed I think we all completely understood and our hearts went out to them. It was likely a good release then back to the trail cause there was no other way to get out then to keep trekking. Of all the people I’ve met the last few days, I am most proud of them. Why do people do things like this?😉

Still in bed at 8:30 and happy our guide didn’t reach out at 6am like he said at dinner last night. He read our minds! Today was suppose to be a climatization hike to the infamous Everest View Hotel but we can see the storm from our window. We were very fortunate to be settled in Namche today! This is the day a monsoon hit. October is usually post-monsoon season but the world is experiencing increasingly unpredictable weather change. This extreme weather event caused deadly landslides, snowstorms higher up and many trekkers were stranded resulting in their goals being disrupted. Our blessing was having built in an extra day to acclimate, we were able to delay todays hike with our extra day.

We enjoy Namche whichh is a quaint and quite civilized main village for trekkers to congregate comfortably. We slept, ate, found a great coffee shop and did some shopping. I actually purchased a North Face Gortex for $20CAN that protected me better from rain than a Gortex I bought back home for several hundred $’s.

It was a great day of recovery but we are antsy to continue our trek!

Bibek and Mangla are all about us having success on this trip and taking in all the awesome views. Guides and porters put their clients first, it’s part of the Nepal culture. They sleep in large rooms with other guides and porters and don’t eat until their clients finish. It’s uncomfortable for us, we wanted them to eat with us but we also had to respect their wishes as well as how it might look to their colleagues.

We tried to spoil them in other ways but we’re also very focused on our recovery and getting used to the new time zone, altitude, food and surroundings. Our job was to trek, sleep, eat, drink tons of water and recover. That actually was the best reward for them, to have us healthy, happy and continuing our journey. Quoting Winston Churchill again, “Never, never, never give up.” … and so we keep trekking.

Part 2 coming soon!

More pictures of the journey: Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Karengeterdone and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/karengeterdone/?hl=en