Monday, May 19, 2008

EBC: Base Camp - May 12

This is page 5 of my EBC trek report. Navigate through the overview page.

We trekked to the South Base Camp of Everest from which expeditions to Everest are launched through the south east ridge. They pass through Khumbu Ice Fall, Lhotse Face, Southeast Ridge & Hillary Step before reaching the summit. The North Base Camp is in Tibet and is used by expeditions climbing Everest through the northeast ridge.

Due to the structure of the mountain, Everest peak itself is not visible from South Base Camp (it is visible from North Base Camp).

South Base Camp is at an altitude of 5360m (17,600 ft) above sea level. We started off from Lobuche and dropped our bags at Gorek Shep and continued on to EBC.

We gained an altitude of 3000 m from Lukla to Kalapathar. From Everest Base Camp, there is as much altitude to be gained over extremely hostile terrain to reach the summit of Everest at 8848m (29, 029 ft).

It snowed at Lobuche the previous night and our trek started on snow for the first time.

One of the very steep ascends encountered along the path.

Glaciers everywhere

Tents at EBC with Khumbu ice fall in the background. Khumbu ice fall is the most dangerous (having claimed the most lives) part of the Everest summit trail.


5 TIIers at EBC


Walking over glaciers covered with moraine. Scratch the surface and you'll see transparent blocks of ice.



It was a long, cold walk.


1 comment:

  1. Wow! It had been a huge desire of mine to do the EBC trek. The photos leave me pondering - had i known this before hand!

    Nice photographs!

    ReplyDelete