Oh strange places to find a starbucks.
Lukla
2 rest days
I thought I might be developing some tendonitis from all the steep downhill, and felt it would be best to take 2 rest days. I washed my clothes, and then it seemed, the bad weather in Lukla was starting. This bad weather would persist for about 8 days and strand 3,000 tourists in Lukla. Since Lukla was constantly enshrouded in a cloud my laundry wouldn’t dry. So I sat at the starbucks with free wifi and wore my clothes so they would dry and shivered over cups of hot milk tea. This is why you never hike in cotton clothing, fyi.
Namche Bazaar.
Lukla to Thame
Distance 23.9km Gain: 2049m Loss: 1120m
The Khumbu was an interesting place compared with where I’d just been. Prices for goods skyrocketed, and I passed hundreds of tourists of all kinds on the trails, old ones, fat ones, giant groups, porters carrying absolutely ridiculous loads. You could set up shop between Lukla and Namche in high season and have some entertaining people watching. The park entrance reported 10,000 people in October, yikes! Apparently most people do this section of the trail in 3 days. Meh, I hate wasting time.
A video of the panorama of Renjo Pass
Thame to Gokyo
Distance 19.5km Gain: 1702m Loss: 718m
Nothing but clouds all day. Then I finally hit the pass, at about 3pm. The clouds parted, the vision was sublime and I had time to meditate and to reflect. One year had gone by and I was staring at Everest on the other side of the planet. Sweet.
Gokyo Lake.
Gokyo to Gokyo Ri to Namche
Distance: 25.4km Gain: 1600m Loss: 2959m
The most commonly thing done when you’re in Gokyo is to go up Gokyo Ri for great views of Everest, Cho Oyu, Ama Dablam. It’s an amazing view, I recommend it. I wanted to see what kind of shape I was in today, so I sprinted up Gokyo Ri and logged an ascent time of 53’54″. Fully acclimatized and unencumbered I can do 640m/hr (2092ft/hr) at an altitude of 5000m (16350 ft). No idea how that compares, but it’s a good benchmark. I then trail ran the majority of the distance to Namche with a Nepali guy who was moving pretty fast with a small backpack, it’s always nice to have company 
.
A frosted tree near Namche. Weather conditions were not very good at the time.
Namche to Khare
Distance 28.96km Gain: 2067.4m Loss: 3021m
As it turns out, there’s a 6 day backup of people waiting to get out of Lukla. Unless I want to wait 8 days, it will be likely more expeditious for me to walk out. I really didn’t want to, but, I wanted to be back to Kathmandu to enjoy some real food and lower altitudes. I dropped fuel, excess food, sunscreen, and anything I didn’t think i needed. The trail to Jiri is easy and covered in villages, you hardly need to carry snacks, the food is cheap and frequent enough that there’s little point.
A destroyed house between Kharikola and Junbesi.
Khare to Tonenko
Distance: 27.3km Gain: 3530m Loss: 2688m
About halfway through my day I caught up with a couple of Nepali guys going relatively the same speed as me. We pushed it until 6pm, which made the 11th hour of hiking that day for me. All I remember was that at some point, everything hurt that day, fortunately not all at once.
My Nepali trekking partner and I in a snowy village just below the pass. Conditions were very icey that morning from the fresh snow.
Tonenko to Shivalayu
Distance: 27.3km Gain: 2368 Loss: 3668
I tear out of Tonenko at 630am with my Nepali company. Keeping up was tough for me, the downhill was hard on my knees and the fact that the first 10km were covered in ice was less than helpful. Finally the days cleared though, and we hit Bhandar just after noon we were making such rapid work of the trail. Some blisters were starting to form on the bottom of my feet just as I hit the top of Bhandar and met some other trekkers and decided I would slow it down and be a bit social for my last 2 hours. Beer tasted really good, I was done and caught the bus the next morning at 7am and arrived in Kathmandu the next day at 6pm.
Elevation Profile for Lukla to Renjo to Namche
Elevation Profile for Khare to Shivalayu
The Google Earth Tour
I’ve spent significant time and taken the GPS coordinates I logged, the maps we used, and what’s visible from the satellite photos to bring you an interactive and extremely accurate representation of our trek in Google Earth. You will need to download Google Earth to watch the tour. Hit Play and watch our path across the GHT. Hit Pause at any time and check out the views.