The Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) National Park is in the centre of the Himalayas, and is on Nepal’s Northernmost border with Tibet. This protected area houses some of the most famous mountains in the world and offers a stunning landscape for high altitude trekking. This region is also home to the Sherpa people, the ethnic group who live in the high pastures and mountains of the Himalayas. The legendary Sherpas are famous both for their kindness and their remarkable resilience in thriving in such adverse environments. Their culture has reached across the Tibet-Nepal border for centuries with old trading routes and monasteries providing anchors for this once nomadic people. This is the land of Tibetan Buddhism, which thrives here and permeates daily life for everyone, both those who live here and those who visit.
A typical 15 day journey would look like this. After flying into Kathmandu we will fly to Lukla at 2860m, the gateway to the Everest National Park and this unique high altitude wilderness. Our aim is to explore the Everest region off the beaten track, using less travelled paths and experiencing Sherpa and Buddhist culture. We will stay in remote and small villages using local teahouses for our overnight stays. After a rest day to acclimatise in the frontier town of Namche Bazaar at 3440m with its medieval stone buildings and coffee shops, we will walk on up to Gokyo at 4750m for another rest day. This remote and very isolated hamlet with its beautiful turquoise lakes is up on the Tibet border and feels like the end of the world. From here we will make our way up to the Renjo-La pass at 5340m. This is one of the famous three passes that surround Everest and offers stunning views of some of the highest summits in the world. It is also the same altitude as the well known Everest Base Camp. This is a stunning trek through some very wild mountains. From there will travel down the remote Thame valley, including a night in a monastery at 4000m, before returning to Namche and Lukla.
This journey will be rated as demanding because of the altitude. The distance and ascent will be limited each day to allow us to acclimatise fully and will sound like easy to moderate days at the altitude of the European alps. However, they will feel very different at this altitude and will make the demands on your body much greater than the 400m average height gain a day would suggest. At Renjo-La the change in atmospheric pressure will means that you only have 50% of the oxygen available to you as sea level. This journey would be suitable to most active people used to mountain trekking but we would recommend some physical training before you arrive to make the most of this journey to the roof of the world.
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