Reader Report: Final leg of Everest trek turns harrowing

Last of three parts. EVEREST BASE CAMP, Nepal, May 13. -- Our final day’s trek from Lobuche (16,170 feet) up to Everest Base Camp (17,600 feet) started at sunrise. Because of a lack of appetite (which I later realized was an early sign of altitude sickness), I had a light breakfast of just two cups of tea and a hard-boiled egg.

My trekking partner, April Thompson Egbert, and I, together with our Sherpa porter, Avinash Rai, and our guide, Ratna Lama, set off for Everest Base Camp.

We had just 5.5 miles to go and an elevation gain of just 1,300 feet. But with the effects of the high altitude slowing us down, we figured it should take us about five to six hours to get there.

The final leg of the trail to Everest Base Camp follows the west side of the Khumbu Glacier, past Gorak Shep, a tiny village of three or four trekkers’ lodges.

Just after Gorek Shep, we passed the trailhead for Kala Pattar and took a good look at that peak, which we hoped to summit the next day.

The oddest part about this unforgettable day is that we were all alone. Usually, there are 1,200 or so climbers at or above Everest Base Camp, with dozens of climbers coming and going daily and dozens more Sherpa porters and yaks bringing fresh food and other supplies. Also each day, typically, an additional 1,000 or so trekkers, like us, just visit base camp.

When we arrived at Everest Base Camp, the climbers and their colorful tents were gone. The government-ordered evacuation of Everest Base Camp following the April 25 quake was completed just a day or two before we got there.

It must have looked much like it did in April 1953, when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay arrived before they made history, becoming the first men to summit Everest.

Amazingly, on May 13, we were the highest people on the highest mountain in the world.

In fact, we were the only people on Mt. Everest that day.

The weather was perfect, with clear skies, unlimited visibility and calm wind. The mountain was unstable, and we saw and heard dozens of small avalanches and rock slides. The Khumbu Glacier was noisy, loosened up a bit from the quakes and aftershocks.

We stayed at Everest Base Camp for about an hour, taking a few photos and taking it all in. April and I cracked open a couple of Everest beers and toasted our accomplishment. I posed holding a burgee from the Lido Isle Yacht Club and then a copy of the Daily Pilot.

We brought two sets of Buddhist prayer flags, and April and I unfurled and hoisted them in honor of the 18 climbers who died there in the massive avalanche just a couple of weeks earlier. It was also close to the one-year anniversary of the avalanche that killed 16 Sherpas at the Khumbu Ice Fall between Everest Base Camp and Camp I.

Additionally, it was a time for us to reflect on the tragedy suffered by the Nepali people, in Kathmandu and throughout the country, following the deadly and destructive April 25 and May 12 earthquakes.

We thanked and hugged Rai and Lama for making our long-planned trek to the base of Mt. Everest a reality.

Then it was time to start down the mountain, and we hiked back to our trekkers’ lodge at Gorak Shep.

On the way down, I started to develop symptoms of altitude sickness. I had a mild headache, nausea, lack of appetite and fatigue and felt slightly dehydrated, even though I had been sipping water from my Camelback all day. I had skipped lunch and was having some blood-sugar problems, but I had no appetite at all.

The symptoms got slightly worse when we arrived at Gorak Shep an hour and a half later, even though we were gradually descending and were some 700 feet lower.

I told Lama and April that I was not feeling well and was doubtful I could join them for our long-planned climb up Kala Pattar the next morning. I went to bed early, without eating any dinner, and felt like throwing up.

I took my daily dose of Diamox, an altitude sickness pill, as a preventive measure. But this time I took a double dose to ease my symptoms.

After a good night’s sleep, I woke up at 5 a.m. and felt much better, good enough to go. I still had no appetite but the headache, nausea and fatigue were gone. The temperature, outside and inside our tiny room at the lodge, was about 35 degrees, and the early morning sky was clear with no wind. Perfect climbing conditions.

After some tea, we started climbing at 5:30 a.m., with Rai and Lama leading the way. The trail is well-defined, with a steady, fairly steep climb up from Gorak Shep (16,800 feet) to the summit of Kala Pattar (18,200 feet)

After a strenuous (primarily because of the altitude) climb of two and a half hours, we reached the summit.

The unobstructed views of Mt. Everest on a clear day, and the neighboring peaks of Nuptse and Lhotse to the east and Pumo Ri to the west, from the top of Kala Pattar, are among the most spectacular sights in the world.

The word “awesome” is way overused, but this was truly an awesome experience, one never to be forgotten.

We high-fived each other, unfurled a couple more prayer flags, posed for photos, enjoyed the views for about a half hour and then started down.

About half way down, it hit me. Altitude sickness came on like a wave.

I found I was using my trekking poles almost as much for balance as I was for shifting the weight off my knees. My pace slowed, and the others reached our lodge at least a half hour ahead of me. I could also feel my knees starting to swell, and they were hurting.

Within a few minutes after reaching the lodge, I crashed. My knees were now quite painful, and I could not go up or down stairs without a struggle. I took a pain pill but it did not seem to help. The only cure for altitude sickness is to get off the mountain, or at least get down to a much lower elevation, the quicker the better.

The other half of the problem was my knees were now so sore that I could not walk down. I discussed the options with Lama and April. I briefly considered renting a horse and riding to Lukla, but that could take four or five days, and the nearest horse was in Lobuche, a day’s hike.

I asked Lama to try to find a helicopter. But every copter in Nepal was busy delivering aid to remote villages or looking for a missing U.S. Marine helicopter. After a few phone calls, Lama found a copter coming up from Kathmandu to Lukla the next morning to pick up someone with a severely broken foot who needed to be evacuated to a hospital in Kathmandu.

The pilot could swing by and pick us up in Gorak Shep while he was in the neighborhood, so to speak. The pilot was going to squeeze us in before flying on his regular aid missions for the day. This was my only chance to get off the mountain quickly.

At 6:30 the next morning, we were ready for the copter. He landed near our lodge and picked us up. We quickly flew down the valley to Lukla to pick up the guy with the broken foot and to refuel. We spent nine days of trekking to get up the mountain, and just 15 minutes flying down.

But in Lukla we faced another unexpected problem. The village was clouded over, and there was zero visibility at the airport. We hovered at the edge of the clouds somewhere near the airport for about 15 to 20 minutes, running low on fuel, waiting for a break in the clouds.

The pilot landed for 10 minutes to preserve fuel on a dry rice paddy terraced into the mountain side. Oddly, at the edge of the rice paddy was a hand-painted sign that read, “Notice. No allowed landing without permission.” I guess we were not the first helicopter to land there while waiting for the weather to clear.

We then climbed straight up into the clouds for a few hundred feet, desperately looking for that airport. Finally, we saw through a tight hole in the clouds a bit of asphalt runway below us, and the pilot quickly dove down through the hole and landed.

The good news, I learned after landing at Lukla, was this pilot was experienced at high-altitude mountain rescues and had thousands of hours in this type of helicopter. The bad news was he was from northern Italy and all of his flying was in the Alps. He had been in Nepal just two weeks and was unfamiliar with the mountains around Lukla and its airport.

But we made it.

Here we hugged and said our goodbyes to Rai. The guy with the broken foot got in the copter, and together with Lama, April and a couple of young Nepali boys who joined us as passengers, we flew uneventfully from Lukla back to Kathmandu, arriving at about 9 a.m.

I was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with acute mountain sickness, a fever and sore, swollen knees. The doctor’s report concluded that my helicopter evacuation was “medically necessary.”

The next day, we boarded a flight home to Los Angeles, with a change of planes in Guangzhou, China. The agent for Air China Southern bumped us to business class for the first leg, which was very nice, and we got some much-needed sleep.

It’s good to be back home.

April and I will never forget our trek and the amazing views of Everest. More importantly, we’ll always remember the good people of Nepal. Our thoughts and prayers are with them as they struggle to recover and rebuild.

For more information or to make a donation to the Everest Base Camp Clinic, contact himalayanrescue.org.

MICHAEL LAWLER is a Newport Beach attorney.