Category Archives: Enlighten Adventures

May 6, 2013: Active Day 1, Kathmandu

The time to board the five-hour domestic flight to Kathmandu had finally arrived. I went through security for the third time and had another uneventful flight. We began by soaring over the stunning green landscape and turquoise oceans of Malaysia. Soon after the water took on a brown, barren appearance that at first I took to be a desert. It’s only when we crossed onto land again that I realized it was water. The land appeared equally inhospitable. Where are we? The in-flight monitor was no help. Instead of the “you are here” flight path we enjoyed on the international flight, we were stuck with a cheesy Asian talent show involving sock puppets and reruns of Wipeout.

We crossed over huge brown rivers, or maybe they were they dry river beds. Eventually the land sloped upward and the pilot announced our approach. I looked hopefully across the sea of brown haze for a mountain peak and realized I must be on the wrong side of the plane. From Singapore, you want the right side of the plane to view the Himalayas and I was on the left.

Photo credit: Kevin Cordova

Kathmandu
Photo credit: Kevin Cordova

Flying over Kathmandu, I was surprised at how big and colorful the city was. I’d had fair warning that it would feel third world and indeed the lower we flew the more apparent the crumbling buildings and scattered trash became.

Photo credit: Kevin Cordova

Kathmandu airport
Photo credit: Kevin Cordova

We landed and used a ladder to deplane. A bus picked us up and we drove a short distance to customs. The building was old and beautiful with brick masonry and carved wood. I followed the crowd to a big room with various wooden kiosks littered with paper.

Okay now what? I overheard a man with a British accent loudly and bossily giving directions to a group of old ladies as to which lines on the form they needed to fill out and which ones the Nepali customs people didn’t care about. I chose a kiosk within eavesdropping range and followed his directions to fill out a Visa application (the big form) in addition to the card from the flight. But the anal accountant in me filled out all the lines. There were no writing utensils. I didn’t pack a pen and made do with my pencil.

I followed them to a line behind a desk with a row of four Nepalese men. When I reached the front, the first man checked the length of my stay, collected the $40 entry fee, and gave me two receipts. Next I handed the pink copy of the receipt to one of two men who were checking forms and passports. Finally I proceeded to the last man who issued the Visa, which was a sticker rather than a stamp.

From here I proceeded to the baggage claim. By this point I was tired, but perked up the instant I glimpsed my bag disappearing back to the employee-only side of the carriage. It made it! I almost skipped to the other side of the belt to await its reappearance and immediately stuffed all the coats I had been carrying with me “just in case” inside.

They waved me through customs and I braced myself for the chaos that awaited outside the airport. Active had sent multiple warning emails before our departure about arrival in Kathmandu. Forget altitude. Forget base camp. Apparently our most difficult challenge would be getting from the airport to the hotel.

I carried my own bag as instructed and found a man outside holding the Active Himalayas sign without any trouble. I then proceeded to walk the wrong way around a fence and was shooed in the other direction by airport security.

The man escorted me to and then left me at a van as he went in search of another passenger. Not long afterward he reappeared with a girl who introduced herself as Amanda.

Next we got our first taste of what we were warned of repeatedly before arriving. A man rushed up to the van and shouted aggressively that we must leave a tip and US dollars were OK.

Amanda told him “no” but he persisted.

She then shouted “we’re with him!” and pointed to our driver who was ignoring the whole scene as he calmly got in the van and closed the driver’s side door.

At this, the man melted back in to the madness and we were on our way. Amanda was originally from Wales and exclaimed in her lovely British accent how intense that was. I told her she did great, especially since all I could offer while it was going down was a mute wide-eyed stare and a mouth slightly ajar.

Photo credit: Kevin Cordova

Photo credit: Kevin Cordova

We began the navigation through the narrow, dusty streets of the city. The closest I’d ever experienced to this before was in Mexico, but even that could not compare. It was order within disorder. Totally organic. No traffic laws, signs, lights or lanes. People, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, weird tractor car looking things, rickshaws… You name it, it was on the road and traveling wherever there was space to move forward. I was reminded of science movies featuring magnified blood cells all squeezing by each other, except blood cells tend to move in one direction.

I was amazed at how well our driver navigated our relatively large vehicle through the bedlam right down to the point where he made a three-point turn in the middle of a crowded narrow street and backed into an even narrower crowded alley in front of our hotel with maybe a few feet to spare on either side of the van.

Thamel Eco Resort

Thamel Eco Resort

We checked in to the beautiful Thamel Eco Resort and received a note from our trip leader DK instructing us on where and what time to meet. My future roommate had already arrived, had the only key, and was not there. I waited outside the room until an employee let me in and checked the clock… my clock since there wasn’t one in the room. It had been 40 hours of travel since I left my house in California. Nap time. I collapsed on my bed, so grateful to be horizontal.

The rest of the afternoon was something of a blur. I met my roommate Dovile, a spunky and pretty blonde from Chicago who woke me up in time for our orientation with the whole group.

“This is my first backpacking trip,” she told me.
“What?” I laughed, somewhat incredulously. “If Everest is where you start, what are you going to do next?”

We walked upstairs to a yoga studio on the top floor of the hotel, and pulled some chairs in a circle. Including Dovile and I, there were 8 guests and two main guides (a third guide, Bibak, would join us on the mountain). Kevin and Stacy, a beautiful couple from Aspen. Mike and Sara, friends who just finished grad school in Colorado and were embarking on a world tour before starting work. Amanda and Ele who worked for Active in New Zealand.

Our trip leaders were DK and Sudip. Both of them, but especially DK, had that “smell.” The smell of someone who’s ridden the back of the wind, of 100 fun summers, of sleeping in trees, and adventures with Indians and pirates. (Hook, 1991). They were good-looking and had the sort of charisma that made people want to be around them. This adventure was going to be a fun one.

The trip was organized by Active Adventures in partnership with Earthbound Expeditions. I’d traveled with Active before in New Zealand on one of their Rimu trips and couldn’t have been happier with the experience so they were easily my first pick to see the Himalayas. Our goal was Everest Base Camp, and we’d be together 19 days for the journey there and back.

The guides gave us each goodie bags full of fun stuff like water purification tablets, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper. I joke, but all these things were practically worth their weight in gold on the trail. Each pair of roommates received a porter bag to share with a potato sack to separate each person’s belongings. Each porter bag had a different colored prayer flag to identify it. People who rented sleeping bags received one of these with a prayer flag to identify it too, in case it needed to be moved to another bag for weight distribution reasons.

Later we went to dinner on a rooftop with a starlit view of the Monkey Temple. Insanely cool place. DK told us the meat was okay to eat here, but I was looking forward to jumping right in to the Nepali cuisine experience after reading about my friend Katie’s experiences on her earlier Annapurna trek. I ordered my first dal bhat with ginger tea. Dal is lentil soup, bhat is rice, and it also usually comes with some sort of vegetable curry. I proceeded to start eating the dal with a spoon and DK tried to steer me in the right direction. In his gentle and polite Kiwi way, he told me the dal was supposed to go on the rice. I poured a little bit on, but still wouldn’t get the right idea until I saw the locals do it later. Even then I never mustered up the courage to eat it with my fingers.

We began to get to know each other better. Somehow I mentioned I’m from the Mojave desert and people asked me if we really have snakes and scorpions. Yes, we really have snakes and scorpions. Funny how something so ordinary to you can be so fascinating to others. Ele, Amanda and I realized we knew a couple of the same people through Active. Ele told me about a Nepali translator app she downloaded and I was immediately super-jealous of it. We’d hear the language all day on the trail, but I knew it wouldn’t sink in for me until I also saw it in print. The app really would have helped. Even without the benefit of alcohol (in most cases, see keeping healthy on the trail), the group was warming up to each other and starting to feel like a family.

IMG_3130That night was my first adventure with Nepali plumbing. After two days of planes, trains and automobiles I was rather greasy and keen on a shower. The entire bathroom was tile and a shower head on a long hose was simply attached to a wall. I turned it on and it proceeded to drench the toilet seat and the spare toilet paper on top.

I closed the lid, found higher ground for the TP, and engaged in a wrestling match with the hose, since more water was pouring out of it than the actual shower head. We settled on a compromise where I looped the hose in such a way that the water poured straight down and held it over my head, trying with some success not to get it in my mouth or eyes.

The entire bathroom was now a lake. Neither of us had packed thongs/flip-flops/jandals and made it our mission to find some ASAP.

I was still on California time and wide awake even though it was after 11 pm so I begin reading The Snow Leopard. I’d read a few other famous Himalaya-related books already and was saving this one. It had been highly recommended to me the year before by a friend whose opinion I respect, and I was happy to finally open it up.

May 5, 2013: Travel Day 2, Changi

Singapore to Kathmandu

We landed in Singapore about midnight their time. The flight, including the technical stop in Korea, was 19 hours, 30 minutes. It was technically May 6th as we had crossed the date line, but I’m calling it May 5th for blog purposes since I was in layover limbo land. May 6th begins Active Adventures awesomeness.

I was wide awake despite having only slept fitfully maybe 20 minutes at a time the entire trip over. We followed the sun so it never really got dark, plus airplane seats seemed to be designed to make some part of your anatomy go numb when you don’t shift position after 20 minutes. It was around 10 am California time and my biological clock had not reset.

I deplaned, walked forever to find an empty chair, sat down and checked for WiFi. It existed, was free, and worked great. From the convenience of my iPhone I found my next terminal and directions to get there.  I got to take another monorail. I made my way over to my terminal, which was completely deserted, and settled in to my new home for the next 8 hours.

Changi Airport appeared to live up to its awards for being one of the world’s best airports. Right off the bat I was impressed with all of the real plants. The restrooms were clean, and when I left I got to tap a touch-screen of smiley faces depicting different levels of potty glee to rate my experience. I gave it one step down from sheer bliss. It is just a toilet after all. On my way home, I rated them sheer bliss. Your perspective changes after weeks of urinating behind rocks or negotiating Asian style composting toilets.

In what felt like a scene from a Tom Hanks movie I began to pick up subtle nuances of airport night life. Those people-mover sidewalks, “travellators,” are motion activated much like automated doors. If no one’s around they shut down, as do the lights, making the terminal a cross between a eerie and peaceful place for a snooze. Alas, my body still thought it was noon.

I caught up on some Facebook news, sent some email, and began the trip blog. While I was puttering around on my phone, a group of security guards approached me and asked to see my papers (passport and ticket). Hmmm, interesting. Maybe I did look like a creeper hanging out in a deserted terminal late at night. Not long after there was a page about a lost boy. I hoped that was the reason for the added inquiry, not that I looked like a terrorist after only a day of travel.

At 6 am their time I became suspicious that my gate was still mostly deserted. Sure enough, a quick check on the phone informed me there had been a gate change. The new gate was a 20 minute walk to the opposite end of the terminal. Well, I wouldn’t mind the exercise and a tour of more of the airport. As I walked I learned that Changi is a really cool place… in the daytime. If you have a long layover during normal business hours, you can watch a movie, take a tour of the city, or check out the garden. Plus there’s always the usual shopping or dining.

Continued on May 6th…

May 4, 2013: Travel Day 1, SFO

SFO to Changi

To answer the #1 question on everyone’s mind straight off the bat, it will take me exactly 40 hours of travel from the moment I locked my keys in my house to the moment I collapsed onto the bed at my hotel in Kathmandu. The world’s tallest mountain range is almost exactly halfway around the world from the world’s smallest, an 11 hour, 15 minute time difference. Only my friends from Colorado had further to go. If you’d rather not read the gruesome details, skip ahead to May 6.

Click.

Click… click…
CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK!
The sound of a door clicking shut, a pause… Shit! No!, and then the rattle of the knob with increasing panic as I realized I just locked my house key inside yet still clung desperately to the hope that maybe it didn’t REALLY lock and I could just jiggle it open.

No dice. Oh, the irony of spending literally months training for and planning a trip only to discover you forgot this one tiny but very important little detail; take the house key off the key ring and pack it in your travel wallet. My mind, in its early morning fog, had unconsciously registered the rental car keys in my hand as “keys… check. We’re good to go.”

It proved to be a minor inconvenience as all my luggage was already stowed away in the rental car ready to leave. I briefly mourned the naked green juice in the fridge I planned to enjoy for breakfast that would surely be bad by the time I returned in three weeks. (It wasn’t, and boy was I pleased to see it after the even longer trip home).

Still, I’m not one to give up that easily. I grabbed my phone and YouTubed a video of a pint-sized MacGyver using a credit card to force a locked door open. I decided to try it with the only card I had with me, my debit card, and proceeded to do irreparable damage to the card while the door remained stubbornly locked. (Shredding my card ended up being a non-issue, as I experienced identity theft while I was away and received a shiny new card mere days after I returned.)

Frustrated and somewhat glad to learn my house is not that easy to break into, I stopped by the office where once upon a time I had stowed a spare key. No luck there either, that must have been an old apartment key. My sister had the only other spare key I owned and she was conveniently visiting Oregon at the time. I finally gave up, said goodbye to my workaholic boss who was at the office on a Saturday to let me in, and hit the road an hour later than planned.

Every time I drive a rental car I am reminded as to just how old my own car really is. Normally when I drive I can take the increased wobble of my tires and groan of road noise as a clue that I’m exceeding acceptable highway speeds in all states but Oregon. (In Oregon I’d probably get pulled over for speeding on a bicycle. Those folks are serious about slow.) I rested the weight of my hiking boot, on my foot so it couldn’t get lost in luggage, on the pedal of this cheap economy rental and suddenly I was going 90 mph (145 k/hr). Who needs muscle cars anymore? Thankfully it had cruise control to keep me honest, once I finally figured out how to work it.

I adjusted the bass level on the cheap stereo system back down to where I could actually hear the rest of the music and settled in to enjoy some radio on my drive to SFO. Radio was also somewhat of a novelty since my own antenna was lost when a drunk bicyclist crashed into it while it was PARKED in front of my old house in Chico. You can’t make this stuff up. Suffice to say the CDs in my car are well-played.

The trip to the airport was uneventful. As I crossed the Bay Bridge and looked at the water, I was reminded of the sad reality that I have yet to visit NorCal’s coastline since I moved up here 6+ years ago. An oversight I planned to remedy this Summer, either by visiting Ft. Bragg or Santa Cruz. Or both.

After turning in the car on the second floor of the rental car center, I followed the signs that told me access to the terminal monorail was on the first floor. Guess what? That’s a lie. For anyone who really wants to know, it’s actually up on the fourth floor.

After that it was a general airport experience and flight. When planning the trip, it took me hours to decide which airline to take. A long layover somewhere appeared unavoidable. I finally chose Singapore Air based on the quality of the airport in which I would be camping out for so long. When I boarded the flight, I was amused that most of their flight attendants were pretty (or at least heavily made up), female, and wore traditional looking costumes. They gave us hot towels on boarding and before breakfast, which was so refreshing on a long flight. I kept thinking of The Wedding Singer. I had ordered the Indian vegetarian meals when I booked and was so happy with that decision. Not only were they delicious, and not just by airplane food standards, but we were served before everyone else. Sort of a way to feel first class while rocking it back in economy.

I caught up on movies I’d been meaning to see (The Hobbit), TV shows I’d been meaning to watch (Game of Thrones), and books I’d been meaning to read (Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think). This epic feat of leisure activity alone meant I was finally on vacation.

We stopped in South Korea to refuel and change flight staff. They made us ALL get off the plane with our stuff, go through security AGAIN, and then get back on the SAME plane and sit in the SAME seat with the SAME stuff. To think I thought the TSA was bad… well it is, but at least we’re not the only country full of super control-freaks.

Preparation: How to Stay Healthy While Trekking the Himalayas

You’ve spent quality time with the Stairmaster, hit the trail on weekends, and can hang out deep in Warrior Two all day. General fitness… check. There are just two more potential adversaries to consider that may interfere with an enjoyable ascent to base camp: altitude and germs.

Oxygen at base camp is around 50% that of sea level, meaning your heart, lungs and blood work twice as hard to get your body the oxygen it needs. General fitness preparation should take care of your heart and lungs. The preparation tips that follow relate to keeping the bloodstream healthy and vital.

On the trail, be sure to take the time to acclimatize so your body can add hemoglobin (protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen) and drink a ton of clean (i.e., filtered or treated) water to flush toxins out and keep things flowing. Note that you don’t want to drink so much water that you upset the natural balance of sodium to the point of hyponatremia, but this is pretty hard to do.

An excellent way to build up your blood before you lace up your boots is with chlorophyll. Ideally source it fresh from the plant, if that’s not practical you can also find it in concentrated supplement form. In the 40 days leading up to my flight, fresh green Juiceman juice (containing kale, wheat grass, parsley, cucumber, celery, spinach, cilantro, etc.) was part of my daily routine. I used a fantastic app called Lift to track the habit. I also supplemented ChlorOxygen and adopted a mostly vegetarian diet. Meat in Nepal is sketchy at best, so you’ll want to go vegetarian while you’re ascending. You may as well get used to it beforehand. Extra chlorophyll combined with zinc has the added bonus of improving your smell when you sweat (allow about 2 weeks for this to take affect) which is helpful as you may go for days without a shower on the trail.

Hemetics (herbs and foods rich in iron and manganese) will help build up your blood too. Common examples are apples, blackberries, and raspberries. Interestingly enough, while on the trail to base camp, we shared apples slices almost every night for dessert. That apple a day may well have helped keep the doctor away on our trek.

img_3136

Mmmm, bacon?

Another key to keeping the bloodstream happy is AVOID SUGAR! It causes stress on the body in so many ways, since our focus is on the blood I’m including this illustration rather than a lengthy sermon. You can see what sugar does to the blood on the right; when the cells are glued together like that they’ll have a hard time delivering oxygen won’t they? Challenge the myth that you need those empty calories to get up the hill. (All you’ll need is some “dal bhat power, 24 hour!”) If necessary, do a sugar detox before you leave. Read the labels of the foods you’ll be packing with you. Native Nepali cuisine tends to be healthy and delicious on its own, but be sure to pass on adding sugar to your tea or ketchup to your chips/fries.

Left: Normal blood. Right: Blood on sugar

Left: Normal blood. Right: Blood on sugar.

Source: “Death by Sugar” on YouTube

This brings us to our second adversary; germs. Having a healthy bloodstream is half the battle. An alkaline diet rich in chlorophyll makes your bloodstream a germ-adverse environment to begin with. Avoiding sugar and alcohol, at least on the way up, will also deprive them of their favorite foods.

On the trail, filter or boil your water, or add purification tablets. Our group used Micropur, which is supposed to be the best if Amazon reviews are to be believed. To me it was like drinking heavily chlorinated pool water and was difficult to choke down even when masked with a flavor. I brought Potable Aqua iodine tablets with the taste neutralizer which made the water much more palatable and used those most of the time. Ideally I would have used colloidal silver, but the potential headache of getting that much liquid past the TSA made me opt for the iodine. I brought a smaller amount of colloidal silver for treatment of actual infection. To make the water taste better and help with the altitude, I added a bit of ginger root tincture and ginkgo tincture whenever I refilled my trusty Klean Kanteen. In the event I ran out of water and was dutifully waiting the 30 minutes on a tablet, I used my LifeStraw.

Bring probiotics with you as a preventative measure (I like Garden of Life Primal Defense) to help your body replace any good bugs killed off by the purification tablets. In case of infection, bring colloidal silver (make sure this is at least 500 ppm). Don’t wait for the nausea or Montezuma’s revenge, check your tongue (usually you’ll start to see or taste something growing in the back, for me it’s slightly metallic) and if you notice any signs, add the colloidal silver to your water. To combat viral, olive leaf extract is a favorite. I make a sort of tea out of both to make sure my body has whichever weapon it needs. In case of actual infection, I also brought Grapefruit Seed Extract, Oregano Oil, and Asparagus Tea.

In addition to the purely physical, there’s a mental game involved when the body starts to get stressed. I found a few meditative/affirmative/woo-woo techniques really helped on a few occasions. Learn and practice them beforehand. For altitude related stress involving difficulty breathing try one or a combination of these three techniques:

  1. Imagine your body is not limited to receiving air through the lungs. Picture every pore of your body opening up and directly allowing in the air it needs.
  2. Picture a stream of oxygen moving directly into your heart for distribution. There’s no shortage, only perfect abundance. In fact, it’s a fire-hose blast of oxygen, more than you can ever use. You can even point this at your friends as a sort of blessing to them.
  3. Imagine there’s a vortex of air above your head that sucks in any and all available oxygen molecules directly into your lungs. I added to this and pretended I had a Harry Potter-esque bubble around my body that stored all this extra oxygen so my whole body could breathe easy.

For any other sort of ailment, like headaches or sore muscles, this mindful breathing technique from Thich Nhat Hanh really helps:

In short, if you had a headache, you would put your awareness on your head, smile at it, and thank it for all the work it’s doing to help you reach your goal of EBC. E.F.T. or “tapping” was also helpful, as always.

All this was successfully field tested over three weeks in Nepal in which I made it to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar without any serious ailments. If I had it to do over, I would have brought extra chlorophyll and colloidal silver for my tour mates, gotten more sun beforehand, and checked the expiration date on my sunscreen (sunburn = epic FAIL).

To review, here’s a checklist of an amateur naturopath’s Himalaya trek first aid kit, and what each is for. You can repackage these into little 1-2 oz containers for the trail.

 

 

Preparation: Himalaya Trekking Gear

A quick what to bring and why in case you find it helpful. It’s not all-inclusive, just some commentary on the items I was glad to have while on the trail or wished I had. Beware I’m writing from a woman’s perspective.

What to Bring

Why

Day Pack

This assumes you’ll be hiring porters to carry the bulk of your gear. Since you’ll be living out of this for weeks, make sure it is up to date. At minimum you’ll want one with waist and shoulder support that can hold a water bladder. Airflow across the back is nice too, since it can get warm and wet at the lower elevations. Osprey makes some enviable packs these days.

Dry Sack

To keep the contents of your day pack (TP, down jacket, camera) dry in wet weather.

Water Bladder

Even if you prefer to drink out of bottles on the trail, a bladder with a straw makes it really easy to drink while half asleep and helps you stay hydrated at night.

Smart Phone

Believe it or not, WiFi access is available sporadically up the trail. You may not want to keep up with work email, but it is fun to download the latest summit news from Everest. Save your travel documents (flights, insurance, and itinerary) onto it and install a free Nepali translator app before you leave.

Install a Kindle app and load it with reference books. (I prefer real books for recreational reading, because they don’t need to be charged and they’re easier to share. “Packing” my reference books on the phone saves weight and saves me having to bring a second gadget.)

I brought a plug adapter for my charger and was pleased to find I didn’t need to use it. In the rare event I encountered an outlet, it was universal (see photo below). You do need to be aware of voltage if whatever you’re trying to plug in does not have a converter.

Solar Charger

For your phone or camera. This one falls under the “wish I had” category. WiFi is more common than opportunities to charge your phone, and these times you’d probably rather be using it than waiting for it to charge. Phone charging opportunities also cost by the hour and become more expensive the higher you go.

Flip-flops/Jandals

When you first arrive you may cringe at the thought of flipping mud, poop, and spit up your calf while cruising the streets of Kathmandu (by the end you won’t care), these are also quite handy to have in the community showers common in tea houses.

Sleeping Bag

Yes, it gets colder at night the higher up you go. A full four season bag may not be necessary depending on what time of year you travel and your tolerance for cold. Keep in mind many of the tea houses provide heavy blankets.

Down Jacket

See sleeping bag above. Expedition weight may be overkill depending on the season and the weather. Extreme cold weather gear can also be inexpensively rented/hired so no need to buy one just for this trip even if you think you’ll use it. Sans a blizzard, your regular winter downy, assuming it has room for layers underneath, should suffice.

Hiking Boots

This one should be obvious. Break them in beforehand. Make sure they have thick soles and sturdy ankle support since you’ll spend most of your time trekking up, down, up, across, and up rocks. Waterproof them if you’ll be there while there’s snow on the trail.

Trail Runners

For hanging out in the city or the tea houses.

Rain Jackets

I brought two of these and used both. Both soft shell, both un-padded. One from Salomon without a hood that was extra breathable to use in light drizzle. It also doubled as a windbreaker. The other from Mountain Hardware with a hood to use in monsoon rain. If you’ve never been in a monsoon, put on your jacket and step into the shower on full blast. See how dry it keeps you.

Fleece Jackets

I brought two of these and wore them the most often. One was an Icebreaker I lived in on the trail, it was warm when it needed to be and cool when it needed to be and also offered excellent wind protection. The other was a fluffy synthetic from Mountain Hardware I saved for clean, cozy tea house evenings when a shower was available.

Shirts

Make your shirts Icebreaker and you can’t go wrong. Lightweight, quick-dry, and better smelling than synthetic. Some long sleeved, some short-sleeved. Sleeveless is best left at home, see explanation under shorts. It can be expensive, watch for deals on Sierra Trading Post.

Gaiters

You’ll find these most handy for keeping the yak crap off your socks and pants. This tranlates into being able to wear them longer before they need to be placed in your biohazard (i.e., laundry) bag.

Pants

I’m in love with the Merrell Aurora soft-shell pants. They’re waterproof, windproof, lightweight, breathable in warm weather and warm in cool weather plus they’re reasonably stylish. I brought two pairs, one for the trail, and one for hanging around tea houses at night. Without these you’d need rain pants, multiple hiking pants, and chill-around-the-tea-house pants.

Thermals

One pair light weight, to wear underneath your regular pants while hiking in the cold. One pair heavy weight, for sleeping at high elevations or sitting outside watching stars. I used Icebreaker for the lightweight and inexpensive Wickers polyester for the heavy.

Shorts

It’s not always easy to find quick-dry shorts for women, until you realize board shorts will suit your purpose. I had some success shopping at Athleta. How many pairs depends on how you feel about showing skin in a country where it isn’t necessarily culturally appropriate (for a woman). However, it can get really hot in the lower elevations so I was glad to have the option to wear them.

Socks

Good quality wool hiking socks. Medium to expedition weight. Err on the side of over-packing, as opportunities to do laundry may be few. Also bring lightweight socks for wearing with the trail runners. Something slipper-ish to keep your feet warm in tea houses at night would not go unused. You can find funky knit slipper socks locally in Nepal.

Underwear

Get as many pairs of Icebreaker as your budget allows, but bring regular underwear too if you must. As with socks, err on the side of over-packing. Icebreakers tend to stay fresh longer, and when you hand wash them, they dry quicker.

Travel Towel

While the smaller microfiber towels may claim to absorb just as much as a regular towel, keep in mind they still have to cover you. Community showers. ‘Nuff said. Don’t bring a regular towel though; lightweight and quick-dry are still a good thing.

Warm Hat

When deciding which hat to bring, keep in mind that if your head is already pounding from the altitude, make sure you don’t add to the stress with cold ears. The wind off the Khumbu glacier gets chilly.

Buff

Buffs are one of the most popular gear items; even the porters use them. It can become a warm hat, scarf, dust mask, do rag, headband, ear muff, etc. Bring your own or shop for some eccentric styles in Kathmandu.

Sun Protection

Hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen (check the expiration date!)

Gloves

A lightweight pair, you’ll use these most. Plus ski gloves or equivalent just in case of extra cold weather.

Toiletries

Pack your toothbrush and toothpaste in your day pack in case you get separated from your porter bag for a night. Bring a mirror and tweezers. I put soap in a mesh bag that doubled as a washcloth and worked out well for speed showers. Bring pantyliners to help keep your underwear fresh. There’s no such thing as extra toilet paper, you can almost use it as currency. You will use hand sanitizer all day every day. Wet wipes are good for the no-shower days, so is a facecloth. Travel packs of tissue also come in handy when your nose runs from dust or cold. Lip balm! I wished mine had a tint; the sun, wind, and altitude will tend to remove all color variation from your face. Even in the mountains I still like being (and looking like) a girl.

 

Water Bottles

3 litres worth. At least. No, really. See bladder above, I’m also a fan of Klean Kanteen.

First Aid

See previous post on staying healthy. Plus the usual stuff like band aids and blister treatment. If you’re not in to the hippie methods, the themes are pain killers, antibiotics, sleeping pills, hydration salts, and stuff to prevent altitude sickness.

Hiking Poles

Useful for steep, rocky trails, especially when they’re wet and the yak crap is slick.

Alarm clock

Useful to have a little one in the event your phone battery dies. The sunrise on Kala Patthar doesn’t wait.

Camera

I prefer cameras that use AA batteries so you can bring extra rather than worrying about charging it in the boonies. Lithium batteries aren’t as heavy as regular. Bring extra memory cards if you’re prolific. On this trek I used a Canon Powershot SX10IS.

Duct tape

Wrap a little bit of this around something (pencil, water bottle) and pack it with you. I did use it… twice.

Binoculars

Useful for spotting climbers on Everest.

Multi-Tools

I always carry a Leatherman Micra and use the knife and scissors for something every trip. Little thermometers, LED lights, and compasses can be helpful. I also envied a friend’s laser pointer for pointing at stars. Bring your headlamp, not every place you stay will have electricity, and you may not make it to your next tea house before dark.

Length of cord

Makes a useful clothesline since you’ll be handwashing stuff if it gets washed at all. It would also fix a broken boot lace.

 

Universal Outlet
Universal Outlet