Day 11 - Lobuche to Mt. Everest Base Camp!!

We are here!!! Mt. Everest Base Camp!!! What a thrill. 17,500 ft. and I'm looking straight at the famed Khumbu Ice Fall. Something that I have read about, looked a pictures of, flown over with Google Earth thousands of time, for years and years. And now I'm fortunate to be see all with my own eyes. It been quite a journey to get here.

Today might have been the most difficult day so far because of the sheer mileage we covered at altitude. After about two hours we stopped briefly at the last village of Goark Shep where they have a cell phone tower to provide coverage to base camp. A very uneven and rocky trail that seemed to big endless ups and downs before we finally gazed upon Base Camp in the distance. Still at least 90 minutes away.

Base camp covers a very wide expanse of the glacial moraine. So big in fact after we past the first tents in camp belonging to HiEx (Russell Brice's team) it was still about 45 minutes to reach the Alpine Ascents camp near the very top of the overall base camp.

What a spread!! These guys really know how to keep the morale of the climbing team up for the six weeks or so they will spend here. The dinning tent is huge! There is a an entry area for getting drinks, etc. and then a long table with a tablecloth with seats for 18. The table and the hanging LED lights are adorned with plastic flowers. There is also a domed 'social' tent for the climbers to spend their downtime reading and relaxing. They also have a pico-projector and screen to have movie nights from a selection of over 200 movies. Pretty sweet.

Everyone has now gone to bed and I'm sitting alone in the dining tent typing away. Tomorrow I should be heading all the way back to Dingboche where we will spend the night will all of the trekkers and Island Peak climbers before biding farewell to the trekker the next day as the Island Peak climbers branch of a separate valley towards the mountain.