The value of extra time: oxygen and sleep
The beauty of the private journey we booked was that we could tweak the itinerary to our own tastes. The first thing I did was add a couple of extra nights to the walk. First, I added a third night in Namche Bazaar.
Namche Bazaar is the main “town” on the tourist trail. This is the spot where almost all trekkers spend a couple of nights to acclimatize and do any last-minute shopping.
The standard itinerary spends two nights in Namche. In my exhaustive pre-trek reading, I concluded that we’d give ourselves a better chance–both of avoiding altitude sickness and generally enjoying the trip–by staying there three nights. I have Ian Taylor Trekking to thank for this–they emphasize the importance of sufficient acclimatization around the 12,000 foot mark, and the value of three nights in Namche.
The normal Lodge-to-Lodge itinerary spends one night in Pangboche, during which trekkers can make an optional visit to Ama Dablam base camp. A visit to an actual climbing base camp that isn’t a major tourist attraction seemed too good to miss, and tacking it on to a hiking stage (albeit the short stage from Deboche to Pangboche) sounded a bit too hectic. I added a second night in Pangboche, which gave us time to enjoy the walk from Deboche to Pangboche–you’ve never seen such stunning views of Ama Dablam!–and to spend a full day on Ama Dablam itself.
I also handled our own bookings in Kathmandu. Everest Lodge-to-Lodge ordinarily houses guests at the Gokarna Forest Resort. I wanted to stay near Thamel for our first weekend, both for shopping and to enjoy the Kathmandu vibe, which was a reasonable choice though I now appreciate why Gokarna would be ideal for “comfort” guests. I also wanted to spend a full weekend in Kathmandu before heading off to the mountains, both to breathe air at 4500 feet or so (it’s not “high”, but it’s higher than South Carolina!) and to begin to get over the savage jet lag that comes with traveling 9.75 time zones.
Nepal is nine (or ten, depending on time of year) hours and 45 minutes ahead of EST.
I understand why most itineraries fly people off to the mountains a day or so after they arrive in Kathmandu and why they don’t linger in Namche. Vacation time and money are both limited in most cases, and it takes many days to reach Everest Base Camp in the best of circumstances.
We, however, happened to have the luxury of an open schedule, so we took advantage of it. Whether it was a game changer, I can’t really say, but I do wonder how much of people’s difficulty sleeping at altitude is more a function of disrupted circadian rhythms than of altitude sickness per se. Certainly dashing straight to Lukla after a major international flight doesn’t help with the matter of fatigue. We got tired enough even with our looser schedule.
How thin is the air, really?
Thin. Not gonna lie, the altitude really makes things harder.
I noticed the lack of oxygen the moment we climbed out of the helicopter in Lukla. Walking through town to the Mountain Lodge felt alarmingly strenuous, though that could also have been jet lag and getting up at 4:15 a.m.
I really felt the altitude during our days in Namche Bazaar. My heart was racing, I was breathing faster than usual, and I sometimes woke up in the night gasping for breath. It didn’t help that my right nostril got completely clogged on the way up there, possibly the result of inhaling far too much donkey dung.
Bala advocated wearing a buff over my face to keep out the dung dust, but that made me feel like I was suffocating.
Some people take Diamox to ward off altitude sickness. I didn’t want to chance the side effects with a new sulfa drug, and I also didn’t want to use a drug to mask physical symptoms that could be better addressed by addressing the actual problem, so we went drug-free.
We just climbed slowly. That was always the solution. You can ALWAYS go slower.
Even when Bala declared us acclimatized and at no risk of any altitude-related difficulties, I still felt the lack of air. It wasn’t until we flew back to Kathmandu that my heart stopped racing.