Why this itinerary?
Everyone knows about the Everest Base Camp trek. This is the one where people walk all the way from Lukla to the actual base of Mount Everest, right under the Khumbu Ice Fall. Few tourists spend the night in the base camp itself; most walk there and back as a day trip from Gorak Shep, the last settlement on the trail before base camp itself.
But. The overwhelming impression I’ve gotten from reading numerous blogs and watching umpteen vlogs is that the last few days on the EBC route suck. People get cold, tired, and sick. The lack of oxygen (perhaps exacerbated by moving too fast?) really gets to them by the end. The accommodations are bare-bones and the food is increasingly monotonous.
Chris and I really like our comfort. By that, I mean we would at least like to have a private room to sleep in, and ideally an en suite bathroom. We like to have electricity in our bedroom so we can charge our devices at night.
The teahouses and Sherpa lodges that are the mainstay of EBC lodging don’t guarantee those things. The toilets are shared, in some cases a single squatty potty for an entire floor. The showers are down the hall and you have to pay extra for them. There might not be electricity. Many places have a charging station in the dining room where guests can pay to charge their phones. The dining rooms are the only heated parts of the lodges, so they can get crowded with wet, muddy, possibly loud-mouthed tourists.
We don’t mind toilets down the hall from time to time, but we don’t relish a steady diet of it. Though I’m sure our fellow travelers are charming people, and I know that meeting people from other lands is part of the wonder of travel, especially mountain dirtbag travel, but Chris and I do like to keep our own company. And daily showers.
We really don’t want to have to bunk down on the benches in the dining hall. It doesn’t have to be the Four Seasons, but sleeping with strangers is a bridge too far.
The Everest Lodge-to-Lodge hike itinerary duplicates the classic Everest Base Camp trek up to Pangboche–which is the last place on the route where there are “comfort” accommodations. After a brief glance up the trail that runs along the river (the Dudh Khosi) toward Lhotse, Nuptse, Sagarmatha (aka Chomolungma, aka Mt. Everest), it turns back west toward the Sherpa settlement of Phortse for a relatively comfortable night at altitude before heading back to Namche Bazaar by a different route. This cuts a few days off the full there-and-back trek while also providing some variety in trails and accommodations.