Mount Everest from your tent? That’s a view worth the trek

We are five days into an eight-day trek in the heart of the Himalayas with World Expeditions, and this point marks the peak of our ascent. Since landing at Lukla’s infamous airstrip, we have made our way about 41 kilometres, meandering through lush forests, past small Sherpa villages and over suspension bridges adorned with prayer flags, the milky waters of Dudh Koshi River rushing below. In just three days it will be time to say goodbye to the views that have become a constant companion.

For me, this trip is an opportunity for an adventure I’d long had on my wish list, and to lay eyes on a mountain seen as a pinnacle of human achievement since New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay conquered it 71 years ago.

Last year this yearning for adventure brought more than a million tourists to Nepal, 38,798 of them Australians, according to the Nepal Tourism Board – a post-lockdown record. Nor is the country expecting this rush to slow down, says our World Expeditions group leader Bir Singh Gurung, who has been leading treks since 1999.

“We are expecting 2023-24 to bring up to 2 million people [across cultural, pilgrimage and mountaineering tourism],” he tells me as we walk through the UNESCO heritage-listed Sagarmatha National Park one afternoon, surrounded by lush pink rhododendrons.

“This kind of adventure people are really, really into. It has been very popular since the ’90s,” he says.

And Nepal has changed rapidly over the intervening years.

“When I first started [as an assistant guide], these houses were all rock and mud. They weren’t concrete like now… So it was very basic around here.

“Similarly, when we were doing treks during that time, we used to do it all on camping grounds, so everything like cooking gear, food, kerosene – we’d carry it altogether. For, say, nine people on a hike we used to have about 27 or 30 people looking after us.”

World Expeditions has established seven semi-permanent campsites in the Everest region since 2016, meaning there is no longer a need to carry tents up and down the trails, and provisions are sourced from the local community. Each of the eco-comfort campsites, which offers stunning views, is maintained by residents, keeping the economic benefit of this tourism surge within the community.

The campsites also offer the small comforts I have come to cherish at the end of a challenging day. Rather than having to blow up a sleeping mat every night, I lay my sleeping bag – carried for me by one of World Expeditions’ porters – atop a camp bed with a mattress and pillow, and I can stand up in my tent, a welcome feature for someone almost six feet tall.

It feels more like glamping than camping, especially with the delicious food we’re being served in our heated dining rooms. The brick buildings are warmed using a renewable fuel source of dried yak dung, a traditional method used in the Himalayas for centuries.

Adventurers and pilgrims have been drawn to this land for centuries. It’s not hard to see why. They are drawn by the challenge of conquering these formidable peaks, by the stunning beauty, the country’s rich culture, and by religious sites like the historic Tengboche Monastery in Khumjung, in the Khumbu region of eastern Nepal.

Perched on a high ridge, the monastery, which is more than 100 years old, offers panoramic views of Everest, Lhotse, and Ama Dablam and has become a popular stopping place for trekkers who visit to receive blessings for their trip up the mountains.

For 52-year-old Brisbane finance manager Jean Joyce, the lure of seeing Mount Everest with her own eyes took her on a 17-day trip to Everest Base Camp in April. And Nepal left a lasting impression on her.

“Really, the only way I can explain it is that I feel like I’ve left this planet, gone somewhere else and come back, because it’s just unlike anything you know,” she tells Life & Leisure. “You kind of sit there and you think, �?Well, what I’m seeing is probably not that different to what Hillary saw.’ You look at all the peaks and everything almost gets suspended in time.”

The highlight of her trip was an early-morning hike up Kala Pattar, Hindi for �?black rock’, to watch the rising sun light up Everest. “That was pretty spectacular. Looking down over the glaciers, over Everest Base Camp and just getting the 360-degree view, and realising we were among the first people to see the sun hit today.”

But as the number of visitors to the region has steadily increased, particularly during the two peak seasons (March to May and September to November), so too have the challenges that come with mass tourism.

Over the years, social media has been awash with images of these majestic mountains littered with rubbish, with some even dubbing Mount Everest the world’s highest tip. Everest Base Camp has become a makeshift village, with tents, equipment and waste scattered across the landscape.

Now a quiet revolution is under way to lighten the footprint of the tourism industry on this land. In late April, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the government to limit the number of mountaineering permits issued for Everest, which topped 478 for foreign climbers in 2023, not including the hundreds more issued for sherpas and guides who accompany them on their treacherous ascents.

As Nepalese lawyer Deepak Bikram Mishra, who filed the petition urging permits to be curtailed, told Agence France-Presse, climbers are “pressuring the mountain too much, and we need to give it some respite”.

It’s a reality that isn’t far from my mind as packs of yaks and mules carry goods up the mountain, their bells jingling with each step. With no roads to speak of, everything visitors buy for their journeys still needs to find its way up the mountains, often on the backs of commercial porters who are paid by the kilogram.

As we make our ascent, I see dozens of men lugging all manner of goods in unwieldy bundles on their backs, supported by straps on their foreheads: endless cans of Coke, canisters of kerosene and even, unbelievably, a chest freezer which the box says weighs more than 46 kilograms. Some are wearing nothing more than socks and slides on their feet.

A sliver of guilt sets in each time I think of the World Expedition porter carrying my duffel bag and a fellow traveller’s (although the company does not allow them to carry any more than 30 kg). My day pack, which can’t weigh more than five kilos, suddenly feels feather-light.

It takes us several days of making our way up the mountains to get our first glimpse of Everest. The first few days we hike steadily for three or four hours as we acclimatise to the altitude, stopping overnight in the towns of Ghat (2530 metres) and Monjo (2835 metres). They offer us mountain views – but it’s just a taste of what’s to come.

As we get higher, the trail becomes steeper and a little more challenging, the air thins, and it gets harder to breathe easily.

Our group is skilfully led by BB, one of three Sherpa guides, who sets us a calm, methodical pace, even as the climbs stretch from minutes into hours. After each rest, he summons us to resume walking with a cry of “Jum, jum!” – Nepali for “Let’s go”, which we repeat back in unison.

By the time we make it to the thriving Sherpa village of Namche Bazaar (3440 metres), I feel like I have truly arrived in the mountains. As we step through the ornate entrance archway, the horseshoe-shaped town seems to wrap around us, with tiers of colourful homes and businesses ascending in tiers to our right, and mountain views on our left. A feeling of triumph, matched by the jovial music pumping from a nearby café, buoys us as we celebrate our arrival.

As we depart the next morning, driven by our anticipation of seeing Mount Everest, we are saddened to learn one of our party has been struck with a crippling migraine and is staying behind. By the next morning, a persistent cough forces another to seek respite at a lower altitude, reducing our number to eight.

It’s a timely reminder of the power the mountains yield – and the unpredictability of the effects of altitude – that stays with me as the group makes it over a ridge, to be greeted by the vista we’ve all been waiting for.

Weary from the climb, I wipe my brow and stare. It’s not at all what I expected. In my mind Mount Everest would stand strongly on its own, commanding all my attention as if to say �?I am the tallest mountain in the world’. In reality, I find myself gravitating towards our leader, Bir Singh.

“It’s that one, right?” I ask him tentatively, my arm pointed at the horizon. He laughs and points at the mountain to the right. “It’s that one,” he replies.

All the same, the thrill of seeing Everest stays with me the rest of the day, until we arrive at our semi-permanent camp in Kyangjuma (3550 metres).

Having been blessed with exceptional weather, this afternoon it begins to turn. The air is freezing, and the sky overhead turns gloomy. I curl up in our heated dining room, my hands gripping a cup of black tea, as drizzle begins to fall outside.

I gaze out the window at the mountains as snow begins to dust one of the nearby peaks just 200 metres or so above us and silently plan when I’ll return to this magical place.

The writer travelled as a guest of World Expeditions.