Gautam and team safely returned from the Mt. Everest Base Camp and successfully raised over $11,000 for Comp2Kids. We greatly appreciate everyone’s contribution to Trek4Kids and supporting the Comp2Kids program. As a result, we were able to connect over 1600 families with a home computer and basic computer literacy training.
We would like to give special recognition to the trekkers,Gautam Gujral, Stephen Forte, Linda Varoli and Tom “Tank” Djurdjevich for climbing to the Mt. Everest Base Camp.
We would also like to acknowledge the Credit Suisse team, Sara Lander, Darren Malcolm, Juan Camilo, and Donna Ferruggia for helping to make Gautam’s vision a reality.
Take the journey and learn about the highs and lows of the trek at www.youtube.com/user/comp2kids.
3 years ago
4 a.m. came about way to early and we were all awake, packed and ready to go to Lukla for our 8:30 a.m. flight. We started our last portion of our trek with our headlamps on our forehead walking along the Dudh River - it looked whiter than ever in the dark, and the stars were still clearly visible as well. We crossed the river 5 or 6 times that morning over suspended bridges, and got to Lukla in good time to watch the first plane land. The weather Gods appeared to be with us and we stopped for tea at one of our Sherpa’s houses in Lukla before boarding our plane. The pilot gunned the plane’s two propellers, and we rolled down the runway (remember it is not a flat runway) and off to Kathmandu. During the flight we remarked that it was strange to be flying at an altitude lower than we had been been walking on.
Once in Kathmandu, we had culture shock of a different kind with the narrow streets, congested with cars and people, and the pollution that burns once you have spent time in pure air. But like with any thing, we adjusted. Back at the Yak and Yeti Hotel, we went straight to the barber shop to watch Tom ‘the Tank’ shave his head (for charity, of course), and I got a much needed shave and haircut. This was definitely the best trek I had ever been on and I hope that the pictures we add to this site will give a glimpse of why we think so. Thanks again for all your support and stay tuned for more pictures.
3 years ago
We packed our bags, got our gear and walked outside to the Edmund Hillary School. School starts at about 10 a.m. and the kids had gathered in the school yard for assembly and exercise. The school consists of many buildings and the money for most have been donated by foreigners. As a result kids from 1st grade through high school get an education right where they live and seem to be very proud of their school - considering that they were all wearing their school uniforms on their Sunday strolls with their families. We have some good footage of the school and assembly which we will post on this site in a few days.
After spending some time at the school we hiked out of Khumjung to Namche Bazaar for lunch. We passed the helicopter landing pad where Yaks from the Korean expedition were waiting for the helicopter to land with even more equipment that would be carried to Mt. Everest Base Camp. Since it had rained heavily, quite a few people on our team slipped and slid on the mud on the way to Namche. That was fun!
After a delicious lunch at Namche, we set off toward our final destination for the day Phakding (2610’). We once again were accompanied by random dogs on the trail, and encountered many Yak trains. We also saw some mountain goats and have good pictures which will be added to the web site soon. At one village, we encountered groups of kids coming home from school, and spent some time greeting them with the traditional greeting ‘Namaste’ and taking photos which they were eager to see displayed on our camera screens.
At Phakding, dinner in the tea house included an impromptu performance by members of the group of Ameican songs and some Bulgarin rap (yes, there is such a thing and it sounds good) by Vasil. We paid our porters and Shepas (all cash is the way they like to get paid) and they presented us with more scarves to wish us a pleasant further journey and to say thanks. They then got us to join in some local song and dance and that was fun. We called it an early night as we were all beat and had to get up early.
3 years ago
You could call this day a tough one. We set out from Pheriche to reach Khumjung where Sir Edmund Hillary had established a school. Now, on a map, it looked liked a doable hike (if we kept up the pace) and we all had great intentions of making further ‘descents’ and enjoy the increased oxygen that this would bring. We started off nicely enough with the usual ups and downs but some 6 hours into the trek everyone started to run out of energy completely, and major amounts of energy bars and waters were needed to keep people’s spirits up. In the end it was the unconditional promise to receive cold local beverages made of a well understood concoction of watwer, wheat, barley, and hops that finally got people doing the team ‘FIGJAM’ cheer as we climbed hill over hill to get to Khumjung. The Sherpas joined in with some of the songs that we had taught them (and which they will undoubtedly torture future trekkers with) and continoulsy managed our expectations by misinforming us about the time it would take to get to Khumjung!
Khumjung was so different than all the towns (with the possible exception of Namche Bazaar) that we had encountered on our trek. It had an abundance of electricty generated by a hydro-electric plant, a few street lamps and tons of homes. 
As in all other towns we had trekked through, there were no motorized vehicles of any kind, but Khujung’s suburbs had a helicopter pad that made the delivery of supplies somewhat easier. The town had a very nice feel to it, and since it was Sunday, lots of families were out on a stroll in the evening. We got to the tea house before dark, and unwound from our day before someone had the great idea to try and rent a helicopter big enough to pick us up and fly the whole group to Kathmandu!
The fear was that if the weather was bad we would all get stuck in Lukla for days waiting for our plane back to Kathmadu and all be late for work and family obligations. The downside is that helicopters have somewhat of a suspect safety record in high altitudes - especially if they are about 40 years old. After two hours of discussion, we decided to sleep on it and make a decision the next morning. We were spared having to make a decision because we found out that helicopters were booked through September 26th!
-Gautam Gujral
3 years ago
‘Christmas in September,’ was the first thing that came to mind after we woke up in Gorak Shep to two to three inches of snow that fell during the night.
Our plans to go to Kala Pattar (18,700’) were up in the air. We gathered for morning tea to sort out our options. For safety reasons, we decided to go back down the mountain as we did not have the necessary mountaineering equipment to climb up to Kala Pattar in a snow storm. We took final group photos of the awesome peaks near Everest Base Camp where we hiked the day before.
We made good time as we were on our way to Pheriche, a drop of 3,400’.
Back to the Eco Lodge, AKA the Taj Mahal of Nepal, for lunch. I laid down for a cat nap filled with thoughts of barbecue, taxis and clean bathrooms. No, those were real referenes made by Linda, Richard, and Joel, while I was lying down after lunch.
We motored on in hopes of beating the bad weather. We crossed a small bridge and added two mascots, a brown and black dog. These dogs looked like shepherding dog but since they were not really herding any Yaks we could not be sure. In any case, they were very friendly and loved walking along with us. Many big, fully loaded, yaks crossed between the edge of the path and the side of the hill. You could fit a sheet of paper between us, the yaks, and the cliff. At one point a Yak made a sudden chage with his horns towards Ngima, our head Sherpa, and he quickly jumped out of the way never removing his hands from his pockets
- grace under attack. We arrived in Pheriche with our new dogs/mascots
and celebrated with hot showers, naps, and rehydration.
-Gautam Gujral
3 years ago
We woke up at 5 a.m for a 5:30 a.m. breakfast and a 6 a.m. departure from Loboche. Our destinantion was Gorak Shep, last stop before Mt. Everest base camp. We hiked for 2 1/2 hours (mostly uphill from Lobuche. Along the way, we made way on the narrow passes for yaks carrying equipment for the South Korean expedition team that is going to try and summit Mt. Everest this Fall.
We got to Gorak Shep. Hard to believe that this place warrants a dot with its name next to it on a map - it has 5-7 structures and one of its was our tea house, the Yeti Resort…which is mighty basic. After a quick snack of tea and vegetable fried rice, we headed off in a light snow/hail storm to Mt Everest base camp. This was a tough slog. The hike starts off casually enough walking on a dirt path dodging Yak droppings. Then we started going up and down a ‘path’ that is really just an assortment of boulders until we arrived at a high narrow ridge with steep drop-offs on each side. On the right side of this ridge was a glacier with deposits of huge bouklders and gravel. Beyond that glacier lay ‘ice falls’ literally frozen ice that look like water falls.
At some point we cut right over the glacier over its now now slippery rocks and reached the Mt. Everest ice falls, aka Mt. Everest Base Camp. Yahoo! Eight days after we started our trek from Lukla we had arrived at our destination. One step and hill at a time. We took a few pictures, admired the view, decided that people who come to live here for months and climb Mt. Everest are out their minds and, in light of the weather, decided to head back to Gorak Shep. The wind was blowing quite hard, and the rocks were getting slippier by the minute. We hiked back the way we came, and given how tired we were we were exhorting each other to pay great attention to each and every step. A broken bone up here can become a disaster even deadly.
We took care to hydrate (as we had been doing all along), munch on power bars and Gu, and our Bulgarian trekker Vassil even broke out his can of Red Bull that he had been carrying with him for the whole trek. Thankfully, we made it back to the tea house a bit wet but in one piece. We immediately changed into dry (but by now smelly!) clothes and warmed ourself by the yak-dung-fueled stove and waited for dinner. Believe it or not, we were not very hungry when dinner arrived. Altitude does that to a person. But since we needed those red blood cells more than ever, we forced ourselves to eat all the garlic soup and assorted fried food that Gorak Shep had for us!
-Gautam Gujral
3 years ago
Woke up to sunny morning with great views of the mountains. After breakfast, we headed over to the Tengboche monastery but it was shut, blinds drawn, nobody home. All that was missing was a “gone fishing” sign on the door.
Since the monks were away, we headed over to the boss’ house. Lama Geshi greeted us with a big smile and asked us to come in. Il Lama is the head Buddhist religion authority for the region, and Lama Geshi is the head of the Mount Everest Region. If we were expecting a solemn, stern religious figure, we were in for a surprise. Lama Geshi is a joker of the highest order who loves to laugh and it is a rather infectious one. We went into his living room where he said a prayer on our behalf and invited each one of us forward to:
a: lightly touch our forehead with his,
b: have a cream colored scarf placed upon our neck,
c: have an orange string tied around our neck.
He gave each of us a hug and also presented us with a card with our name and a blessing. His living room is filled with pictures of trekkers and climbers who have come by to receive his blessings. Sherpas refuse to summit Mount Everest without his blessings, and the Lama has walked to Mt Everest in his robes and slippers to provide such blessings.
After his ceremony, we headed back to the teahouse where we found the little girl who lives there throwing the freshly cut grass around in the court yard. Unbeknownst to her, a plane was helping in the hay making process for the coming winter.
We’ve encountered a lot of children on this trip and had a great time playing with them and engaging them in conversations. The day before, we had a friendly soccer game with a couple of kids on our way out of Bazaar. Michael Coman our 22 year old fellow trekker from Portland Oregon, has a lot of little toys with him that he hands out to kids in every village that we encounter them. The pure joy that the kids exude has been a highlight of this trip.
Since we had about 90 minutes before lunch, I went and found a big rock next to a raging river and basked in the sunshine for a while. I appreciated the alone time and was rejuvenated for the walk to Pheriche after lunch.
The walk to Pheriche was only 2 1/2 hours and not that physically demanding, although we did gain altitude ending up at 14,000 feet. The hike out to Tengboche quickly brought us to highlands with some bushes, heathers and a lack of trees. We were literally walking through the clouds and it was considerably cooler than the rest of the trek. We started seeing a lot of the local bovine, the yak (male) and the nak (female). These animals have a thick coat of black/white fur and what’s most amazing to watch is how they move their weight up steep inclines.
Pheriche is a small village with a new memorial devoted to those who have died climbing Mt Everest going back to 1923.
Not much else to do here. But we spent September 10th here as well acclimatizing and getting used to the Turkish style toilets.
Posted by Gautam via Satellite phone
3 years ago
Sept 8th - We set out from Namche Bazaar at 8:30am. For some reason the first half hour or so of every day hike seems to be the worst. We got over it and hiked on side of the mountain along the Dudh River. This river had been along with us since Lukla.
All of a sudden we came across a memorial in the middle of the trail. It a was a memorial celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first summit of Mt Everest in 1953. It was in honor of Tenzig Norgay and the Sherpas of Everest as “true tigers of the snows”. The memorial as shortened had been paid for by the descendents of Tenzig Norgay as well as Rolex Geneva. Go Swiss. Tenzig Norgay was the Sherpa who accompanied Edmund Hillary to the top of Mount Everest in 1953.
After Mr. Hillary become famous for his summit, he spent many years building schools in Nepal. He loved Nepal so much that he turned down an offer by a Hollywood movie company to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his climb with big movie productions and promotions. Instead he came to Nepal to celebrate with the Sherpas without whom he could have never climbed Mt. Everest. Mr. Hillary died earler this year, but is revered by the Sherpas for the good work he has done for Nepal. Lest we forget.
We again had great views of all the peaks surrounding us including Mount Everest and Ama Dablam. The sun was shining and we were hot hiking up and down the sides of mountains. So we were mostly in shorts, t-shirts, hats and tons of SPF 55+ moisturizing lotion. A little further down the trail we came across a man, Mr. Pasang Lama Sherpa who from afar looked like he was manning a lemonade stand. A bit old to be manning a lemonade stand. And for once I was right. It turns out he’s been maintaining the trails that lead up to Mount Everest Base Camp out of a sense of social duty. I confirmed this with our Sherpas and I was happy to leave a donation. I think I’ll leave a bigger donation on the way back because he’s doing tremendous work. By the way, I did ask our Sherpas why the government did not maintain the trails. Their answer verbatim, “Government has no power. Only man has power”. That’s a sobering thought.
As we were enjoying our down hill hike, disaster struck. Remy, our checker from Amsterdam, Holland, was experiencing boot failure. The soul of his brand new Dutch hiking boot had separated from the body of the shoe. Super Sherpa came to the rescue. He took the shoe to the tiny village we just passed, had the soul sewn back on for $1 and was back in 20 mins. Good for Remy. Because the next hour or so was a severe hill climb to the town of Tengboche.
We had stopped for lunch. There for the third time on this trip, we ran into Random Trekker 2 (or RT2 for short). But more about RT1 and RT2 on a later date. Now lunch was interesting because even though we arrived last, we got served first. Why was that? Was it because as RT2 said, even our people knew people? No. It was because we figured out how the tea houses work. Tea houses don’t start harvesting, cleaning, chopping and cooking the food until the order is placed. So rather than wait to order until we were seated, we would send one of our Sherpas ahead of us who would arrive there an hour before we did. We knew what to order because all the tea houses basically served the same food. So when we get to a tea house for lunch our food is ready, our water boiled and everyone else is just wondering how this rather boisterous group gets their food so quickly. The answer, never underestimate the power of 11 Type A+ personalities on a trek.
At Tengboche we visited the local monastery, which was beautiful. I must explain that in addition to learning about Buddhism the monks are taught sciences, history, geography and other things about the world. Since many of the monks in training are in school and are college aged boys and young men, this approach makes sense to me.
No rest for the weary. After the monastery we trekked for a few more hours through the town of Pengboche. We walked through Rhodadendrum Force and along Kashi River, since we had turned away from the Dudh River at it’s source.
Linda, Remy and Nima stopped by the medical center run by a local nurse trained in India and dropped off the over the counter medical supplies Linda had brought along from New York City. We arrived at our tea house in Peng Peoche at about 5:30. We had dinner and were in bed by 8:30. Long Day!
Authored by Gautam Gujral, called in by Tom Djurdjevich via Satellite phone from Pheriche Resort, Nepal
3 years ago
Saturday, September 6, was when I relearned to become a mountain goat. Let’s just say that some of the marathoners and other athletes on the trek hurt just as much in climbing five to six miles from Phakding (9,500’) to Namche Bazaar (11,500’) yesterday as they have in the entire Great Wall Marathon which was the hardest of the 12 marathons some have completed (harder than the Antarctica Marathon!). I have to ask myself what am I doing here with these ueber athletes? Maybe it’s a bit late to ask that question.
We started out dressed in gaiters to keep the water out of our boots. But it dried out and we removed them to keep our feet from getting too warm. A slight drizzle came down to cool us down and made a hard day somewhat easier.
We crossed swaying metal suspension bridges which were just above the foaming white water rushing just below in the Dudh (“Milk”) River. We saw some of the most beautiful water falls that you will ever see. (It would give Victoria Falls a run for its money.) I just hope that no crazy kayaker gets it into his or her head to try that river. If they last more than a few minutes before they get killed by the rocks and rapids it will be a few minutes more than I would have bet they last.
After a contentious political debate at lunch, Steve (our trek leader) pushed us as punishment and to beat the two British climbers just ahead of us. The two British climbers were led a female sherpa (‘sherpa getty’) who had climbed Everest a while back. Steve wanted to trade one of our sherpas for the female sherpa. Ngima (our lead Sherpa) wouldn’t have any of it.
Steve pushed us up hill after hill. ‘Are we almost there Papa Smurf?’ lost its meaning by the tenth hill where we thought we were getting closer. We arrived at the same time that the porters did. Wow! We were cruising.
I had the best shower of my life after getting to the tea house. We had a good relaxing dinner and I slept like a baby. It was the first time in weeks that I have slept more than 5-6 hours.
-Gautam Gujral
3 years ago
In the last 12 days only 3 flights have flown to Lukla and today is our day to catch a flight. The pilots only fly by sight (not instruments) and if there is fog they will not fly. There has been a lot of fog as we are at the tail end of the monsoon season. We get up early, put some of our luggage in storage at the hotel and go to the domestic airport. The airport is a bit wild and orderly all at the same time and we get whisked through security and to the waiting lounge. We are waiting at the lounge and hoping that all those prayer wheels we turned yesterday at the Buddhist temples will bring us luck and our flight will actually leave for Lukla. Before we know it we are being asked to board the plane and see our luggage being put in the back. The plane itself is a tiny twin Otter propeller plane and we are squished together on tiny benches much like on a bus. Will this thing be able to clear thiose huge mountains we see in the background with about 20 people and luggage?
What a great flight that turned out to be. I had a window seat and caught glimpses of far away peaks just shining in the sign and peaking just over the clouds. Instead of the in flight meal and movie, the stewardess gave us cotton balls so our ears wouldn’t pop. Our seats were bleacher seats with cardboard on top. As we started approaching the higher mountain chains, we flew so close to the peaks that you could make out individual features – like the shape of the trees on the top of the mountain. It was a bit scary at times. On the mountains, one could see dirt roads, homes far apart from each other and best of all was one could not see – there were no power lines anywhere.
All of a sudden, we saw Lukla and its one of a kind runway. If you have ever skateboarded, our runaway was like a 50+ degree skateboard ramp where you touch down low and then taxi up to stop the momentum and brake. The pilot banked around the mountain and then dipped to nail the landing.. As we pulled up to the terminal we saw a whole bunch of trekkers hugging their Sherpa guides saying goodbye – some of them had been stuck in Lukla for 12 days!
We jumped out of the plane and on to the tarmac, and saw how the porters who would be with us for the rest of our trek grabbed our larger bags and we grabbed our day packs. The plane was reloaded within 10 minutes and in the air again in no time. Our trek had just begun!
We had a few cups of tea (made with Yak milk which is quite sweet) at the local tea house as tea helps with the altitude. This is the first time that I have walked with poles in my hand but am I glad to have them. The tips are made of graphite and grip the rock on the ground well. We walked from Lukla (9000 feet) to Phakding (9500 feet) which was not too strenuous. We had dinner at the tea house we were staying at were in bed by 8:30 or so.
-Gautam Gujral
3 years ago
