29-05-2025
Flat whites and underfloor heating: How I got to Everest Base Camp in complete comfort
I'd always been puzzled by the idea of trying to reach the bottom of a mountain, rather than the top. Yet Everest Base Camp seduces thousands each year.
On a mission to understand why, I set out from Lukla. At 2,860m, Lukla is the legendary gateway for trekkers and climbers heading off to sight – and sometimes summit – the highest Himalayan peaks.
Lukla is not connected by road to anywhere; however, the flight from Kathmandu is one of the world's greatest (and most dangerous), weaving between snowy peaks landing at a short, steep runway.
I arrived in high season (April to June), and the tiny airport, named Tenzing-Hillary, was abuzz with Twin Otters and helicopters.
The highest point on the planet
On arrival, most trekkers start walking immediately. But, I was travelling with Mountain Lodges of Nepal, with a less frantic schedule. We had time for an alfresco breakfast at their nearby hotel before setting off.
It felt good to be on the trail, walking poles in hand, pack on back, moving in a steady rhythm, one boot after another, at times on stone paths, at others on packed earth.
There were trekkers moving in both directions – the ones facing me visibly weary after their two-week journey to Everest Base Camp.
Columns of donkeys and jhopkya (a yak-cow cross) bore saddle bags, often strapped with cooking gas cylinders.
I was most struck by the porters though, often no broader than me, carrying unwieldy weights — wooden doors and window frames, and heavy-duty gas pipes — up to 140kg.
I hardly dared utter ' namaste ' for fear of distracting them.
Then, there were the surroundings: below, teal glacial rivers charging through valleys strung with suspension bridges like bunting, and rising above us, the monumental peaks.
I imagined the motivation for this journey might be revealed slowly, at walking pace, but in fact, I almost instantly understood the allure of where I was.
I recalled books I'd read as a child — from George Mallory to Dervla Murphy to Jan Morris. This journey felt like an homage to those writers, even more so the Sherpas, mountaineers, merchants and monks, who have navigated this range.
The trail to Everest Base Camp is about engaging with the most significant trekking route in the world, its Sherpa and Buddhist culture, history of exploration, and our enduring fascination with the highest point on the planet.
Hot showers, underfloor heating and helicopter hotlines
For decades, the route to Everest has been for the hardcore but it is now opening up to others. Mountain Lodges of Nepal has been operating for over 30 years but they've recently upgraded their properties, and opened a handsome new one in Deboche, nearly halfway along the trail.
Yet for me, it wasn't the hot showers, underfloor heating, good food and thoughtful service; what their skilful itinerary offered was the gift of time – to pause for longer in Sherpa villages, monasteries and museums, and to speak at length with locals.
Trips like these can end up a scramble with early wake-up calls, rushed repacking, and back-to-back acclimatisation treks. Then, the weather closes in, or someone feels unwell, and all plans change. But we had extensive back-up support, a number of guides on call, even hotlines to helicopters, which allowed for greater flexibility.
The Goretex generation
I took advantage of this time and space, chatting to the chair of the Khumbyula Women's Group, an organisation of women in the Khumbu's villages who look after local affairs.
'We have a lot of families to help, disputes to settle, villages to keep clean, mani walls (Buddhist structures) to maintain,' Dolma Dekyi Sherpa told me.
Another day, I met 78 year-old Angphuba Sherpa, up a ladder painting his house; his first mountain was Annapurna in 1969. 'Back then, we had leather boots and cotton tents, now there's Goretex,' he said, with a toothless smile.
Many of the old Sherpas speak excellent English because of their time with British and international expeditions. 'I know foreign people want a quiet place when they come here, but we want a busy place.
'If lots of people come here, my grandchildren don't need to go to Europe to make money leaving only old people in the village.'
I met another Sherpa with blistered cheeks coming down from Everest. 'Where are you heading?' I asked, imagining he'd say 'home'.
'K2,' he replied, with a grin.
It was these moments that stood out, not to mention the many hot chocolates and apple pies I ordered en route at teahouses with reliable Wi-Fi, where I'd search up migrant birds and identified some purple blooms as primula denticulata.
The Everest Base Camp trek is not about going off-grid, it is about connecting in more ways than one.
'Losing our way of life'
Case in point is the former trading post of Namche Bazaar, now a high-altitude global village with baristas pouring flat whites, mountain gear shops and an Irish pub.
As I approached the bowl of pretty coloured houses, I stood amazed at how this settlement had been built on the backs of men hauling everything in, from bags of cement to lengths of rebar.
Here, I whiled hours away at the Sherpa Culture Museum. 'I saw we were losing our way of life, that's why I built this,' founder Lhakpa Sonam Sherpa told me. My own guide, Pasang Tshiring Sherpa was documented here, the second Nepali to climb K2.
I also visited Sagarmatha Next, an art space and hub of waste management. 'Until 15 years ago, Everest had a reputation for being a dumping ground,' co-founder Tom Gustafsson told me.
'Then we had some major clean ups, the Carry Me Back initiative to get rubbish off the mountain.'
The trail is near-immaculate, well managed by local NGO, Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee.
On Mount Everest itself, they told me there is still trash to be brought down, such as tarpaulin and tent poles; they're testing cargo drones, set to be a game-changer.
Day on day, we climbed, becoming familiar with the thinning air.
We rose up above rhododendron forests, hearing prayer flags beating in the wind, spotting shaggy Himalayan tahr on precarious ledges and the electric blue flash of a Himalayan Monal pheasant.
There had been some exhilarating routes, confronting the stony face of Ama Dablam, jagged Lhotse, and Everest with its flick of snow signifying high winds at the summit.
Welcome to Base Camp
I wondered if it was the journey hooking me, not the destination. Yet I fell for Everest Base Camp; at 5,364m, it felt like the closest I might get to a lunar station with its geodesic domes, solar arrays and tunnel tents among the otherworldly ice and moraine.
Different camps are marked by national flags and banners. Helicopters whirred in and out of the two heli pads, yet not drowning out the ding-dongs of yaks' bells. Beneath my boots, the glacier was alive, cracking and groaning.
By night, tucked into my sleeping bag, I heard avalanches and icefalls, while I snuggled my hot water bottle. I unzipped the tent to look at the stars, inhaling the clean tight air, to see a chain of head torches ascending the Khumbu Icefall off to the summit.
Some argue the Everest Base Camp trek has become too busy, but I didn't find it so.
Trekkers should not come to find serenity but to find energy. Still, there have been efforts to rein in numbers by mandating guides; requiring proof of climbing experience; capping helicopter landings.
The latter was pertinent to my own itinerary, with two helicopter flights, including back to Lukla. These hybrid heli-hiking trips can allow for a slower pace on the ground though, more bonding with Sherpa teams and the community.
The greatest challenge coming for us all is the climate crisis, of course. Many of my conversations with Sherpas were about the shrinking glacier, drier conditions and the fragile future of climbing.
This felt more a pilgrimage than a trek, and an ephemeral one at that.
How to do it
The Ultimate Travel Company has a 14-night Everest in Comfort trip from £7,485 per person, including international flights from London to Katmandu with Qatar Airways, private airport transfers, three nights at The Dwarika's Hotel in Kathmandu with breakfast, one day private sightseeing in the capital with an English speaking guide.
