Phakding (8,564ft) to Namche Bazaar (11,385)
#Miles4Missions Itinerary
Day1 (May 12th)–Bixby to Kansas City to Newark
Day2 (May 13th)–Newark to Dubai to Kathmandu
Day3 (May 14th)–Kathmandu
Day4 (May 15th)—Kathmandu to Lukla to Phakding
Day5 (May 16th)–Phakding to Namche Bazaar
Day6 (May 17th)–Namche Bazaar
Day7 (May 18th)–Namche Bazaar to Dole
Day8 (May 19th)–Dole to Machermo
Day9 (May 20th)–Machermo to Gokyo Ri to Gokyo
Day10 (May 21st)–Gokyo to Namche Bazaar
Day11 (May 22nd)—Namche Bazaar
Day12 (May 23rd)—Namche Bazaar
Day13 (May 24th)—Namche Bazaar to Tengboche
Day14 (May 25th)—Tengboche to Thukla
Day15 (May 26th)—Thukla to Gorekshep
Day16 (May 27th)—Gorekshep to Kala Patthar to Everest Base Camp
Day17 (May 28th)—Everest Base Camp
Day18 (May 29th)—***RACE DAY***Everest Base Camp to Namche Bazaar
Day19 (May 30th)—Namche Bazaar
Day20 (May 31st)—Namche Bazaar to Lukla
Day21 (June 1st)—Lukla to Kathmandu
Day22 (June 2nd)—Kathmandu to Dubai to Newark
Day23 (June 3rd)—Newark to Kansas City to Bixby
“Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations;
ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.”
-Deuteronomy 32:7
Here in Nepal—the world’s 11th poorest nation—climbing and trekking around the world’s highest peaks represents an absolutely essential one third of the national economy. Too often, keyboard warriors in the West, a majority of whom have never walked among real poverty, loudly rail against the climbing/trekking community. They claim ruin of the natural resources and exploitation of the Nepali people. How I wish these know-it-alls could’ve shadowed my journey today.
I began my day in the tiny hamlet of Phakding, a settlement of tea houses in the foothills along the Dhudh Kosi river and finished it sharing dinner with a living legend in the bustling hill station of Namche Bazaar. The trail was easy going in the start with the occasional ups and downs I’ve grown to love trekking in Nepal until I reached the village of Monjo. Monjo marks the entrance into Sagarmatha National Park. Sagarmatha is the Nepali moniker for the mountain we know as Everest. Sagarmatha roughly translates as “the head in the great blue sky.” The Tibetans who live on the north side of Everest call the great mountain Chomolungma—“Mother Goddess of the World.” The story of how it came to be known as Everest to the outside world is a pretty fascinating one if you ever get the chance to wade into it.
After a brief bag search from the Nepali military, I was officially in the national park. Interestingly, the search was looking for drones, which are strictly forbidden. I am sure there are lots of reasons why, but certainly one of them is the airspace in this particular region is flooded with helicopters and it isn’t hard to imagine a tragic accident if a drone found its way into the rotors of a chopper.
Just beyond the checkpoint at Monjo, the terrain began to steepen and I found myself facing my first real climb of this adventure. Above me about 350ft, I could see the famous Hilary suspension bridge spanning the chasm. I powered up with some M&M’s and started the climb. It was steady up and quite steep in a few places. I was soaked with sweat throughout the climb despite temperatures mostly in the low 60’s. For those that have done the Annapurna Base Camp trek, I found the climb to Namche a lot like the climb from Jhinu Danda up to Chomrong. Neither that climb, nor this one, is brutally difficult, but they are challenging enough to cause many people to question if this whole trekking thing was a big mistake. I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t pretty spent by the time I made it to Namche, but I knew I had a rest day coming and the excitement of finally arriving at this place I had dreamed about visiting for years overwhelmed my fatigue.
I had walked ahead of my porter Sidar, since he was burdened by my gear and my style is to walk slowly enough to need few breaks. It took me right at 4 hours to cover the 6+ miles and 3,000ft of gain from Phakding to Namche, and I made my way to our agreed upon guest house—Nirvana Home. Sidar knows everyone here and his recommendation turned out to be spot on. Nirvana Home is owned by kind Nepali man who happens to be the youngest son of 92 year old Kannche Sherpa the only living member of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary’s 1953 expedition that made the first ascent up Everest. In Nepali culture, it is the responsibility of the youngest son to care for their parents, so Kannche lives most of the year in Namche at Nirvana Home. Kannche is a very friendly man who spends his days sharing meals with guests of the tea house and answering a million questions about the world that was.
I enjoyed a dinner of veg fried rice, my go to Nepali meal and spent an hour talking to Kannche. He spoke of his friendship with Tenzing and Hillary and their many adventures and how grateful he was for the way modern trekking and climbing has brought resources to the Sherpa people, almost all of whom had known only poverty before their expedition on Everest. As someone who has spent my adult life walking among and serving the global poor, it is literally impossible to explain the degree to which capitalism has so radically improved the living conditions of the developing world. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is merely telling on themselves, and letting the rest of us know they’ve spent a bit more time listening to Ted Talks than they have walking through ghettos and villages. It’s a bit like when rich city folks go on a couple paid game hunts and then wax eloquent about hunting culture in front of the meat and potatoes rural Oklahomans I grew up with who haven’t bought meat from a store in a decade. I digress.
It was such an honor to sit with Kannche and hear his many stories. These men ascended the highest peaks in the world with hemp ropes, layered silk and wool garments, and hobnailed boots. I will have warmer gear on my summer ascents in the Rockies than any of these men had access to in their day in the most brutal conditions on the planet. That a single one of them survived with all of their fingers and toes intact borders on the miraculous.
It is so good for us to sit at the feet of the elderly and just listen. It is not an exaggeration to say that I know more information about the climbing of the world’s tallest peaks than does Kannche. I have spent years researching the Himalayas. I know the routes and approaches. I know why Covid in 2020 caused increased fatalities on Manaslu in fall of 2023. I could draw you a map of the south col route up Everest and list for you all of named obstacles along the way. And yet…AND YET…mine is book knowledge. I have never broken trail in waist deep snow to forge a first ascent on an 8,000 meter peak as Kannche has. I have never watched my friend fall into a crevasse, and help lower the world’s most famous mountaineer into the crevasse the next morning to pull out a man barely alive, but so badly frost-bitten that he would lose both hands and feet a much of his face as Kannche has. His is a lived experience. And someday—hopefully not so soon—he will pass and we will no longer have access to the riches of his experience.
I have grown to appreciate the wisdom of the elders as God saw fit to bless my home with our own 92 year old sage, my grandmother. These days grandma rarely tells a story I haven’t heard before; some, quite a few times. Still, she is a treasure. Born into the Great Depression and old enough to remember WW2. She has lived through 16 US presidents and 23 election cycles—incidentally, in this election year it is good to remember that each of those 23 cycles was billed as “the single most important election of our lifetimes.” Every so often someone will thank us for sacrificing and bringing grandma into our home. If they only knew. It is impossible to put a price tag on the value of getting to raise our children in a home with someone who has walked faithfully with Jesus for more than 8 decades. The wisdom and perspective of a 92 year old is so incredibly helpful when living amidst a generation so prone to short-sighted mistakes.
If you will allow me, I would like to offer you a little homework assignment. Maybe find someone of the greatest generation and ask them to coffee this week. Don’t come with an agenda. Just let them share their story with you. I promise you it will be worth the price of the coffee. As for me, I am going get some much needed rest. Tomorrow, I will head up the hill a bit in the morning to the Everest View Hotel (fingers crossed for good weather) and then head back down to enjoy a nice rest day here in Namche.
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