It’s on Day 7 of your trek to Mt. Everest Base Camp that you finally reach your destination. This is the day you’ve been working toward and dreaming of, and it’s a doozy.

Starting from Lobuche, you’ll have a flat hike for about an hour before a short, steep climb up onto the moraine of the Khumbu Glacier.

Next is a few hours slowly picking your way through a narrow, rocky, circuitous path, scrambling around boulders at times to yield to yak trains and the occasional rider on horseback. There will be good views of Nuptse and Pumori, and of the peak of Everest.

You’ll arrive in Goak Shep, where you’ll spend the night, then have a brief break and a cup of tea before heading up to Base Camp. Gorak Shep is just a handful of guest houses, in a flat, dusty and barren patch of ground wedged between the glacier and Kala Patthar.

About 20 to 30 minutes out of Gorak Shep, you can look up the valley a few miles to base Camp, and (in season) see the expedition tents. It’s about a 3-hour round trip to EBC. You climb back up onto the moraine and follow it, relatively straight, all the way to base camp. It’s not unusual to see and hear far-off  avalanches (from a safe distance) crashing down on the mountains all around you.

You’ll have regular views of Everest until just before you get to the icefall and descend down into Base Camp. There’s a prominent pile of stones, festooned with prayer flags, at the edge of camp that serves as sort of the symbolic destination. This is where everyone congregates and poses for photos.

After that, you head back down to Gorak Shep for the evening in the tea house, exhausted but thrilled to have accomplished your goal. Next up is a trip to Kala Patthar on Day 8 and then the start of the journey home.

Trek the Himalayas

with Embark Exploration Company!