Our Everest Region Trek

Taking advantage of the fact that the Australian Open tennis - our annual couch-potato season - was on in late January 2004, the Purdam family hitched up our thermals and headed somewhere very cool and airy for Christmas, viz. winter in the Everest region of Nepal.
In a nutshell, we followed the black line and:

flew to Lukla, trekked up the Dudh Khoshi and Imja Khola valleys to Chhukhung, trekked to Lobuche and climbed Kala Pattar, crossed the Cho La Pass and Ngozhumpa Glacier to Gokyo, and trekked back down to Lukla and flew back.

If you want something more interactive, here's a Google Map of the trip.
You might like to open this in a new tab whilst you go through the blog of the trip...



View Everest Region in a larger map

And a flickr slideshow of my best pics...





The detailed itinerary is given below. Each day will be linked as it gets uploaded.

Day 1 - Fly to Lukla (2840m), walk to Phakding (2610m)
Day 2 - Phakding to Namche (3440m)
Day 3 - Acclimatisation Rest day - Khumjung (3780m) and Khunde (3840m)
Day 4 - Namche to Tengboche (3860m)
Day 5 - Acclimatisation Rest day - Tengboche (~4100m)
Day 6 - Tengboche to Dingboche (4410m)
Day 7 - Acclimatisation Rest Day - Nangkar Tshang (5040m)
Day 8 - Chhukhung Ri (5404m) and Chhukhung (4730m)
Day 9 - Chhukhung to Dingboche (4410m)
Day 10 - Dingboche to Lobuche (4920m)
Day 11 - Kala Pattar (5540m)
Day 12 - Lobuche to Dzonghla (4840m)
Day 13 - Christmas Day - Over Cho La Pass (5420m) to Dragnag (4700m)
Day 14 - Dragnag to Gokyo (4790m)
Day 15 - Gokyo Lakes (~5000m)
Day 16 - Gokyo Ri, (5360m) Gokyo to Luza (4390m)
Day 17 - Luza to Khumjung (3780m)
Day 18 - Khumjung to Phakding (2610m)
Day 19 - Phakding to Lukla (2840m)
Day 20 - Lukla to Kathmandu (1324m)

The Naming of Chomolungma
I decided to append the more appropriate Tibetan name Chomolungma to my usage of the word Everest when referring to the mountain (much like the New Zealanders refer to their highest mountain as Mt Cook/Aoraki). The Tibetan culture had referred to this mountain as Chomolungma long before the English dubbed the name Everest, and before the ruling Nepalis decided to use Sagarmatha. The Sherpas of the Khumbu region are more closely linked culturally, linguistically and genetically to Tibet than to Kathmandu. I retained the phrase Everest region for the Khumbu area, simply because it is more widely recognised.

Names and Altitudes Used
In naming peaks in the pictures, and giving heights, I have generally tended to go with National Geographic's 1:50,000 Everest Base Camp map (3001), except where that data is missing or obviously incorrect. In which case I have referred to the Schneider 1:50,000 Khumbu Himal map. I sometimes referred to Trekking in Everest by Jamie McGuiness for altitudes and some notes, particularly estimated trekking times.

Do not rely on my information for navigating.

As seen on Andrew Purdam's Bushwalking Treasure Box blog.