Nepal 2019 - The Plan

 With a lot of work pressure off my shoulders, it gave me ample time to jot down what I wanted to achieve in the next few weeks.

Nepal has a plethora of treks/circuits/summits to choose from, however, the one one trek that I really fancied as my first Nepalese adventure was easily 'The 3 High Passes' in the Kumbhu region. This beautiful and difficult trek goes around the Everest region and has multiple Pass crossings with varied altitude ranges which really intrigued me since I started reading more about it. The  fascination was also due to  the fact that till now, I had only trekked with commercial trekking companies in India who mainly had options to cover 1 pass in a week. So, to try doing multiple passes and doing it solo sounded quite exciting.

More than 30,000 hikers venture into Nepal's Everest region each year. More than 70% of them hike between the months of Apr-Jun. Most of them make a beeline from the airstrip in Lukla to tattered and windswept Everest Basecamp and straight back. That main trail has developed a very suburban feel, where you are seldom out of sight of fellow trekkers, much less the never-ending stream of mule trains and Nepali porters carrying unimaginable amount of load. Did I mention hotels, lodges, reggae bars and internet cafes line the trails.

So, the choice of month was easy and so was the route I would take. It had to be November and no shortcut to Lukla to join any herd. Inspired by John Hunt's - Ascent of Everest, I marked my itinerary and was going to attack it the old-fashioned way, like the pioneers who first went out to scout the great Himalayan mountain ranges.

Next step was calculating time and budget. I gave myself 20 days and about Rs.30k excluding flights to complete the trek going in an anticlockwise direction starting from Jiri. By the end of 20 days, I had planned to cross 3 passes, EBC and Kala Pathar and maybe a side-quest to Ama Dablam Basecamp. It was a relatively new option and made a continuous loop through the region and sticking mainly to less traveled paths.

The bags were packed, I was mentally and physically in a great state and ready for the challenge up ahead.






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