Tea houses and teamwork on a G Adventures' trek to Everest Basecamp

Everest spans two countries: Nepal to the south and Chinese Tibet to the north. The North Base Camp is much more accessible to non-hikers because it can be reached by car, along a paved road.

However, China infamously closed its Base Camp in early 2019 due to the amount of rubbish that had accumulated on their side of Everest, and visitors to the Chinese side are now prohibited from travelling beyond Rongbuk Monastery, a little below North Base Camp.

The Nepal side has always been more popular with travellers because of its mix of challenge, adventure, rich culture, stunning scenery, and those all-important bragging rights that you made it to Base Camp on foot.

Outside the window of my teahouse, the white incisors of the Himalayan range rise from the bleak, barren landscape and radiate their terrible beauty against a yawning indigo eternity. It’s impossible not to feel tiny and insignificant up here, far from civilisation, above the tree line, alone with that all-encompassing, dispassionate rock that looms above. I feel those jagged teeth will chew me up and spit me out.

And then, from the other end of our long dining table, I hear Andy – wrapped in his beloved Liverpool FC scarf – singing his football club’s anthem to himself. “Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll ne-e-e-ever wa-a-alk a-lone.”

I catch his eye while the oximeter – clipped back onto my finger, complete with fresh batteries – confirms that I’m fine and that my blood oxygen level is within the expected range at such altitude. He smiles and winks, waggling a chip at me by way of salute, and I laugh, at that moment very glad not to be undertaking this walk alone.

Shanker Bhattrai, chief experience officer, G Adventures

Do clients need to be fit to do this trek?

Yes, it’s important to be healthy, but the most important thing when attempting the hike to Everest Base Camp is to be confident, to believe you can do it. A lot of people feel like they have AMS when they do not. If you’re not confident you cannot make Base Camp.

How has the closure of the Chinese Base Camp affected Nepal?
The Nepal route has got a little bit busier because Tibet is closed, and we have a few more Chinese visitors, but it’s not made a big difference. We don’t have a problem with rubbish on our trails because we have bins along the route that are regularly emptied, and the waste is carried back down on the backs of sherpas.

What gear will clients need to pack?
Me! Seriously, the most important thing is to travel with experienced leaders and guides.

Even the most independent clients will find it best to hike Everest Base Camp with a tour group.

Completing the trek requires booking around two weeks’ accommodation, changing hotel nearly every night (except on days when you stay put to acclimatise to altitude). Going it alone would mean clients hiring their own guides and porters to carry luggage; organising local flights from Kathmandu to and from Lukla, the world’s most dangerous airport; and researching how best to ascend to avoid altitude sickness.

With all of these moving parts – and with quite a physical and mental challenge ahead of your clients – it makes sense to book with a tour operator like G Adventures. They handle all the logistics and planning and also provide travelling companions like Andy to keep spirits up when the exhaustion, cold and altitude inevitably get trekkers down.

Leaden-limbed, sucking at the thin air in quick, great gasps, I’m among the last of our group to arrive at Everest Base Camp. I trudge toward the outstretched hand of Pericles, a super-fit, vegan, Greek-born Londoner, aged 30.

He’s one of my hiking companions and he’s sat on a rock, puffing heavily at the oxygen-poor atmosphere, offering me an exhausted high five as a celebratory finishing point at the zenith of our two-week trekking trip. Beside him, perched on another boulder entirely supported by glacial ice, I find our 18-year-old fitness instructor with her head in her hands, breathless, a splitting headache temporarily keeping her from her planned routine of Instagram poses.

Of course, 54-year-old Andy was the first to arrive. While the rest of us spend our first moments here recovering after eight full days of hiking across Nepal’s swinging bridges, along vertiginous cliff edges and through trails of pine and rhododendrons, to these bleak-but-utterly-beautiful landscapes, Andy is casually strolling around at the base of the world’s highest mountain as if he were roaming the terraces of his beloved Anfield.

He grins at me and knocks back a long gulp of cola, apparently unfazed by altitude, his personal batteries still fully charged. I congratulate him on his epic achievement.

“I never doubted for a second I’d make it,” says Andy, beaming against a backdrop of fluttering prayer flags and snow-clad peaks.

And it’s his unwavering self-belief that really powered him – and us, his companions – up to this pinnacle of achievement.

Book it: G Adventures’ Everest Base Camp Trek starts from £1,019pp for a 15-day tour, including internal flights and accommodation but excluding external flights.

For more information visit: gadventures.co.uk

Smarter: The price of electricity for charging cameras and phones rockets as clients ascend in altitude, with some teahouses charging around $10 for a full charge. Suggest clients pack a solar charging panel that clips to their daypacks and recharges their devices as they hike.

Better: G Adventures also runs a Delhi to Kathmandu itinerary, which takes in the highlights of Northern India before visiting Nepal’s Chitwan national park. This is a great way to see more of this part of the world while ascending in altitude slowly for the whole trip.

Fairer: 100% of the services used to create G Adventures’ itinerary are locally owned, which has a positive impact on the local economy. The operator also supports Nepalese projects such as SASANE, which works to combat human trafficking by training survivors as paralegals.