April 13 (Saturday)
today’s trail
Today was the last day of our trek and the final move to our new home away from home: the Everest Base Camp. We also were to gain the final 1500 ft (1541f to be exact). It doesn’t sound much, but there is a big difference in gaining 1500 ft at sea-level vs at 16000 ft already… Because of my unfortunate encounter with the toilet last night, I felt pretty queasy today. This leg of the trail was probably one of the easiest ones so far uphill-wise, but it felt the hardest one for me yet. My legs were hurting and were occasionally cramping up from the lack of electrolytes my body got rid of the previous night. I wasn’t the only one suffering; the altitude finally caught up with Andy and gave him a splitting headache.
We reached Gorak Shep at 16,942 ft), the last village before base camp, and traveled through a huge plain field that resembled more of a waterless beach than a mountain landscape.
We were able to sneak a peak at Everest on the trek, as well as part of the Khumbu Icefall.
sliver of Everest with the jet stream from the summit
peak of Everest in the middle
‘extension’ of Khumbu Icefall. The yellow tents in the background is Base Camp!
We continued on through gently rolling rocky hills that seemed to be built out of nothing but huge boulders, and we finally reached the beginning of Base Camp!! If you look closely, you’ll notice that the Sherpas didn’t change the sign from last year, and it still says 2012! 😉
The girls of our expedition. From the left: Raha, me, Siobhan
Andy and I at the entrance of Base Camp
I say ‘the beginning’ because the whole thing is just huge! It resembles more of a little city of tents. It took us good 40 min to reach our own tents situated at almost the very end of the Base Camp, but also very close to the actual Icefall. I was so glad we finally reached our destination! I knew now I was safe from the ‘cooties’ of a third world country =)
Gosia Treks 
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