Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu Record
A Himalayan adventure
...so, it is over and a new record is achieved!! Unfortunately only 2 of the 3 made it all the way to Kathmandu (I dropped out at Jiri) but the standard for the 188 miles now stands at 3 days 2 hours and 36 minutes.
It almost didn't happen! - a fine first night had been followed by increasing tiredness as we had all been on our feet for almost 36 hours; we made the decision to take the “safe” night-time option of travelling via Jiri and along the road to Kiratichap and this turned into a living nightmare as we lost the route to Jiri in the dark – taking over 4 hours to cover what should have been a comfortable 2 hour section from Shivalaya. Arriving in Jiri at 11pm, totally exhausted, we abandoned the project and sought somewhere to sleep. A hay loft provided the answer. After a scant 5 hours we awoke and Spyke/Lizzy decided they could carry on although a record time was now going to require some extremely hard work. For me, though, it was the end as I simply knew that the massive ascents and descents of the previous 40 hours had taken enough out of my legs to make contemplation of the remaining, flatter, 95 miles unrealistic at the speed necessary.
…back to the beginning. Thick frost on the inside of the lodge window at Gorak Shep (5200metres) in the pre-dawn greyness at 4.50am confirmed that our start would be a chilly affair. We gulped down hot tea and tsampa porridge in the lodge before setting off towards base camp with the dawn. We had decided that staying in the lodge the night before the attempt was our only option even though this meant having to endure 90 minutes of scrambling over the glacial moraine to base camp even before we started the run. Members of the Thai expedition were just surfacing as we SMS messaged our start position/time to our support crew and to the president of the Nepal Olympic committee and quickly took our start photo. A 7.30am start was planned but this was no place to hang around so, at 7.16am, we were off; breath rasping in the thin air at 5400metres and about -10C. The views were incredible with cloud filling the lower Khumbu valley and the sun now hitting the tops of Nuptse, Pumori, Thamserku and Cholatse.
Much of the first 100 miles of the route is unrunnable due to the steep ascents and boulder strewn descents. Ironically, some of the few easy stretches occur in the early miles but as you are still above 4500 metres the air is painfully thin and, for Spyke and myself, even mild exertion brings on spasms of bronchitic coughing – a legacy of Ama Dablam - the mountain we have just climbed.
Our new friend at Dughla lodge – Tashi Tsering (Mr T) has milky tea and lemon tea waiting for us after the first 2 hours and with the sun up we are now down to shorts and thermals rather than the duvet jackets, balaclavas and gloves we started with. As the day warms up, the trail becomes incredibly busy with tourists, porters and numerous yak trains. Some of these porters are carrying loads equivalent to our own body weight so it’s only fair to give them the right of way. As for the yaks, the fine pair of horns each carries ensures they get our respect so we are often forced to wait on the trail or detour up the hill to continue our progress.
All such a contrast from when I was here in 2002 and the Maoist troubles were underway. Right now it looks as though the Khumbu is being loved to death like the Lake District and we have to remind ourselves that, away from this “Honeypot” there is incredible poverty in hill Nepal that we hope to be able to do something about through our fundraising efforts with Community Action Nepal.
We chose CANepal because of their approach. Rather than doing projects “to” people – the results of which are often left as white elephants, unused and rotting in the countryside – CANepal work with local communities; ensuring that they want the project, raise some of the funds for the project and are intimately involved with the design and construction. The results, in terms of schools, water, health facilities and sanitation are much more closely attuned to the needs of these local communities and much more sustainable.
We are around 1 hour down reaching Namche but, on a run scheduled for 3 days this is not a real concern. Here, our climbing leader who safely saw us up Ama Dablam a few days earlier, Victor Saunders, is waiting for us with hot tea, cake and pizza!! We are down to 3500 metres now and the air is thickening so that it is the legs that get the workout rather than the lungs.
Once again the trail is incredibly busy down towards Lukhla (where over 95% of westerners start and end their journeys at the town's little airstrip). Immediately beyond the Lukhla turnoff, however, we are instantly back to 'real' Nepal; simple lodges, porters carrying heroic loads of everyday necessities and a much quieter trail. We stop in Chaurikharka for some much needed soup and noodles and head off into the night. The first few miles aren’t so bad as we are still following the drainage of the Dudh Kosi downwards but as soon as we reach Jubing Bridge we will turn West and head across the grain of the land with 5 passes in quick succession. Although we are all feeling quite strong, the scheduled times we had set ourselves are proving demanding. By dawn we have reached Junbesi, a delightful village below the Lamjura La – a high pass at 3520 metres. More tea and tsampa porridge fuel us for the ascent which is enlivened by watching the antics of the local monks making their noisy way up the valley to visit the pass and replace the colourful prayer flags that adorn all the passes, bridges and sacred spots around here.
The other side is a brutal 2100 metre descent and the knees are really starting to feel the strain so that by the time we reach Kenja we are all feeling a little jaded. The rollercoaster continues, however, with more steep up and down over the Deurali pass to Shivalaya. With the second night rapidly approaching the team makes the decision to take a “safe” route via Jiri and the road to Kiratichap as our reconnaissance of the direct line some 3 weeks earlier had proved that the maps are unreliable, the paths are tricky to find and the leeches are dreadful and numerous. Frustratingly though, a new track has been bulldozed over the hill between Shivalaya and Jiri and what should be a simple 2 hour jaunt turns into a 4 ½ hour epic in the dark as we repeatedly lose the old trail and have to resort to map and compass work.
At Shivalaya, I had made the reluctant decision to quit. It's daunting to run for 36 hours non stop and know that less than ½ the distance has been covered. I also knew that we would have to move a lot quicker once we reached the road sections and believed that the other two could achieve this without me. By the time we reached Jiri, however, mind-altering fatigue had overtaken the whole team and sleep had become an overwhelming priority. Surrounded by a cacophony of stray dogs barking we attempted to contact our support and call the whole attempt off. At 11pm, all lodges were shut for the night so we found a simple hayloft, put on all our spare clothing and, with no sleeping bags, just curled up in the hay. A few, cold hours later and it was clear that Spyke had a different perspective on life. He quickly worked back from the required finish time and established that a record was still possible – albeit tight. After a rushed breakfast of more milk tea and some deep fried batter things he and Lizzie were off leaving me to catch a bus to our waiting support crew in Muldi and help them over the remaining miles as best as I could.
After the frustration of the journey over to Jiri, they got a boost as the next section went more quickly than anticipated and were through Kiratichap by midday (2 days 5 hours gone). Once again, however, they had to deal with setbacks as they lost almost 2 hours on the next section to Muldi – descending too soon to cross the river on a section we had reconnoitred 4 weeks earlier.
Nevertheless, they arrived to the waiting support by 7pm and were encouraged on their way by around 40 members of the local sports club. Things were looking up as most of the remaining miles would be on road and we had 3 Nepalese runners who would help them on the remaining 63 miles. At this point I chose not to tell them that they were 2 hours behind where current record holder had been at this point on his run – I was confident that he had slowed down a lot on the final day and that my pals would draw on our support to keep their speed up!!
Sure enough, working in relay and providing inane chatter to help pass the night-time hours – the English and Nepali support team helped Lizzie and Spyke to stay awake and on target for the record. As Sunday dawned, the outskirts of Kathmandu beckoned and, by 8am we were fighting our way through gridlock to reach the national stadium. Miraculously a police motor cycle escort appeared and swept away the traffic like Moses and the parting of the red sea. By now, Lizzie and Spyke were grimly focussed on the finish. No longer eating or drinking, with a fixed 1000 yard stare and just gritting out the pain in the hope that the finish was just around the corner.
Finally the gates of the stadium hoved into view and at 9.52am – after 3 days, 2 hours and 36 minutes – a new record was set by Lizzie and Spyke to a reception of around 30-40 journalists and the president of the Nepal Olympic committee. The whole episode was triumph for co-operation of English and Nepalese, our different sponsors and, hopefully for the poorer hill people of Nepal who will benefit from the fundraising efforts.
THE PURPOSE: Raising money for the Charity Community Action Nepal
The team is still raising funds for charity through http://www.justgiving.com/run-everestbc-kathmandu
All money raised will go to Community Action Nepal (www.canepal.com ).
CAN supports remote communities through Education, Health and Community Development
programmes. Its main focus is to work with local people and village communities through
sustainable health and education projects. Please note that the team are covering all
their own costs in staging this attempt – all donations will go to CA Nepal.
Short note from one of the support crew: It was great to watch these guys set the record, the amount of stress they put their bodies under was incredible, I climbed the mountains (Ama dablam and Island Peak) with them just a few days before and my body was completely spent from that so to be able to recover that quickly and run for 3 days is amazing. All the support crew from Mulde completed some of the run in with them and it was a great feeling being part of the record. Well done guys from Karen, Darren (climbers), Bimila, Sita, Ramesh (local Nepali runners) and Kumar (the driver).
Read Billi Bierling's report in the Nepali News here
