Everest

Another early start, though barely suppressed excitement as we put on our bike gear and got the bikes ready. We were heading out on the ultimate of day trips, a ride up the slopes of Mount Everest. A couple of the riders had talked about how this was going to be the culmination of an ambition they’d had for years. As we were coming back to the same hotel in the evening, we only needed minimal luggage, if any on the bikes, which was good as we knew it was not to be an easy ride.

In the Himalayas there’s often a lack of signposts, let alone ones in English, however, there along the Friendship Highway which connects Tibet and its neighbour Nepal, is a marker pointing east clearly marked for Everest Base Camp – a classic photo opportunity.

Clearing the first of several checkpoints, we were allowed along the route, the dirt road hairpin bends started almost immediately and we all groaned to ourselves. However, when you’re heading up towards the world’s highest mountain, you’ve got to expect switchbacks and hairpins.

We crossed the lower range and there for the first time, we got a sight of the planet’s most famous peak, Mount Everest in all its glory. We lined up the bikes for a photo and a breather, then the hairpins continued, through small Tibetan villages, past tiny cultivated fields and via tunnels cut through the rock. Locals turned to watch us pass by on our bikes.

Dodging yaks and potholes we arrived at Rongphu Monastery, the highest in the world. Mark’s shock absorber had gone on the way up, so he set to work replacing it, with the famous view in the background behind him. As Expedition Leader, he’s been here twice before so we didn’t feel too bad about leaving him behind with the toolbox as the rest of us continued to Base Camp.

We reached Base Camp itself, a fairly quiet place at this time of year as the climbing season has ended, the window of opportunity for ascending Everest is just six weeks or so and over by late May. There were security guards, souvenir sellers and ourselves, we were the ones gasping in the thin air as we toiled up to the small hill next to camp for the best vantage point of the mountain.

The camp is the closest point to the peak that it’s possible to get (short of climbing it), though to our eyes, it still looked a hell of a long way to travel on foot to the summit from where we were.

Having taken our fill of photos, absorbed the atmosphere, explored the monastery, twirled the prayer wheels and retrieved Mark, we turned our bikes round and headed back down.
We’d had the most fantastic views of the mountain and it was only through talking to one of the guides that we discovered how lucky we were, this had been the first clear day for five days and that amongst the few tourists there, some of them had been waiting the whole five days for just such a day as this. We really were fortunate.

Now we just had another 94 hairpins on gravel to negotiate back down again. Time for beers in the bar where we compared our photos of the big landmark.