Everest Base Camp Trek with Gokyo Lakes and Cho La Pass

Welcome to Nepal. You land at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (1,400 m), where our representative meets you in the arrivals hall and drives you to your hotel in Thamel.

Your guide joins you in the afternoon for the briefing, which on this itinerary is a longer conversation than usual. We go through the acclimatisation plan for the Gokyo valley, what the Cho La day involves, and the conditions under which we would reverse the route or send someone round via Phortse.

We check your kit carefully — the pass needs a proper shell, gaiters and warm gloves, and anything missing can be bought or hired a few streets away. Duffels must come in under 10 kg for the Lukla flight. Overnight in Kathmandu.

An early transfer to the domestic terminal for the flight to Lukla (2,840 m). In peak season the sector runs from Ramechhap rather than Kathmandu, in which case we drive overnight and fly at dawn; your guide confirms which applies to your departure.

The 35-minute flight runs east along the Himalayan wall before the short uphill landing at Tenzing-Hillary Airport.

After tea while the porters sort loads, you start walking. The trail drops gently through Chheplung and Ghat, crossing and re-crossing the Dudh Koshi on suspension bridges strung with prayer flags, past mani walls and carved stones.

Around 3 to 4 hours of easy walking to Phakding (2,610 m), a deliberately short first day that keeps the sleeping altitude low. Overnight in a teahouse.

The first substantial day. The trail follows the Dudh Koshi upstream through Monjo (2,835 m), where you enter Sagarmatha National Park and permits are checked, then drops to the river and crosses the high Hillary Suspension Bridge above the confluence with the Bhote Koshi.

From there it climbs steeply for two hours through pine forest. Roughly halfway up a gap in the trees gives the first view of Everest (8,848 m) over the Nuptse-Lhotse wall.

The climb finishes at Namche Bazaar (3,440 m), built in a natural amphitheatre and stacked with lodges, bakeries and gear shops. Saturday is market day, when traders come up from the lowlands and over from Tibet.

Around 6 hours with 830 m of ascent. Overnight in a teahouse at Namche.

An active rest day: climb high, sleep low.

The morning walk goes up to the Everest View Hotel at 3,880 m, an hour and a half of steady climbing, where the terrace looks straight up the valley at Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse and Ama Dablam (6,812 m).

The loop returns through Khumjung and Khunde, the two large Sherpa villages on the shelf behind Namche, past the monastery that keeps a purported yeti scalp and the hospital Edmund Hillary's trust built in 1966. It is a good introduction to the valley you spend the next fortnight in.

The afternoon is free for the bakeries, the Sherpa Culture Museum, or hiring gaiters and microspikes for the pass. Overnight in Namche.

Today you leave the base camp trail. The path contours north out of Namche on the same balcony as the classic route, then at Sanasa takes the left fork that almost nobody else is walking.

The trail climbs through Mong La (3,975 m), a saddle with a chorten and a tea shop and a wide view back down the Dudh Koshi, then drops steeply 400 m to the river at Phortse Thanga (3,680 m).

The afternoon is a sustained climb through rhododendron and birch that thins as you go, with waterfalls on the valley wall and Khumbila overhead, to the handful of lodges at Dole (4,200 m). The treeline is behind you by the time you arrive.

Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight in a teahouse at Dole.

A short, deliberately gentle day — only 270 m of net gain — because the Gokyo valley gains height quickly and this is where acclimatisation is won or lost.

The trail climbs steadily above the Dudh Koshi through scrub juniper and dwarf rhododendron, passing the summer settlements of Lhabarma and Luza, small clusters of stone huts used for yak grazing.

The valley is wide and open here, with Cho Oyu (8,188 m) beginning to show at the head of it and Kangtega and Thamserku behind you.

You reach Machhermo (4,470 m) by early afternoon. The Himalayan Rescue Association runs an aid post here and gives a free altitude sickness talk most afternoons in season, which is genuinely worth attending.

Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight in a teahouse at Machhermo.

A spectacular morning. The trail climbs to a ridge above Machhermo with a first sight of the terminal moraine of the Ngozumpa Glacier, the longest glacier in Nepal, then descends to the river at Phangga and climbs steeply onto the moraine wall itself.

From there you pass the lakes in turn: the first lake, Longpongo (4,690 m), where mani stones line the shore; the second, Taboche Tsho, an improbable turquoise against the grey moraine; and finally the third, Dudh Pokhari, on whose eastern shore the lodges of Gokyo (4,790 m) stand.

The colour of the water is the thing people remember — a mineral blue-green that looks artificial in photographs and is not.

Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight in a teahouse at Gokyo.

The best viewpoint in the Khumbu, climbed at dawn. Gokyo Ri (5,357 m) rises directly behind the lodges: a steep, unrelenting 570 m of zigzags on scree and rock that takes two to three hours in the cold and dark.

The summit is worth every step. From the prayer flags you look across the Ngozumpa Glacier at four of the world's six highest mountains — Everest (8,848 m), Lhotse (8,516 m), Makalu (8,485 m) and Cho Oyu (8,188 m) — with the lakes far below and Ama Dablam and Kangtega to the south.

Back at the lodge for a late breakfast. Groups going well can walk north along the moraine to the fourth and fifth lakes and Scoundrel's Viewpoint in the afternoon; everyone else rests, which is equally useful before the pass.

Overnight in Gokyo.

A short day whose only purpose is to put you on the right side of the glacier for the pass.

The route crosses the Ngozumpa Glacier itself — an hour and a half to two hours over a chaotic surface of rubble-covered ice, with meltwater pools, unstable moraine and a marked but shifting path. Your guide leads the line and the crossing is done in the morning while the surface is frozen and stable.

On the far side a short climb brings you to Dragnag (4,700 m), sometimes written Thagnak: two lodges and a yak shed against the hillside, and nothing else.

You arrive by early afternoon. The rest of the day is spent resting, eating and sorting kit, because tomorrow starts in the dark. Your guide runs through the pass plan after dinner. Overnight in a teahouse at Dragnag.

The hardest and best day of the trek, starting around 3 a.m. by headlamp so that you are over the pass before the afternoon wind and cloud arrive.

The trail climbs gradually up a boulder-strewn valley, then steepens into a rough scramble on loose rock and scree to the notch of the Cho La (5,420 m). Hands come out of pockets on the last section.

The pass itself is a corniced saddle hung with prayer flags. Beyond it comes a short crossing of a crevassed glacier — 30 to 45 minutes on firm morning ice, where the crew will rope the group if conditions call for it — followed by a long, knee-punishing descent over moraine.

Ahead the whole time is Ama Dablam (6,812 m), and the day ends at the three lodges of Dzongla (4,830 m) on a grassy shelf above the valley. Ten to twelve hours. Overnight at Dzongla.

A short, easy and very welcome day after the pass.

The trail contours east across open hillside above the Chola Tsho and Tshola Tsho lakes, gaining almost no height, with Cholatse and Taboche rising directly on your left and Ama Dablam behind.

It joins the main Everest Base Camp trail just above the Thukla Pass (4,830 m), where the memorial chortens stand for climbers lost on Everest — a sobering, windswept place that most people spend some time in.

From the junction it is a level walk along the moraine to Lobuche (4,940 m), a handful of lodges under the Nuptse wall. You will notice the difference in traffic immediately: this is the busy trail again.

Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight in a teahouse at Lobuche.

The day the trek is named for. A rough two to three hour trail follows the lateral moraine of the Khumbu Glacier north, undulating over loose rock and sand, to the frozen lakebed and lodges of Gorak Shep (5,164 m).

After an early lunch and dropping your bags you continue to Everest Base Camp (5,364 m), two hours each way across boulder fields and glacier debris marked with cairns and prayer flags.

In spring the camp is a small tented town beneath the Khumbu Icefall, with expedition teams moving through their rotations; outside the season it is bare ice and moraine and quieter for it.

Standing at the foot of the icefall, with Everest itself hidden directly above and Nuptse walling the valley, is the point of the walk.

Around 8 hours on the move. Overnight at Gorak Shep, the coldest night of the trek.

A pre-dawn start in the cold for Kala Patthar (5,545 m), the highest point of the trek. It is a steep, slow 90 minutes to two hours up the brown hill above Gorak Shep, and at that altitude every step is deliberate.

From the prayer flags on the summit the whole south-west face of Everest stands clear above the Khumbu Icefall, with Nuptse, Lhotse, Pumori and Changtse around you and the glacier winding away below. Sunrise on the summit pyramid is the photograph people come for.

Back to Gorak Shep for breakfast, then the long descent begins. The trail retraces the moraine to Lobuche and drops over the Thukla Pass into the valley, reaching the wide, windy flats at Pheriche (4,240 m).

The oxygen at 4,240 m feels like a different planet after four nights above 4,700 m. Around 8 hours in total. Overnight at Pheriche.

A long but straightforward descent that returns you to the treeline and to comfort.

The trail drops down the Imja valley past Pangboche, where the old gompa is worth the short climb into the upper village, then crosses the Imja Khola and climbs briefly to Tengboche (3,860 m). If the timing works, the monastery is worth another visit on the way through.

From Tengboche the path plunges 600 m through rhododendron forest to the river at Phunki Tenga — hard on the knees, and where trekking poles earn their place — before the last climb back onto the balcony trail and the level contour into Namche Bazaar (3,440 m).

Around 7 hours. There is a hot shower, a bakery and a beer waiting. Overnight in Namche.

The last walking day, and a long one, retracing the route down to the airstrip.

The trail drops steeply out of Namche to the Hillary Suspension Bridge, then follows the Dudh Koshi downstream through Jorsale and Monjo, where you check out of Sagarmatha National Park.

From there it is the gentle riverside walk through Phakding and Ghat, over a succession of suspension bridges, with the final short climb to Lukla (2,840 m) at the end — the one uphill nobody expects on the last day.

Around 7 to 8 hours. The evening in Lukla is traditionally the crew party: the guides and porters who carried the trip get their tips and everyone eats and drinks rather more than they have for a fortnight. Overnight in Lukla.

An early flight out, because Lukla flies in the morning and grounds when the wind gets up.

The 35-minute hop back over the foothills gives one last look at the Himalayan wall you have spent a fortnight underneath. In peak season the flight lands at Ramechhap and a vehicle brings you the rest of the way to Kathmandu, which adds four to five hours to the day.

Transfer to your hotel, where a hot shower and a room with a heater are the immediate priorities.

The afternoon is free. Thamel is five minutes' walk for souvenirs, and most groups meet for a farewell dinner in the evening. If the Lukla flight is delayed by weather, this is the buffer day it eats — which is why we keep it in the itinerary. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A slow morning in Kathmandu. If your flight is late in the day there is time for last shopping in Thamel, a walk around Durbar Square, or a long breakfast, which after seventeen days of lodge food tends to win.

Our representative collects you from the hotel and drives you to Tribhuvan International Airport around three hours before departure.

If you are staying on in Nepal we are happy to arrange onward travel, a Chitwan extension, a Pokhara flight or extra hotel nights — tell us while you are still on the trail so we can book it.

Thank you for trekking with us. Crossing the Cho La is a real mountain day and not everyone who sets out on it gets over; we hope to see you back in the Khumbu.