Everest Base Camp Trek with Helicopter Return

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 trek briefing. Because this itinerary ends with a flight rather than a walk, the briefing covers two things in more detail than usual: the acclimatisation plan on the way up, and how the helicopter day at Gorak Shep actually works — the weight limit, the early departure, and what happens if the weather closes in.

We check your kit and arrange anything missing from the gear shops a few streets away. Duffels need to come in under 10 kg for the Lukla flight. The rest of the day is yours. Overnight in Kathmandu.

An early transfer to the domestic terminal for the flight to Lukla (2,840 m). In peak season the flight operates out of Ramechhap instead of Kathmandu, in which case we drive through the night and fly at dawn; your guide will confirm which applies to your departure.

The 35-minute flight runs east along the Himalayan wall and lands on the short uphill strip at Tenzing-Hillary Airport, one of the more memorable landings in aviation.

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, with mani walls and carved stones at every village.

Around 3 to 4 hours of easy downhill and level walking to Phakding (2,610 m). Overnight in a teahouse.

The first serious day. The trail follows the Dudh Koshi upstream through Monjo, 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 the bridge the trail climbs steeply for two hours through pine forest. Roughly halfway up there is a break in the trees where Everest (8,848 m) appears for the first time over the Nuptse-Lhotse wall, with Taboche and Thamserku on either side.

The climb finishes at Namche Bazaar (3,440 m), the Sherpa capital, built in a natural amphitheatre and stacked with lodges, bakeries, gear shops and the Saturday market that has traded with Tibet for centuries.

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

A rest day, which in the Khumbu means an active one: you climb high and sleep low so the body has something to adapt to.

The morning walk goes up to the Everest View Hotel at 3,880 m, a steady hour and a half above the town, where the terrace looks straight up the valley at Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse and Ama Dablam (6,812 m). Most people agree Ama Dablam is the finest-looking mountain in Nepal and this is where you first understand why.

The return can loop down through the Sherpa villages of Khumjung and Khunde, past the monastery that keeps a purported yeti scalp and the hospital Edmund Hillary's trust built in 1966.

The afternoon is free in Namche for the bakeries, the Sherpa Culture Museum or last gear purchases. Overnight in Namche.

A beautiful day and one of the best-known stretches of trail in Nepal. The path contours north out of Namche on an almost level balcony high above the Dudh Koshi, with Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse and Ama Dablam in view for most of the morning.

At Sanasa the trail forks — the left branch heads for Gokyo — and yours drops steeply through forest to the river at Phunki Tenga (3,250 m), where water-driven prayer wheels turn beside the bridge and most groups stop for lunch.

The afternoon is a sustained 600 m climb through rhododendron and birch to the spur at Tengboche (3,860 m), site of the largest monastery in the Khumbu. If you arrive by mid-afternoon you can attend the evening prayer ceremony in the gompa.

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

The morning starts with a short descent through the last real forest of the trek to Deboche, then crosses the Imja Khola on a bridge in a gorge and climbs to Pangboche (3,930 m), the oldest permanent settlement in the Khumbu.

The upper village holds a gompa worth the ten-minute detour, and from here Ama Dablam is directly overhead and enormous.

Above Pangboche the trees stop for good. The valley opens into wide grazing country of dwarf juniper and scrub, and the trail climbs steadily beside the Imja Khola with Everest hidden behind Nuptse and Lhotse ahead.

You cross the river and climb the last stretch to Dingboche (4,410 m), a village of stone-walled potato and barley fields in a broad sunny bowl.

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

The second and more important acclimatisation day, and the one that decides how most people feel at Gorak Shep four days later.

The climb goes up the ridge directly behind the village to the prayer flags on Nangkartshang (5,083 m) — steep, relentless and entirely worth it. It is the first time on the trek you go above 5,000 m, and the panorama is exceptional: Makalu (8,485 m) to the east, Ama Dablam from an angle almost nobody photographs, Lhotse, Island Peak and the Imja valley running away below.

Two to three hours up, an hour and a half down. Go slowly and turn round early if your head is not right.

The afternoon is for resting, eating and drinking, which at this altitude is genuinely part of the training. Overnight in Dingboche.

A short but demanding day into genuinely high country. The trail climbs gently out of Dingboche onto the shoulder above Dughla (4,620 m), contouring across open moraine with Taboche and Cholatse overhead on the left.

After a tea stop at Dughla comes the steepest hour of the day, a rough climb up the terminal moraine of the Khumbu Glacier to the Thukla Pass (4,830 m).

The top of the pass is a place people remember. It holds dozens of stone chortens and memorial plaques for climbers who died on Everest, including Scott Fischer and Babu Chiri Sherpa, in a windswept saddle with the peaks all round.

From there the trail runs level along the moraine to Lobuche (4,940 m), a handful of lodges beneath the Nuptse wall.

Around 5 hours. Overnight in a teahouse at Lobuche.

The big day. 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 at Gorak Shep (5,164 m).

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

In spring the camp is a small town of yellow and orange tents under the Khumbu Icefall, with expedition teams cycling through their rotations. Outside the climbing season it is bare ice and moraine, and quieter for it. Either way you are standing at the foot of the icefall with Everest itself hidden directly above you.

Around 8 hours in total on the move. Return to Gorak Shep for the night — the coldest of the trek.

A pre-dawn start in the cold for the climb to Kala Patthar (5,545 m), the highest point of the trek and the reason the itinerary exists.

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 (8,848 m) 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 at Gorak Shep for breakfast, then the group is weighed and the helicopter lifts off from the sand flat beside the lodges. The flight retraces in 35 minutes what took you eight days to walk — base camp, Lobuche, Dingboche, Tengboche and Namche sliding past below — with a transfer at Lukla before the final leg to Kathmandu.

Transfer to your hotel. Overnight in Kathmandu.

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

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 — just let us know while you are still on the trail so we can book it.

Thank you for trekking with us, and we hope to see you back in the Khumbu.