Day 6: Namche

In the morning, the group will take an acclimatization hike, gaining 1,000 feet to take in the amazing mountain vista. In the afternoon, we’ll have time to visit sights in Namche Bazaar, including the local marketplace.

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Update from the Team:

Today was an acclimation hike and day to explore and rest in Namche. We started the morning with breakfast at the our tea house, the fabulous Hotel Namche before setting out on our day hike to Khunde and Everest View Hotel. The day started vertical and kept going up, and up, and up. Which was a good “this is getting real” for the crew! On the way to Khunde you stop at two different museums along the way. The first is the Sagarmatha National Park World Heritage Site where you get to learn about the Sherpa as a people group that stretches way beyond the job or verb that many of us know the term to be used. The beautiful people paved a way for life and opportunity all through the Khumbu region way before it became a mountain athletes dream to accomplish. The second museum was Sagarmatha Next where you get to learn about the recycling efforts on Mt Everest and throughout the region.  Roughly 440,000 pounds of trash accumulate each year from the  roughly 40-50,000 trekkers so the center educates you and provides opportunity to contribute to the SPCC’s initiatives to reduce and remove waste from the region. We all learned so much and it made the trek and the more meaningful! 

While at Sagarmatha Next, the clouds rolled in so we decided to not finish the day hike up to Khunde. The clouds would keep us from the view of Everest we had hoped for, so while we had reached ~12,500 ft and spent enough time to aclimate, extra time in Namche to rest and shop the gift shops felt like a lovely opportunity before the amenities get more sparse and the climbs get steeper from here on out. The ladies even found a salon where they could get their hair washed AND blow dried which was a real treat since we know showers opportunities will start to diminish and letting wet hair dry naturally in the cold air above 13,000 ft isn’t too appealing! After dinner tonight, we walked over to the Namche “IMAX” (a TV screen on a wall) to watch a showing of the 1996 Everest documentary. We all had a great time and were tucked in our beds by 9 PM to get some rest before heading to Deboche today!