Foothills of Sagarmatha

Two years already in Nepal, but famous roof of the world remains elusive. It’s almost within reach — barely a hundred kilometers from Kathmandu as the crow flies. On very clear days, so they say (the locals, of course!), you can get a glimpse of it from the surrounding hills overlooking the valley. But let’s be honest: over the past two years, between the monsoon clouds, the winter haze, and, above all, the pollution and smoke from forest fires, the world’s highest peak has remained stubbornly hidden from view. You can be on top of the world — and still not see very far.

So, taking advantage of the year-end holidays here (Tihar, or Diwali, the Festival of Lights that marks the beginning of winter) I decided it was finally time to make my way to the foot of her majesty Sagarmatha, as the Nepalese call it. The rest of the world knows her as Everest, its British name.

But Her Majesty doesn’t give herself up easily. To approach her, one must first fly to Lukla airport. With its barely 500 meters long tilted runway, twedged tightly between steep mountain slopes, it deserves its reputation of  most dangerous airport in the world. This tiny village serves as gateway to Sagarmatha National Park. This vast protected area covers three valleys and includes the entire Everest massif. The pilot of our small Czech-made twin-prop has no room for error. As we bank into the final turn, the wingtip seems to brush the trees. But finally — no scratches, no strange noises, just a hard brake and a brutally short roll — we’ve made it.

Here I am, finally, at the starting point, twelve days of trekking lie ahead.

Right from the start, I almost have to elbow my way through the crowd of trekkers and the caravans of mules and yaks carrying the luggage and supplies for everyone, tourists and locals alike,who live higher up in these valleys.

From here on, everything has to be carried on someone’s back (mule, yak or humans). The only exception is the little that gets airlifted.

Above the Lukla valley, the sky is almost constantly buzzing with helicopters.Manhattan? Not quite—just Lukla, Nepal, where wealthy tourists (and there’s no shortage of them apparently) get whisked off toward the peaks as fast as possible. I’ll catch up with some of them higher up in a few days.

For now, once I’ve overtaken the various human and animal caravans, I start following this “Nepali flat” traill : it goes up and down, up and down, but on average, it’s flat. My knees might disagree, though. Around 3,000 meters above sea level, as in much of Nepal, the trail winds along a roaring river through a forest that still feels almost tropical. Giant ferns mingle with alpine pines and rhododendrons—sadly not blooming at this season,but the scenery never gets old. Sometimes the path snakes high above the river, crossing those dizzying suspension bridges. The mules cross them far more gracefully than we humans,they’re arrogantly ignoring what vertigo is.

The first (and in fact, the only) city stop: Namche Bazaar, where the three valleys forming the Everest region meet. It’s also the capital of Sherpa country—the people who became famous for carrying the equipment of the early generations of Western climbers.

Since then, this Tibetan ethnic group has skilfully ridden the wave of Himalayan tourism, founding some of the biggest trekking and expedition agencies, guiding (and sometimes literally dragging!) the hundreds of climbers who attempt the Everest summit each year—thereby fuelling the controversies it entails (see, for instance, Video) .They also run helicopter companies, dozens of guesthouses, and all manner of tourist shops.

Some Sherpas have become millionaires; many have moved to the United States and now manage their businesses remotely. Long gone are the days when they carried loads themselves. Nowadays, that work is subcontracted to other ethnic groups from other valleys and the Sherpas focus on the more lucrative side of tourism. They’re entrepreneurs, organized by clan, and for better or worse, have turned their homeland into one of the world’s most iconic mountain tourism hubs.

Namche Bazar

Namche Bazaar: the Times Square of the Himalayas, in a way. A place where every nationality on Earth seems to converge, dressed head-to-toe in eye-soaring Lycra colours, all yearning to catch a glimpse of the roof of the world , and a few, an elite few, even dreaming of climbing it.

First comes Ivan the Russian, by far the most common species this season. Pale skin, fair hair, already lobster-like sunburnt under the high-altitude sun, even though his usual home is Dubai or Phuket. He travels in large colonies, never fewer than twenty, and his loud roars can be heard late at night outside of bars where he usually enjoys a few shots with friends.

Many of his compatriots won’t bother wearing out the soles of the brand new trekking boots on mountains paths: they’ll fly straight to top, take a couple of selfies, and fly back down to their luxury hotel in the valley before sunset.

He’s often accompanied by glamorous Ivanka, her lips freshly collagene-plumped up (and, incidentally, other parts of her body as well) by the finest surgeon on the French Riviera. With makeup perfectly matching her designer trekking pants, she’s found a pair of ultimately chic leather mittens to ward off the mountain chill. The rest of the group waits every two hundred meters on the path while she regularly reapplies her lipstick mid-hill.

Three days later, she’ll be found with swollen, bleeding lips — apparently, collagen doesn’t take kindly the dry mountain air and fierce UV radiation. She’ll be airlifted back down to the valley in a hurry to have that fixed.

Ivanka

Meet Esther and Nathan, freshly out of their two and three years of military service in Israel. They’ve just wrapped up a month of surfing in Bali and are now spending three weeks in Nepal before heading off to explore southern India and Sri Lanka for two months, then crossing South America by bus. They travel with three or four friends they’ve met along the way, hopping between budget guesthouses.

They’re already completely penniless because of an unplanned week in Singapore to sort out visa issues, so they’ve bought all their trekking gear third-hand from other young Israelis leaving Nepal, in one of Kathmandu’s kosher restaurants. At their guesthouse, they’ve managed to bargain access to a shared bathroom for ten — no hot water — and plan to combine two stages into one tomorrow to save a day’s budget. They’re friendly with everyone along the way — as long as no one brings up politics. No need for an intifada in Nepal.

On the trail, they meet François and Christine, a French couple in their forties, both doctors and easily recognizable by their brand-new head-to-toe Decathlon gear. They’re accompanied by Tenzing, their Sherpa guide, perfectly fluent in French — since “where is Big Ben ?” is about all they remember from seven years of English classes. Last year, they “did” Patagonia, the year before that British Columbia, and they’ve already booked Kilimanjaro with Terre d’Aventure for next year. Don’t be fooled by their slightly bourgeois air — they train every weekend in the Fontainebleau forest and could very well outpace everyone else, briskly, at 5,000 meters.

Then come Luigi, Sergio, Giulia, and their three Milanese friends — basically the Italian version of François and Christine. They’ve all hit it off and now share lively dinner conversations about food and travel in a delightful mix of broken Franco-Italo-English — with plenty of hand gestures, of course.

José and Marta, young Catalan retirees, join the same group, speaking loudly and making sure everyone knows they are definitely not Spanish. They flew business class — economy on Air India, you must be joking — for their silver wedding anniversary trip. They’ve brought their own guide and three porters, though they usually hike the Pyrenean trails around Andorra almost every week.

On Namche Bazaar’s “bar street” (yes, there really is one), a group of Brits is searching for the Guinness Pub. Among them, John and Andrew, senior lawyers from London’s City, have taken two weeks off from their firm. Dressed in the finest gear money can buy, they insist on speaking to the Sherpa bartender in their most Oxbridge English, but will nevertheless end the night face down on the bar floor next to Dylan, Rosy, and tattooed-Gaby , all students from Birmingham who have never left the UK except for Ibiza, but figured “Everest Base Camp” sounded like a cool destination.

Tomorrow, they’ll give a brave attempt at curing their hangover on the trail before disappearing altogether : turns out Namche’s “street of thirst” had more appeal than the mountains. Their drinking buddy Matthew, however, though just as drunk the night before, will bound up the trail the next morning in his shorts and a T-shirt, overtaking even the Sherpa guides. He’d failed to mention he was a former SAS captain and had crossed Greenland solo on skis last year.

Then there’s the inevitable American group — Jo, Ted, Sandy, and about ten of their thirty-something friends, baseball caps screwed on tight. They’ve each spent $5,000 to fly from Denver and Seattle to tick off their “bucket-list dream” in the Himalayas. They’re trekking with 14 Peaks Adventure, one of Kathmandu’s top agencies, complete with branded T-shirts, monogrammed backpacks, and motivational briefings every evening about “the incredible journey” awaiting them the next day.

At the sight of their first yak, they erupted with cries of “No way, look at that huge cow!” and “Amazing buffalo!”. The lodge staff love them — they hand out $20 tips like candy (wait, what’s the Nepal dollar again?). They’re also the best source of medical advice on the trail, thanks to their fully stocked pharmacy kits.

That won’t stop three of them from being bedridden for two days with a nasty bout of food poisoning after trying the “giant beef burger” at the last guesthouse before the summit — rather than the safer fried rice everyone else orders. Turns out the beef had been carried up the mountain on someone’s back for six days. Those who do reach Everest Base Camp will post epic vlogs on YouTube, as if they’d just summited all the 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen. On the way down, during a casual diner conversation, they’ll learn their porters earn $150 a month and wonder aloud what the Nepalese government does with all the tax money they, the tourists, so generously provide. The world really is unfair.

Finally, Yoko and Kitashima travel a bit apart from the crowd. They arrived ten days ago from Kyoto and have already criss-crossed the Kathmandu Valley extensively with their guide. They’re part of a group of eight septuagenarians who’ve been to Nepal twice before and know Bhutan and Inner Mongolia like the back of their hand.

You’d hardly recognize them on the trail — they’re covered from head to toe, including ears and fingertips, to protect themselves from the sun. Outfitted exclusively in Japanese brands, they look more ready for the Moon than the Himalayas. They step politely aside when mule caravans pass — one almost expects them to respectfully bow in greeting. They set out at dawn, before the rest of the pack. This time, instead of the Everest Base Camp like almost everyone, they’re trekking the Renjo-La Pass clockwise, on their guide’s advice, to avoid the crowds. You’ll find them at the lodge in the evening, exhausted but quietly proud, rightfully so.

I could mention the Australians (basically the same as Jo’s group, only fitter), the super-motivated Czechs, the ever-polite Koreans, and plenty more — but space would fail me.

Over the years, Namche has truly become a bazaar in the true sense of the word, offering this colourful, chaotic crowd everything they could possibly dream of, as long as it can be carried up here.

Even in Namche, yaks are everywhere: truly the backbone of the entire Himalayan economy. They haul enormous loads up to 5,000 meters through deep snow without complaint, provide milk and cheese, produce the all-important dung (more on that later), and, as a last resort — but only after all their other uses have been exhausted — they can even be turned into hamburger meat.

So it’s hardly surprising that Nepalese marketing has found a way to put yak in just about everything. So much for trademark protection...

The next day is my first acclimatization day — we’re already close to 3,500 meters, and the coming days will take me well above 4,000. Chi va piano va sano. Today’s objective isn’t to sip cappuccinos on a sunny terrace all day (though, honestly, that’s tempting), but to train the lungs — and the rest of my body — to walk at altitude.

So I set out on a short three- or four-hour hike above Namche, toward a small hill from where the entire Everest range reveals itself. Up there stands a luxury hotel proudly claiming to be the highest in the world, catering to a predominantly helicopter-flown clientele.

The sky is a dazzling blue, almost blinding. Golden stupas glint in the sun, their three Buddha eyes calmly gazing over the panorama — and really, it takes three eyes to take it all in; we can only envy them.

Along the timeless paths, bent old Sherpa women in their traditional striped aprons cross paths with the Ivans, Jos, and Esthers of the 21st century, without so much as a glance of surprise. The spectacle is stunning and captivating.

Above us, the 7,000-meter peaks, draped in snow and ice, seem to look down on the restless movement of humans with an almost aloof air. The helicopters buzzing endlessly through the valley look like pesky flies vainly trying  to stir these immovable stone giants.

The return to Namche follows a small, secluded valley, away from the tourist flow — and at last, peace returns. The quiet rhythm of Himalayan countryside life resumes, timeless and serene.

The next day, things start to get serious: time to cross the 4,000-meter mark.

The day begins with a solid two-hour climb amid a still-heavy flow of trekkers. I can’t help but feel a little disheartened: will I ever get to enjoy the meditative silence of mountain walking, the hypnotic beauty of the Himalayas, without the constant background noise — the chatter of hikers, the buzz of helicopters, and, worse still, the blaring of Bluetooth speakers carried by porters, blasting Nepali rap at full volume? It is maddening. And yet, these poor kids are the ones carrying our bags and hauling supplies to the villages higher up — trudging through snow at over 5,000 meters in nothing but sandals, cigarette dangling from their lips. They’re working; I’m on holiday…

Fortunately, at the top of a ridge, just shy of 4,000 meters, the trails diverge. The vast majority heads right, toward the famous EBC — Everest Base Camp — while a small handful of us turn left, toward the far less-travelled Gokyo Lakes.

Finally, solitude and quietness.

But before long, my hopes are dashed again: we’re back on “Nepali flat.” To my great despair, we lose in minutes all the precious elevation we fought to gain over the last two hours, plunging down into the next valley — back into the forest. Everything is to be done again. Such is mountain life.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that the people here are Buddhists: the impermanence of all things is carved into their legs, endlessly climbing and descending these steep valleys toward some fleeting, shifting goal.

Another valley. Another forest. Another roaring river at the bottom of a gorge. Another swaying suspension bridge. Another steep trail cut into a mountainside. The meditative rhythm of trekking lies precisely in these repetitions, however beautiful they may be.

At last, the small hamlet that will shelter us for the night comes into view. We’re back at 4,000 meters, right at the treeline where forest gives way to pasture. There’s no snow yet, but the cold sets in the moment the sun slips behind the ridge.

It’s time to get used to the so-called “tea houses”,simple family-run lodges scattered along the trails. There’s usually a single dining room, its central stove lit only in the evening, and small bare rooms so poorly insulated you can see the stars through the roof. Lean too hard against the plywood wall and you might find yourself in your neighbor’s room. As for the bathrooms, they encourage… sobriety.

There’s a kind of ingenious sobriety here, too, in the solar ovens used to heat water. During the day, they work perfectly well. Up here, above the forest line, there’s simply no wood left to burn. The only alternatives are the sun — or yak dung, which dries up in flat, round cakes everywhere in the fields.

And so it goes on, for three more days: a slow, steady climb up the Gokyo valley, fed by Nepal’s largest glacier. It gathers the snow and ice from all the surrounding peaks into a massive frozen river — invisible for now, but its weight can be felt, almost alive, somewhere just above us.

For three days now, I’ve been walking above 4,000 meters. My breath comes shorter, the slopes feel steeper — yet I’m glad to find I’ve escaped altitude sickness. No headaches, no nausea, just a bit of trouble sleeping.

Tibetan mantras blowing in the wind

On the third day of climbing up the valley, I finally catch sight of the first lake — a small glacial pool, a sign that we’re nearing our goal. There are five of them in total, stacked one above the other just below the Ngozumpa Glacier, at 4,800 meters: the Gokyo Lakes. They were formed by the glacier itself, which spills down from the Everest massif.

Above it all towers Cho Oyu, a massive white meringue, dripping its snow and ice into the Ngozumpa Glacier. It was the first peak conquered by Edmund Hillary’s team in 1953, as a warm-up before the Everest expedition. Beyond that immense wall of mountains, hidden from view, stretches the vast, desert-like Tibetan Plateau, which I had glimpsed earlier to the west, in Mustang.

From the first Gokyo Lake upward, the snow finally covers the ground — about time, at nearly 5,000 meters. Yet here and there, tiny blue flowers still persist — gentians, rare almost everywhere else, but common in this magical corner of the Himalayas.

Then comes the third Gokyo Lake, nestled at the foot of a side valley dominated by Gokyo Ri, a 5,400-meter peak that will be tomorrow’s objective.

For now, I indulge in a bit of unexpected comfort for a night at such altitude — higher than the summit of Mont Blanc! Remorseless, I splurge on the full-board option at $35: Dal Bhat, Nepal’s national dish, with a view, but surely the most breathtaking view on Earth.

Dahl Bat with a view

A quick stroll through this rather charmless hamlet — built in a site that is otherwise pure magic, right below the glacier’s moraine — reminds me that human absurdity knows no altitude limits. Even here, at the end of the world, TikTok influencers are on duty. Here’s one swaying in front of her phone, back to the panorama, down jacket unzipped to reveal her bra — under the bewildered gaze of two young Sherpa kids who must be rightfully thinking that tourists are a truly bizarre species. Right beside her, a sign warns visitors not to swim in the lake. Let’s chalk that one up to altitude-induced brain fog.

altitude TikTok madness

The next morning’s climb up Gokyo Ri is short but brutal — just three hours, yet it feels far longer. The big, plump partridges that somehow live at these altitudes seem to chuckle as they waddle past us, panting humans. Above us, an immense, regal vulture circles lazily, curious about the crawling creatures below, inspecting us with serene arrogance before gliding effortlessly toward the next range

And finally, from the 5,400-meter summit, the reward: nder a blinding blue sky, the entire Everest range unfolds before us, close enough to touch.The glaciers below shimmer in shades of gray. Silence falls. Only the sound of our quickened breathing punctuates the stillness. This time, we are truly there : the roof of the world, right in front of us. If not here, if not now, when else could one simply sit in silence and contemplate?

Everest and Gokyo lake

After the descent — which, as always, feels absurdly quick compared to the ascent — I go explore the glacier more closely. Climbing onto the moraine that looms above the village, I follow it to the valley’s end, to the last lake — a lonely pool of ice and snow, perched right at the glacier’s edge. It’s mind boggling to see the colossal mass of rock and debris freshly torn away by the glacier and shoved to its sides, loose and unstable, tumbling down in a near-constant rumble.

In the mornings, when the wind sweeps through the valley, it tears away whole chunks of the moraine, which collapse onto the glacier, raising a gray dust haze that lingers for hours. It’s easy to see how much the ice has retreated in recent years — the glacier’s surface has sunk visibly, exposing the raw flanks of the moraine. Dozens of small meltwater lakes now dot its surface, and if one of them bursts at the glacier’s tip, it could unleash a catastrophic flood — a GLOF, or Glacial Lake Outburst Flood.

There was one just a few months ago, from another Tibetan glacier spilling into Nepal, destroying everything in its path. Another struck the adjacent valley last year — I’ll see the debris myself in two days — wiping out an entire hydroelectric plant. Here, climate change is not an abstract idea; it’s visible, tangible, audible. These glaciers are melting almost before your eyes. They feed the rivers that sustain two billion people across Asia. The disasters — and the resulting conflicts— are inevitable.

glacier lake

The next day brings the final ascent of this trek: the Renjo-La Pass, also at 5,400 meters, which links the Gokyo valley to the adjacent Bhote Kosi valley. This year, an unusually late monsoon brought early snow, and the pass is heavily blanketed — a fitting finale for this high Himalayan journey.

I have to strap on my crampons to climb the icy slopes of the pass — four hours of steady effort above 5,000 meters. The reward is immense: the whole Gokyo valley spreads out beneath me, its emerald lake gleaming like a jewel, the vast frozen river of the Ngozumpa Glacier winding down the valley, and, just above it, for one last time, the entire Everest range blazing in the morning sun. No view can be more rewarding of my efforts so far.

At the top, exhausted but proud, I finally reach the pass. And there they are — the young porters, sitting cross-legged on the ground, calmly puffing cigarettes at 5,400 meters, their 30-kilo loads tossed casually behind them. Once again, I remind myself: this is a Buddhist country. Time to practice detachment — and simply enjoy the grandeur, the satisfaction of the climb, and the quiet triumph of the summit.

Tourist in front of Everest

Summit !

Now it’s time for the descent down the far side — faster, but trickier — toward another lake, this one nearly black. My young porter, the one I’ve been silently grumbling about since the start for wearing nothing but flimsy, worn-out sneakers, inevitably takes a tumble. Luckily, it’s nothing serious, but perhaps enough to make him realize how dangerous these mountains can be.

Most guides, Sherpas, and especially the porters seem to ignore that danger — whether out of misplaced pride, ignorance, or perhaps a fatalistic spirituality that accepts everything as karma. I get another taste of that attitude when I show them my weather app, pointing out that a major storm is on the way and that we might want to speed things up. My warning is met only with sceptical stares. In the end, I decide (wisely, as it turns out) to shorten our descent from four days to two.

We pick up the pace, though never so much that we can’t appreciate the vast beauty of this valley, almost deserted now. This used to be part of the ancient salt trade route between Tibet and India, caravans of yaks once crossed these same paths, until the Chinese annexation of Tibet and the rise of air transport put an end to it all. Fortunately for the Sherpa people, tourism has taken over.

Tiny, isolated hamlets appear here and there, surrounded by their stone-walled yak pastures, silent witnesses to the harshness of life at this altitude.

Soon we leave the snow behind, then the high meadows, and finally we cross the tree line. After days spent above 4,000 meters, the surge of hemoglobin works wonders. My body feels supercharged with oxygen, like a Tour de France rider after his morning "vitamin" injection. The steep descents fly by in no time.

And here is Thame, the next village. Not long ago, an upstream glacial lake collapsed, unleashing millions of tons of rock, water, and debris. The avalanche swept away part of the village, triggered new, unstable landslides, and destroyed one bank of the river. It even damaged — for the second time in twenty years — the hydroelectric plant that powers the valley. Miraculously, the flood stopped right at the base of a stupa. Buddha, it seems, looks after his own.

Still, the scene is a sobering reminder of the fragility of this land. The whole of Nepal lives under constant threat — geological, ecological, climatic — disasters now accelerated by human hands. The resilience of its people can only be understood through the fatalistic spirituality that runs deep in their culture. For the Sherpas, that faith is made visible in the countless stupas and tiny monasteries scattered across the landscape.

A final descent through the forest, and I find myself back in Namche Bazaar, with its busy trading streets — my last night in the region.

The bad weather forecast is confirmed: I need to hurry back to Lukla, or risk being stuck for days if flights are cancelled. The valley is buzzing — thousands of trekkers all trying to get back to Kathmandu by any means possible. The next day, I make the full descent in one long push, overtaking endless groups of hikers — the Ivans, Yokos, Jos, and all the rest — now all funnelled into this narrow shared stretch of trail. Up and down go the human caravans, mixed with trains of mules and yaks, all under the buzzing ballet of returning helicopters.

It feels like rush hour in the mountains — hardly the wilderness I love. But it’s just for this stage, and I press on quickly, eager to leave the chaos behind and keep the quieter memories of the Himalayas intact.

I arrive in Lukla by late afternoon. A small plane—I’ll later learn it was the last one for an entire week—has just taken off before my eyes as the first drops of rain begin to fall. The weather is already turning bad, just as forecast for days, yet the town is crowded with new arrivals, tourists eager to start their trek, pushed on by their guides and agencies despite the obvious risks. It borders on recklessness.

A few days later, 2,000 of them will be trapped in the snow at 5,000 meters, while the Lukla airport remains closed for over a week. Those unlucky travellers will end up squatting in freezing, overcrowded guesthouses, waiting for skies to clear.

Himalayan overtourism isn’t only about those infamous queues on the Everest summit—those concern just a few hundred climbers each year. It’s also about this larger, ongoing collective carelessness, played out at scale, that one day will surely end in tragedy. The thousands of trekkers—some naïve, some simply unaware (80,000 a year in these narrow, remote valleys)—alongside greedy trekking agencies, undertrained guides, and absent authorities will all share the blame when that day comes. It is not if, it is when.

During this last night in Lukla, I start negotiating whatever return options might still exist the next morning. When dawn comes, it’s pouring rain; the clouds hang low. Not a good sign. But a few helicopters are still flying—able to take off in conditions that ground airplanes.

In the tiny, chaotic terminal, Sherpa entrepreneurs barely hide their satisfaction—bad weather is good for business, after all. Soon I’m on the tarmac, watching the helicopter being refueled (good news) with the engine running (less good news, at least for anyone with aviation experience). And off we go—my maiden helicopter flight—zigzagging between mountain peaks and clouds. The Australian pilot seems to be having the time of his life. As we approach Kathmandu, the skies begin to clear, but later that same day the weather worsens again, grounding all flights for a week. The trekkers I’d passed on the trail are still stuck up there. I’d been right to hurry those last two days down.

In just forty-five minutes, I’m back on solid ground—back in the noise, the traffic, the chaos of Kathmandu I’d almost forgotten. A small modern miracle, though one that perhaps also carries within it the slow erosion of the wild purity I’ve just left behind.

That’s the paradox of these twelve days up high, brushing the roof of the world. I finally came close to those legendary Nepali mountains invisible from the capital, breathed in the thin air of Sherpa country, crossed steep passes above the emerald Gokyo lakes. The mountains and lakes will remain, timeless and silent. Let’s just hope that the human excesses I witnessed along the way don’t spoil too much of the magic for the next generations.

If you’ve enjoyed this story, you can read the full blogl at https://www.nepalimpressions.com/blog

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below! !