Everest Base Camp Trek

The Everest Base Camp Trek is a roughly 130 km round-trip walk through Nepal's Khumbu region to the foot of Mount Everest, climbing from Lukla (2,860 m) to Base Camp at 5,364 m over 12 to 14 days. It's the most popular high-altitude trek in the world, accessible to fit hikers with no climbing experience but demanding because of the altitude, the cumulative elevation gain across multiple deep valleys, and the cold thin air above 4,000 m.

The standard route starts with a flight into Lukla's Tenzing-Hillary Airport — a short, dramatic landing on a sloped runway carved out of the hillside. From there the trail follows the Dudh Koshi river up through pine and rhododendron forests to Namche Bazaar, the bustling Sherpa capital and unofficial crossroads of the Khumbu. Above Namche the trees thin out at Tengboche, where the famous monastery looks straight at Ama Dablam, and disappear entirely above Dingboche. From there the landscape becomes purely alpine: glacial moraines, prayer flags, the great peaks of the Khumbu — Ama Dablam, Tabuche, Pumori, Nuptse — rising around you. The final push from Lobuche traverses the rocky lateral moraine of the Khumbu Glacier to Gorak Shep, the last settlement, with Base Camp itself a further 3 km out across rubble. Most trekkers also climb the 5,545 m viewpoint of Kala Patthar at sunrise the following morning for the postcard view of Everest's summit pyramid.

Acclimatization is the trek's defining concern. The standard itinerary builds in two rest days — at Namche and Dingboche — and even then a meaningful percentage of trekkers turn back with altitude sickness. Lodging is in family-run teahouses along the trail; you don't camp, you don't carry food. Trekking seasons are October–November (clearest skies, busiest trails) and March–May (warmer, hazier, with rhododendrons in bloom at lower elevations). Outside those windows, expect snow, deep cold, or unpredictable weather. Two permits are required and replaced the old TIMS card for this region: the Sagarmatha National Park Entry Permit (paid in Kathmandu or at the Monjo gate) and the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality Permit (paid at Lukla on arrival). Lukla flights are weather-dependent and routinely delayed by a day or more.