HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I can’t believe it’s Halloween already and we’ve been trekking for 13 days now. Unfortunately no one else in my group shares my love of the holiday as they don’t celebrate it in their respective countries.

As we hiked off into the Himalayas that morning, leaving Dingboche far below us, I tried desperately to explain the epicness of Hocus Pocus to my fellow trekkers. I even quoted it a few times such as:

Again, just like Halloween itself, my glorious quotes and singing of “I Put A Spell On You” went underappreciated.

So I took a selfie with a MARS bar. Obviously.

I also dressed up as a trekker who hadn’t had a proper shower in 15 days. I think I nailed it.

The walk today was stunning. It’s amazing how it can even get more beautiful with each passing day.

Epic shot from behind

If you look closely you can see the village of Phakding nestled in the valley

The locals enjoy placing stones into unique formations

Some sherpas who left us in the dust

The first few hours saw us walking along fairly flat terrain with a slight incline which was nice because you can definitely notice the thinness of the air up here.

It took us about 3 hours of slow walking with lots of picture stops to reach the town of Dugla where we took a quick break before heading up the pass.

A view of the pass from below

Holy crap was it a tough one. It was pretty steep and add in the altitude and it was no piece of cake let me tell you. I was moving excruciatingly slow and still I was breathing like I’d just run a half marathon. Making it to the top was worth it though because the views were spectacular (I’m swiftly running out of adjectives to describe the scenery here).

Views from the top

There are memorials to those who have died climbing in the HImalayas all along the top of the pass and the surrounding areas

We took a break at the top of the pass, took lots of pictures, but moved on relatively quickly as we’d heard there are not many guest houses from here on out, and with so many people on the trails if you don’t get there early enough you might not get a room.

The trail to Lobuche

I was a bit ahead of the group and rolled into Lobuche first to a sight I wasn’t expecting - a red and blue Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger running down a giant hill towards the village. What now??

I caught up with them, complimented them on their outfits, and they shouted ‘Happy Halloween!!’ Turns out they were both from California and, knowing they would be trekking on Halloween, brought Power Rangers costumes with the from the U.S. Epic.

And unfortunately I’m an idiot and didn’t get pictures of them. Epic fail.

We ended up staying at the same guest house as them - Above the Cloud - a great little place where we got the rooms for free and a complimentary welcome tea. The woman in charge had also spent one Halloween in New York City so she was all about celebrating the holiday with us. Every time we did something in the spirit of the holiday she shouted “HAPPY HALLOWEEN”! She even gave us a free chocolate pancake.

The two Power Rangers were later joined by two American girls who they’d met earlier on the trek. Therefore it became a Halloween love fest with lots of MARS bars, Snickers, and TWIX consumed in a very short amount of time.

The town of Lobuche

That afternoon I decided to do a bit of exploring. After blindly walking around for about 10 minutes I started to notice some groups and their guides heading in the direction of the hill I’d seen the Power Rangers run down earlier in the day. Figuring a bit of an acclimatization walk couldn’t hurt I followed.

And boy am I glad I did.

After some huffing and puffing up the hill I ended up at the top overlooking the Khumbu Glacier - an enormous glacier fed by Everest herself.

It was massive and impressive and all other adjectives about breath-taking beauty.

I took an obscene amount of pictures and when I had almost wasted my entire camera battery I just stopped, looked, and listened. And in doing so I could hear the glacier moving. It creaked and groaned and cracked. Eerie, but so cool.

After about a half an hour the clouds started to roll in so when the guides started bringing their groups back down to the town I followed.

The clouds starting to make their way towards us

Later that evening we celebrated Haim’s birthday (which was the 29th and we would have celebrated it then but he didn’t tell us!) with a chocolate pancake. The woman in charge of the guest house even lit a candle as everyone sang “Happy Birthday”.

Spoilers for next time: Everest Base Camp!!

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