In September 2009 I was lucky enough to get the chance to visit Nepal and trek along the Khumbu Valley to the foot of Mount Everest. It has to be the best overseas trip that I've done. The scenery was breath taking, even though we were plagued with lots of cloud during the trek, the views of the high mountains were just stunning. What was nice about the trip was for most of the time we were the only people trekking, as we were there right at the end of the monsoon season. This had it pro's and con's, the biggest pro was there wasn't any problems with the lodges been busy and the trail was deserted. The con's were that the weather was a good as it can be during the main trekking season, and some of the lodges were still stocking up on provisions for the  season so some things weren't available. All in all I personally think the pro's outweighed the con's and if/when I go back I will definitely be going at a similar time of year.

Previous visitors to these journal pages will notice that there has been some changes to when I originally posted it back in September 2009. There are two reasons behind these changes, the first is due to the popularity of the journal. If you Google 'Everest Base Camp Trek' this pages now appears at the top of the search ranking, and so the journal gets lots of visitors. To date, the Base camp Journal has had close to 17,000 page views. I find this amazing, when I sat down and put the pages together after getting back from Nepal it was just with the intention of showing my friends the photos from the trek. Never, did I think it would attract so much interest, I'm really pleased that so many people are now enjoying looking at the photos. The second reason behind the revamp, is that I've now been able to reprocess all of the photos that I took while I was in Nepal. Originally there were lots that I wasn't happy with, for various reasons. But I've recently updated some of the software that I use and realised that I could rescue them reasonably easily. So I went through them and came up with 175 new photos to include in the journal.

Something else returning visitors may notice, is that all of the kind comments that everyone originally left have disappeared. I apologise about this, but it's nothing to do with me, the company that were providing that service are withdrawing it later this year. So I'm having to change this to Facebook comments. Don't worry I have saved all of the previous comments. I just need to sit down and think of a suitable way to display them.

The trek started with an early morning flight out from Kathmandu to small airport at Lukla, which was interesting to say the least. Then after breakfast it was time to head out on the first leg of my trek to base camp .... full details and photos from day 1

The second day was a very short day, just a couple of hours walking along the river to the village of Monjo. The reason for this was as part of the trek we were helping to support the school at Monjo .... full details and photos from day 2

The uphill work really started in earnest today with the steep climb up to Namche Bazaar, but we did get the first glimpse of the high mountains en route .... full details and photos from day 3

A rest day at Namche Bazaar, so I took time to relax and explore the area around the village .... full details and photos from day 4

Another day of trying to catch views of the mountains through the clouds, finishing with a visit to the Monastery at Tengboche .... full details and photos from day 5

The first proper views of Mount Everest and WOW what views they were, a morning I'll never forget .... full details and photos from day 6

Probably the toughest trekking day for me, the climb up onto the Khumbu Glacier was hard work .... full details and photos from day 7

Mission accomplished, Base Camp reached but the weather spoiled the views of Everest .... full details and photos from day 8

Snowy weather and the start of the return to Lukla .... full details and photos from day 9

A long day on the trail, 8 hours of trekking and lots of ups and downs .... full details and photos from day 10

The final day on the trek, and the worst weather, torrential rain all day made for soggy walking, but nothing could damped our spirits on arriving safely back at Lukla .... full details and photos from day 11

After flying back from Lukla and having a rest day, it was time to explore Kathmandu before heading home .... full details and photos from day 12