A Day In The Life Of Trekking

April 11th, 2010 8:41am - Posted By: Brittany

  Here’s a general glimpse at our day to day life while trekking. 

6:30am wake up – MC and Meresh show up at our door with hot tea to wake us up.  We generally have been up 30 minutes prior to get dressed and start packing our yak bags and day packs.  MC asks if we want black tea, coffee, hot chocolate.  We choose black tea, no sugar every day. 

7am – Breakfast in the lodge’s dining hall.  We have a camping kitchen that travels with us.  They set up tents and the kitchen outside the lodge, but we get served in the lodge’s dining hall.  Our kitchen staff makes everything from scratch, including breads.   Breakfast generally starts with porridge/cereal/oatmeal.   The second course is some kind of egg (omlette, scrambled, hard boiled, etc) and a bread (pancakes, toast, etc).  There is the usual spread of jam, butter, peanut butter, marmelade, etc.  At higher altitudes these all became hard to use since it was so cold.  End breakfast with hot water fill ups and tea or coffee.  Deana or Pemba take our vitals (see below).

5 min mark – Deana tells us to wrap it up and do what we need before we leave.  This basically means go to the bathroom, put on sunscreen, fill up your water bottles, deal with any blisters/injuries and be out front ready to go.  She says 5 minutes, but it takes us about 15-20.  While we’ve been in Breakfast, our Yak bags have left our rooms and our being loaded up.  This is why we have to be packed by breakfast each day.

Hit the trail.  We start hiking, following a different Sherpa each day.  One is the lead, then one in the middle, then one in the back.  The Sherpas are Dawa, Pemba, Chrring, and Mane.  Dawa is the head for the whole trek, so sometimes he’s behind with the kitchen making sure it’s all in order, other days he’s with us.  They pace us along with our guides, Deana and  Pemba.  We never go too fast and everyone can go at their own pace since there will always be either a guide or Sherpa with you.  At the higher altitudes we go at an agonizingly slow pace, but it’s what keeps us healthy and alive.  We hike for about 2-4 hours, then stop for lunch.  At lease 2-3 times an hour we move out of the way for porters and yaks.  They have the right of way since they carry the heavier load.  Porters carry up to 80 pounds (legally, some do more for more money). Yaks carry around 200 pounds.   

We also stop to look for a “toilet.”  Toilets vary greatly in Nepal, especially the Himalayas.  Some are nice, sweet wooden huts up in the hills with just some wood flooring, a hole, and a lot of mulch.  Others are tiled holes in the floor.  And some have sit down toilets.  But these do not flush and are often dirtier than pit toilets.  But squatting over a hole is harder than you think, especially when your legs ache from hiking.  The locals have no problem with the “third world squat.”  But our legs need some conditioning to make it easier.   Also, remember your own toilet paper and purell, and pack out!

Lunch – we stop at small villages for lunch.  Our kitchen staff has already cleaned up, packed up, and passed us on the trail.  They are there and have lunch ready for us by the time we make it.  Lunch starts with hot towels soaked in a liniment to sooth our faces and hands.  We also start lunch with “juice.”  This is always a warm tang or Gatorade to help with hydration and electrolytes.   First course of lunch is always a bowl of soup, garlic for high altitude, others are onion, tomato and once cilantro.  This helps replenish our salt.  Second course varies and is always a strange combination.  Spam, croissant, fries, coleslaw, cheese, grilled veggies, various Nepali or Indian foods, cheese sandwiches, mini hot dogs, tortillas, potatoes.  It ends with fruit and hot tea and a water bottle fill up.  We always get boiling water for health reasons. 

5 min mark – same as before, bathroom, sunscreen, get ready to hike.  Hike for another 2-4 hours until we reach our destination.

Reach the destination – get to the lodge and get our room assignments.  If the yaks made it before us (almost always) our bags are already waiting for us in the room.  Get to the room and get those boots off!  Yay!  Relax a little and depending on the time, head off to tea.

Tea time – around 4pm each day.  Not mandatory, but we go each time.  We get served hot tea, coffee, chai (milk tea) and an assortment of cookies and crackers.  Often we also have fresh popcorn.  Yum!  The sugar and salt is just what our bodies crave.

Free time the rest of the night.  Depending on the time we get in and when we have dinner, we usually just relax in our room.  We wash up and unpack a bit.  Deal with any ailments and maybe check out the village.  Time flies and just like mountain living, when the sun goes down, that’s pretty much it for the night.

Dinner – dinner was around 6 or 7pm.  Meet in the lodge dining room, start with a hot towel, then first course of soup.  Then dinner, similar to lunch.  After dinner with our tea, we discuss the plans for the next day, like how long we’re hiking, what the trail looks like, and any other issues.   Deana or Pemba take our vitals (see below).  We often hang out around the stove for heat or play a game of dice before people hit the sack around 8 or 9pm. 

Taking Vitals – Every morning at breakfast and every evening at dinner we had our vitals taken and our health info recorded.  Deana had this device that measured pulse and blood oxygen levels.  In the beginning, our pulses were low and our oxygen in the mid 90s.  At higher altitudes, our pulse went up and our oxygen went down.  This helped the guides monitor our bodies and keep us healthy.  They also tracked any ailments (headaches, upset stomachs, rashes, burns, injuries, appetite) as well as all medications we took (daily and other, pepto, advil, etc.)  Our oxygen levels were lower at dinner and higher at breakfast, since the body does it’s acclimatization while you sleep.  That’s why the over night at high altitude was so important.  If you couldn’t make it through the night, you needed to evaluate your next move.  

Posted in: Nepal 2010

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