Day 9: Chhukung to Lobuche over the Kongma La Pass
Approximate Trekking Time: 6-7 hours
Distance: 9.3k / 5.8 miles
Overnight Elevation: 4930m / 16,174ft
Kongma La day! This was a very long day. Our small group of weary travelers – Shawn, Dan, Nathaniel, Erica, Ube, and myself – rendezvoused in the dining room at 6:30am, breakfasted, and headed out by around 7:15am, starting the trek together in a group effort to find the start of the trail to the pass.
Crossing over the same three small streams as we had the previous day to head up Chhukung Ri, we walked downstream to pick up the trail, where it climbed northwestward along the hillsides. While the trek along the rocky riverbank was cold, still sitting shade of the valley, the sun soon warmed the slopes we climbed up, over, and around.
The first hour of the trail included some rock scrambling and some nice flat sections that contoured around the slopes, eventually leading to a steep climb of switchbacks (where storm predictor guy overtook me) that topped off at a broad open alpine meadow. Continuing past the meadow, the trail was somewhat flat, with some gradual incline as it curved around the mountainside. Toward the end of this section of trail, Nathaniel caught up with us. Erica had twisted her ankle almost immediately after we’d set out, along the rocky banks of the stream, and had decided to stay in Chhukung to rest for the day. He planned to continue over the pass, and they would meet in Namche Bazaar in a few days (a very vague plan that it later turned out they had not really flushed out the details for). Onward and upward.
Further along, the trail continued to wind its way up very steep rocky switchbacks. I was sure that the pass must be at the top of this misery, and I trudged my way slowly up the brutal inclines, Shawn waiting patiently for me to catch up every so often along the way. Much to my chagrin, the steep switchbacks did not top out at the pass. Here, the trail dropped down, and then crossed over a small slope to a marshy bog area – like an alpine fen. We walked around the far side of the water, bouncing over the mushy pockets of earth protruding from the water, rejoining the trail that continued along the other side.
Here we climbed again, the trail eventually leading to a small turquoise blue lake. From here, we could see the pass, marked by prayer flags, high above the other side of the lake, perched at the top of a menacingly steep climb through spiky black rocks; basically, it sat atop Castle Grayskull. Curving around the lake, we made our way to the bottom of the scramble, which thankfully, looked much longer and harder than it was, and we were at the top of the pass in another 15-20 minutes.
The highest of the passes along the three passes trek, Kongma La sits at 18,155 ft. (5535m). The pass was a hive of activity, with many trekkers taking photographs and lingering in the sun, enjoying a break before they started down the other side, trekkers having come up from both sides of the pass. We did the same, donning some warm layers to sit and eat our summit Snickers and the Tibetan bread we had packed out from the lodge that morning. After the quick respite, we snapped some of our own pics and started down the other side of the pass.
From the top of the pass, Lobuche was visible in the not-so-far distance and didn’t even look too far away – WRONG! What started as a nice trail quickly turned into a boulder scramble from cairn to cairn, eventually giving way to steep loose-gravel switchbacks before descending along a more reasonable downhill slope to the Khumbu Glacier. Beyond this very short section of nice trail, the route became an undulating roller coaster of ups and downs over boulders and scree through the moraine field. The trail shifted endlessly over the boulders, loosely marked by cairns leading the way up the never-ending mountains of rock. Each time we climbed to a high point, hoping to see Lobuche on the other side, we were sorely disappointed by views of more boulders. And so we continued, climbing ridge after ridge, following the loosely defined trail and rock cairns past frozen glacial lakes, up and down the rocks and boulders of the moraine.
At last, we gained the final ascent, looking down into Lobuche (4930m/16,170ft.) over a grassy pasture that ran up the slope. Relieved, we followed the trail across the slope and down into the village. Lobuche was nothing to look at – definitely the most unbecoming of all of the villages we had stayed in – with ramshackle lodges connected by muddy pathways. In “Into Thin Air” by John Krakauer, an account of the Everest disaster of 1996, Krakauer had described Lobuche as a “shithole”, and while I’m sure it’s been improved over the last two decades, this description could still hold water.
After a long day of trekking, we had a problem: there were no rooms available. Lodges in Lobuche and Gorak Shep in particular, settlements that now exist solely to service the trekking and climbing industry, are quick to fill up during high season. Most travelers approach from the south, arriving earlier in the day, so by the time we had taken the longer route over the pass, we were getting in later than the main crowd and rooms had booked up. Ube had checked at all of the lodges and they were sold out. He, Nathaniel, and Dan had been lucky enough to grab a 4-bed room at the Himalayan Eco Resort, and graciously offered us their fourth bed. Luckily, Florence also had an extra bed in her room and was kind enough to let me use it, while Shawn slept in the guys’ room. Crisis averted.
In the dining room, most of the tables were taken up by large trekking groups and we ended up at a table near the door, which swung open and closed all evening, a constant flow of trekkers, guides, and porters. The dining room was small and dingy, the lodge far from the “Eco Resort” that it billed itself as, but we were happy to have beds and the food was descent.
Its been so nice to have a group to travel with through much of this trek… while we don’t do all of our hiking together, it’s fun to meet at the top of the passes and peaks, and it’s nice to have a group to gather with at the lodges at night. We were also very appreciative that everyone had helped us out with rooms and beds for the night.
