On a sunny spring day, I stood at the top of a steep hill in Nepal’s Himalayan mountain range. I turned to look at the path I’d just trekked. In the distance I could see the tall pine forest and glacial river I had traversed. Behind me was Pema Choling, a 17th-century Buddhist monastery in the vivid colors and distinctive architectural style seen throughout Nepal’s Khumbu region—reds, greens, golds, and a repeating pattern of squares and flowers. Recalling the instructions that my group’s guide, Pasang Temba Sherpa, had given me two days prior, I spun the 32 prayer wheels on the front wall: clockwise, with the right hand, and with a positive thought for the universe.
I was on the second day of a 12-day trek run by local hospitality company Mountain Lodges of Nepal (MLN). “We slow people down,” said Jason Friedman, a hospitality consultant and director at Sherpa Hospitality Group, the management company that owns and operates MLN. “We see places that most trekkers miss because they want to get to ‘Point B.’”
Point B, in this case, is where some of the world’s most storied mountaineering tales begin: Everest Base Camp, elevation 17,598 feet. To get there, our itinerary was designed to avoid the “Everest Highway,” the colloquial name for the wide trails most travelers use when navigating the region. Instead, our group would zig and zag through ancient paths once followed by monks and traders, sleep in lodges in Nepali villages, and enjoy Himalayan viewpoints few visitors get to experience. We would walk nearly 35 miles, gain more than 8,000 feet in elevation, and take in exceptional vistas during three helicopter rides.
Like many travelers, I had long associated the area with hardcore, fast-paced adventure. And over the past few years, visiting the mountain has felt controversial. Stewards of the land have called it “dirty and crowded,” and the mortal dangers it poses to guides, porters, and travelers are well documented. But the premise of this trip had intrigued me, and I wondered, What would it be like to visit the Everest region in a gentler, less damaging way?
Lukla (9,318 feet)
At Pema Choling Monastery, Lama Nokta Rimbuche sometimes gives individual blessings and prayer scarves to visitors. Throughout the Khumbu region, suspension bridges hang over the Dudh Kosi River, which is fed by waters from Mount Everest.
Photos by Michelle Heimerman
My journey to Everest had begun at home in Nairobi, where I prepared for the elevation gains we’d make as we climbed. But it began in earnest with an early morning flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, a village in northeastern Nepal that is a popular first stop for any trekker in the area. From the air, I saw sylvan peaks with crisp origami-like folds and puffy clouds that looked as though they could turn foreboding in a second.
There was no car to pick us up from the airport; in fact, I would not see a motor vehicle for the nearly two weeks I was on the trek. Despite receiving roughly 60,000 visitors a year and being one of the most popular tourism destinations in Nepal, roads here are scarce; goods are carried by humans, yaks, and in select instances, helicopters. On two separate occasions during the trek, I saw porters carrying full-size refrigerators—strapped to their backs and foreheads—up a hill.
From the airport, we walked a short distance to Lukla’s main street, which was adorned with Buddhist iconography: prayer flags, prayer wheels, and stupas—sacred dome-shaped structures.
During breakfast at MLN’s Lukla Lodge, opened in 2000 in a two-story stone building, the mayor of the rural Khumbu Pasang Lhamu municipality, Mingma Chhiri Sherpa, told me how he is addressing some of the region’s challenges when it comes to tourism.
“We are building the first road to connect Lukla to Kathmandu,” he said as we ate fruit, freshly baked breads, and Nepali dishes including aloo roti, flatbreads served with potatoes that were generously seasoned with ginger and chilies. Today, if you don’t fly, the 228-mile journey can take several days by car and foot. By next year, he hopes, people and goods will be able to travel between Nepal’s capital and the village in 14 hours. He also shared, with pride, that new electrical lines will soon connect high-altitude villages.
After breakfast, I exited the lodge and walked under the Pasang Lhamu gate. This was the second time I had seen the name of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa—in this case, accompanied by a bust. An activist and a climber, in 1993 she became the first Nepali woman to successfully summit Mount Everest. But on her descent she encountered bad weather, leading to her death. (Her life story was turned into an hour-long documentary, Pasang, which debuted at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2022.)
In the 1980s, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa’s husband, Lhakpa Sonam Sherpa, created the Sherpa Hospitality Group. Her son Namgyal Sherpa—now the CEO of the group—was traveling with us. Today, the company has 14 lodges in three regions of Nepal, and it offers tours and personalized guided treks around Everest and Annapurna.
Namgyal said that running the company has been deeply personal for him. Over time, he’s understood the importance of simultaneously honoring his parents’ legacy, offering opportunities to his 149 employees, and building something distinctive for Nepal. To that end, both he and Jason Friedman told me, MLN is working to build a “new Nepal”—one that allows travelers to experience the country at a more immersive pace, while celebrating Nepali culture, local entrepreneurship, and environmental sustainability.
“There’s so much room for transformation and change,” Namgyal said. “We are trying to tell our own stories.”
Namche Bazaar (11,286 feet)
An estimated 5,000 porters work around Everest, making trips possible for upward of 60,000 annual visitors.
Photo by Michelle Heimerman
After two days of gentle trekking, I woke up to begin a morning of steep elevation gain. Our course meandered along the icy Dudh Kosi River, and after 45 minutes, the ascent started, and my steps up the stone stairs felt endless. Every time I thought the path would flatten, I turned a corner and had to crane my neck upward. At one point, I leaned on a rock for a break, and thought of our porters, each of whom was carrying two duffel bags—a load of 70 pounds. By contrast, I had a small day pack filled with snacks, three liters of water, and a rain jacket.
We crossed a suspension bridge located high above the river. Yaks plodded ahead of our group. Travelers who’d hiked before us had left prayer flags and silk scarves on the handrails. They fluttered off the sides and, at just the right angle, glistened in the sun. I tried not to look down.
More stone steps, more uphill paths, a rhythm. At one point, our guide Pasang Temba stopped and asked us to peer between the fir trees. Himalayan weather is famously unpredictable, but at this moment, the clouds had cleared and the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, stood snowcapped at 29,032 feet. The controversies about the mountain quieted in my mind; instead, I felt the awe that I imagine has inspired centuries of mountaineers. Even from this faraway vantage point, the summit felt sacred.
In the Nepali language, Mount Everest is known as Sagarmatha, which translates to “the head of the sky.” Tibetans and the Sherpa people—the original stewards of the region—refer to it as Chomolungma, or “goddess mother of the world.” Neither the Nepali nor the Tibetan name was considered by the United Kingdom’s Royal Geographical Society in 1865, which instead named the mountain after George Everest, a surveyor general of India.
Half an hour later, we entered Namche Bazaar, the first major acclimatization point for trekkers. Starting in the 16th century, the area served as a trading post for Tibetans and Sherpas bartering for items such as yak butter and salt. After Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first known summiteers of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953, hikers began trickling into the region, attempting to recreate the feat. Namche Bazaar allows their bodies to adjust to the lower oxygen levels before continuing farther uphill.
As we traveled through town, I was struck by its size, especially given the lack of roads. We passed restaurants serving hamburgers and sushi, shops selling climbing gear, and vendors hawking handicrafts. Against a backdrop of jagged mountains and a crystal-blue sky, women wrung freshly washed clothes and hung them to dry.
I cut away from the group to walk clockwise around a giant stupa decorated with dozens of prayer wheels, and a monk named Jabyang beckoned me to sit with him. We spoke for a few minutes in Hindi, my mother tongue and a second (or third) language of many Nepalis I met. He talked about his childhood in Namche Bazaar, his foray into monkhood at the age of 10, and the tourism growth he’s seen in his hometown.
Since I was sitting with a monk, I felt compelled to ask him what it meant to live a meaningful life. “Don’t harm others and try to do good,” he said. “Ever since I started studying to be a monk, I’ve tried to keep only positive intentions in my heart.”
I thanked him for his time and rejoined my trekking group at MLN’s Namche Lodge, where happy hour awaited. To quell the altitude-related headache I was developing, the staff made me a bowl of warm garlic soup, a local remedy. As I drank it next to the lodge’s fireplace, I felt myself warming up from the inside out.
The Trail (~12,000 feet)
Namche Bazaar is the commercial hub of the Khumbu region. It offers hotels, bakeries, and the Sherpa Culture Museum.
Photos by Michelle Heimerman
Two mornings later, I noticed the pathways between Namche Bazaar and Thame, our next destination, were lined with carved tablets known as mani stones, many of them etched with a six-syllable mantra, om mani padme hum. Some stones looked older than others; when I saw one enshrouded in moss, I asked Pasang Temba how old he thought it was. “It’s probably been around for 500 years, maybe 600,” he estimated.
Later that morning, I asked Namgyal about the mantra. He said that it symbolizes three main facets of Buddhism’s teachings. “Om” represents the body, mind, and speech; “mani,” a jewel, symbolizes compassion; and “padme,” a lotus flower, symbolizes wisdom—including the wisdom to let go of ego. “Hum” is the unification of these elements.
I considered then how modern motivations for long-distance trekking often involve personal achievement and bragging rights. In his book Mountains of the Mind (Granta, 2003), which traces the history of mountaineering, Robert Macfarlane wrote, “[Everest] is now a gargantuan, tawdry, frozen Taj Mahal, an elaborately frosted wedding-cake up and down which climbing companies annually yo-yo hundreds of under-experienced clients.”
And yet, the region holds the footsteps of so many, over thousands of years, with a variety of intentions. As I walked, I imagined robed monks in the 16th century looking for the perfect spots for their mani stones.
Thame (12,467 feet)
From left: Garlic soup and a tea break were a welcome relief after a hike in Thame; most lodges feature a mud room where hikers can set down their poles and remove their boots before entering; Gaga Diku Sherpa lives on land her family has owned for centuries.
Photos by Michelle Heimerman
A significant left turn off the Everest Highway, Thame is best known as the childhood home of Tenzing Norgay. Approaching the MLN Thame Lodge on the fifth day of the trek, we walked along pathways flanked by stone walls that had likely been built over centuries. (Note: A flood in August 2024, caused by warming temperatures in the region, washed away the lodge and the village of Thame.)
The next morning, we followed best practices and took a misty acclimatization hike up a nearby hill. That evening, in the lodge’s wood-clad lounge, I retreated to a spot near the potbellied fireplace and admired the delicate handpainted details on the walls. Pasang Temba introduced to us a group of local women, who were wearing matching fur hats and striped skirts. He joined them as they performed songs and dances traditional to the Sherpa community, which praised the beauty of the mountains.
There is DNA evidence that Sherpa people, a Tibetan ethnic group native to both Nepal and Tibet, have evolved over millennia to have higher lung capacity to withstand the brutal conditions in the region. When mountaineers first started visiting Everest in the 1950s, they needed help carrying their bags on challenging trails at such high altitudes. Since the local residents were better adapted for these conditions, trekkers began employing people from the Sherpa community.
I’d learned all that after committing a faux pas a few mornings ago. Over breakfast, I’d carelessly told Namgyal and Pasang Temba that I was impressed by the loads the “sherpas” were carrying. Their faces hid a grimace, and I knew I’d made a mistake. They pointed out that I’d used the word “sherpa” as if it were interchangeable with “porter.” Both of their last names were Sherpa, and neither was a porter.
“Some Sherpas are doctors, lawyers, anything you might imagine,” Namgyal said. “And this misnomer almost keeps us stuck.”
Kongde Lodge (13,944 feet)
From left: Local women take a selfie to celebrate the building of a stupa, a domed Buddhist shrine; the interior of MLN Kongde Lodge references earlier climbers.
Photos by Michelle Heimerman
On day seven of the trek I hopped in a helicopter, and as we began to rise, ravines opened beneath us, filled with dark green trees, rushing waterfalls, and bright alpine flowers. Glaciers shone in the distance.
Five minutes later, we landed in Kongde, the site of MLN’s highest-altitude lodge. It’s built on a cliff side that most trekkers do not visit, given its distance from Base Camp and how hard it is to access. But when the skies are clear, as they were that day, the site has a panoramic view of Everest and the surrounding mountains.
Given that we’d spent a week on the trail, I appreciated a day of rest. My fellow trekkers and I took hot showers, refueled with a three-course meal that included homemade pasta, and napped on sofas piled high with pillows in the wood-clad lounge and bar area.
Over warm beverages, we reminisced about what we had seen thus far. At Pema Choling, the 17th-century monastery, we had been the only visitors privy to a once-annual puja ceremony. How lucky we were to witness monks in maroon robes and gold scarves play horns of various lengths, hit gongs, and sing in low, throaty voices.
At another monastery the day prior, we had seen some children watering plants in the garden. “Don’t think these kids are pious,” Pasang Temba had said with a laugh. “Parents always send the naughty ones to the monastery.” Inside the building, a member of our group spied a calendar with Pasang Lhamu’s face on it. By then, I had seen the mountaineer’s name and image dozens of times already. This one, however, had a beard and mustache drawn on it. Pasang Temba was right, as usual. The kids here weren’t as straitlaced as I had assumed.
Everest Base Camp (17,598 feet)
A helicopter takes off from Everest Base Camp. Below, MLN’s camp is situated at the edge of the Khumbu Icefall.
Photo by Michelle Heimerman
I’d seen images of Everest Base Camp when preparing for the trip. But I wasn’t ready for the spectacle of the Tim Burton–esque ice structures or the serpentine streams created from glacial melt or the feeling of being surrounded by such massive peaks. The only colors visible, aside from manmade structures, were white, brown, gray, and blue. Though the sun was out, the underlying chill was undeniable, and I finally broke out the giant down jacket that I’d had since the start of the trip.
After emerging from the helicopter, we settled into our tents, which were outfitted with carpeting, comfortable cots, and light strips for nighttime. We then headed to the dining tent for lunch and a discussion of the day’s plans: naps, then a walk.
Our permits allowed us to walk to the Khumbu Icefall (17,999 feet), a half a mile from our camp. To get there, we shuffled on glacial paths carved by climbers. Our group was visiting after the season had formally concluded, which meant that we had only the company of yaks and porters who were clearing the final remains of this high-altitude temporary city.
Seeing the Khumbu Icefall up close, I was struck by the sheer unfriendliness of the giant, sharp ice columns before me. Friedman reminded me that this was the most dangerous part of summitting Everest, in part because climbers need to ascend and descend it several times to acclimatize properly. During the climbing season, guides erect ladders (at danger to themselves) that help trekkers navigate it; even then, I couldn’t fathom traversing this bit of earth.
My footsteps started to slow on the way back to camp. Every few steps, I needed to stop to take a breath. My head started to spin and nausea set in. By the time I arrived in the dining tent, I knew that the altitude had hit me—hard. I also began hearing and seeing rocks falling in the near distance. Everest Base Camp is constantly shifting; it is, after all, on an ever-moving glacier, and the speed of change has recently increased. As a result, the expedition camps are built anew in slightly different locations each year. During the day, when the sun shines, everything warms up and expands. As evening falls, the temperature suddenly drops and the snow begins to contract, causing cleavages and occasional avalanches.
That night I slept fitfully, listening to the rumbles of contracting snow and willing my nausea to disappear. The next morning, feeling just as poorly from the altitude, several others from the trek and I arranged for a helicopter that would bring us back down to more oxygen-rich air.
Lukla (9,318 feet)
Front lawn of the Lukla Lodge and photos from the new Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Memorial Gallery
Photos by Michelle Heimerman
A few years ago, I would have thought it a personal failure to have fallen ill at what was supposed to be the climax of an incredible expedition. Now, in Lukla, I remembered what I’d learned from Jabyang, Namgyal, and Pasang Temba and tried to let go of my ego and think positively about the universe—and, more specifically, to appreciate the smaller, slower moments I’d experienced throughout the Khumbu region.
Back in Lukla, we attended the opening of a small permanent exhibition dedicated to Pasang Lhamu’s legacy, located next to the gate we had passed on our first day. We learned more about the triumph and tragedy of her life and studied a wall dedicated to Nepali women who have summited Everest.
Someone had the idea to take a group photo with everyone who was part of our trek: the hikers, guides, porters, and others. Half of our group was still at Everest Base Camp, and still, 21 people came into frame.
All these people, and so many others, made this trip possible. Some of them carried my bags at speeds I could only dream of walking, while others generously offered their perspectives on Nepal’s political climate; some kept the hills clean for future trekkers, while others gently reminded me of etiquette when approaching a Buddhist monk. Still others shared their photos from summitting Everest or translated for me when I met a Sherpa nonagenarian on the trail. Together, they wove a much richer, more complex story than the ones most often told about this sliver of the planet. And walking on paths with them helped me hear it.
How to do this trip
Everest Base Camp
Photo by Michelle Heimerman
Basic Considerations
The best times to visit the Khumbu region are April through May and late September through early November. The winters are harsh and snowy, and the monsoon season starts at the beginning of June. In May, the weather is relatively mild, and the rhododendron blooms add welcome pops of color to the valleys. It’s worth noting that the official climbing season for Mount Everest is April to May, so there are fewer trekkers in the fall.
Outfitters
Though the region can be visited without a tour operator, there are many benefits to traveling with a reputable one. Your guide can provide expertise about trekking at high altitudes, enable you to get off the main trails, and share knowledge about local culture.
Ask your prospective outfitter about the speed at which they climb and, in particular, whether the trip goes slowly enough to roughly comply with the CDC’s recommendation to sleep no more than 1,600 feet higher than the previous night when you’re at altitudes of 9,000 feet or more. Ensure the operator follows the adage “Climb high, sleep low”—in other words, they bring trekkers to higher altitudes (and thus lower oxygen levels) during the day and return to lower elevations at night.
I traveled on a 12-day trip with Mountain Lodges of Nepal, which specializes in small-group travel and covers a route notably different from the “Everest Highway” that many trekkers take. MLN’s lodges are considerably higher-end, with electric blankets on every bed and cozy fireplaces in common areas.
Fitness Level
The MLN trip requires no prior climbing experience and is doable for anyone at an intermediate level of fitness. Jason Friedman, a director at Sherpa Hospitality Group, which owns and operates MLN’s lodges, recommends preparing for the trip with hourlong walks, particularly up and down hills. Practice with the shoes, backpack, and walking sticks you will use on the trail.
Safety Considerations
Altitude sickness is best prevented rather than treated. If possible, spend two nights at every location above 10,000 feet. Talk to your doctor beforehand to see if the medication Diamox would be a good prophylactic. Before beginning on the trail—and while on it—drink more water than normal; the Institute for Altitude Medicine recommends an extra 1 to 1.5 liters of water per day when you are above 5,000 feet.
High-altitude rescue insurance is strongly suggested.
In Kathmandu
A trip to Everest will likely begin and end in Kathmandu, Nepal’s bustling capital and the site of its main international airport. Stay at Dwarika’s Hotel, which celebrates the architecture and artistry of Nepal: One of its intricately carved doors is from the 13th century; the spa uses essential oils containing local herbs; and its restaurant Krishnarpan serves six- to 22-course meals featuring dishes from across the country.
