Everest Base Camp + Island Peak

The flight from Romania leaves on 11 April, and on 12 April we land in Kathmandu.

Transfer from the airport to the hotel and a first taste of a colourful, noisy city. Free time is well spent getting lost in the lanes of Thamel, the neighbourhood in the centre of town, trying the local food and looking at the handmade things in the shops. In the evening we meet for the traditional welcome dinner.

We pack the two bags: the daypack you carry yourself and, separately, the duffel the porter carries. We keep to the limit of the Lukla flight, 15 kg per person including hand luggage. The rest of the day is free, for Thamel and for last-minute gear shopping.

The day starts before dawn. We drive about 4-5 hours to the airport at Ramechhap (Manthali), where the Lukla flights leave from in the spring season. The flight takes around 20 minutes and passes a good part of the Himalayan range. The runway at Lukla is very short and sloping, on the lip of a hill surrounded by high mountains, and the flights depend a lot on the weather.

Once the bags are sorted and the permits collected, we set off through the first mountain villages. We spend the first night in a teahouse, a Nepali guesthouse. The facilities are simple but enough.

We walk along the river and cross it several times on iron suspension bridges. We often stop to let a caravan of yaks or donkeys go by, carrying goods between the villages. Before Namche comes a long, steep climb of about 600 m, the hardest part of the day.

Namche is the most developed village on the trail and the gateway to the Khumbu valley. It has a café with very good coffee, an Irish pub and, on Saturdays, a market with local produce and goods flown to Lukla and then carried up on porters' backs. The yak cheese is a must.

We climb higher than we sleep, to give the body time to adjust. At the viewpoint we have a tea and look over the whole valley we will follow in the coming days, with Everest (8,849 m) in the background. On the way back we pass through Khumjung, where we visit the monastery and the school built by Edmund Hillary. Hillary was the first to reach the summit of Everest, with Tenzing Norgay, in 1953, and did a great deal for the Sherpa community. Optionally, in Namche you can visit the Sherpa Culture Museum and the Sagarmatha National Park museum.

After Namche the trail splits. The main valley leads to base camp, while the path to the Gokyo lakes is far less travelled. We take the second. It is a long day of ups and downs, in which we go above 4,000 m for the first time.

Another easier day at high altitude, so that acclimatisation happens step by step. We walk along the Gokyo valley, wild and surrounded only by giants.

The day is for acclimatisation, so that we adapt gradually to the altitude before Gokyo and the Cho La pass. We take a short walk above the village, as the guide decides, and come back to sleep in Machhermo again.

A day of beautiful scenery. The trail passes the first Gokyo lakes and reaches the village, on the shore of the third lake. In the afternoon we walk to the fifth lake, which has a very good view of Everest. Beside the lakes flows the Ngozumpa, the longest glacier in Nepal, about 36 km long. From here you also see the south face of Cho Oyu (8,188 m), another peak of over eight thousand metres.

Straight after breakfast we climb Gokyo Ri. The climb is not difficult, but it is superb: from the top you see the lakes and four peaks of over 8,000 m, Cho Oyu, Everest, Lhotse and Makalu. On top of the day's stage, Gokyo Ri means about 600 m of ascent and as much descent.

After coming down we carry on to Thaknak and cross the Ngozumpa glacier. The scenery on the moraine is spectacular, and from Gokyo Ri you see all of it before you set foot on it.

The crossing is long and hard. We leave at first light, because it takes at least 8 hours, and climb slowly, to give the body time to adjust. On our right is Cholatse (6,440 m). From the pass the whole Khumbu valley opens up, with Ama Dablam, impossible to mistake. On the other side we make a short crossing of the Cho La glacier, where you see turquoise ice. In spring the glacier and the shaded sections can be frozen, which is why microspikes are on the gear list.

We carry on towards base camp and reach Lobuche. The path from Dzongla joins the main trail near the Thukla pass, where we can take a short detour to the memorials raised to the climbers and Sherpa guides who lost their lives on the surrounding mountains.

We set off for Gorak Shep, the last village in the valley. The trail passes what is left of the retreating Khumbu glacier, along a glacial valley covered in scree with ice still underneath. We stay here two nights: Gorak Shep is the base for Kala Patthar and for base camp.

We climb Kala Patthar at sunrise, before breakfast. This is where Everest is seen best and where its classic photo is taken, not from base camp. We go back down to Gorak Shep for breakfast.

Then we walk along the moraine of the Khumbu glacier to base camp, about 3.5 km each way, with a stop for photos and videos at the rock that marks its entrance. The tents in the camp belong to the expeditions, which in spring are getting ready to climb through the Khumbu Icefall, the most technical part of the route to the summit. We return the same way to Gorak Shep, for a second night there. It is the longest day after the Cho La pass.

Here we part from those heading straight down to Lukla. We walk down the Khumbu valley to Lobuche, then take the path to Dingboche, a village of stone walls that shelter fields of barley and potatoes. After the days above 5,000 m, the air here feels richer.

Dingboche has several shops that rent out climbing gear. If you are missing anything for the summit (helmet, ice axe, crampons, harness, jumar or descender), this is where you get it, after checking it with the guide.

We climb the Imja valley past Chhukung, the last village, and on along the moraine of the Lhotse glacier to the base camp below Island Peak. The stage is not hard, but above 4,500 m you feel the altitude with every step.

At camp we meet the climbing Sherpas, one for every two participants, and the crew that runs the tents and the kitchen. In the afternoon we have the technical lesson: how to walk in crampons on snow and ice, how to climb a fixed rope with a jumar and how to abseil. We go to bed early, because we set off at midnight.

We set off around 1 am, by head torch, to reach the top at about 7 in the morning. For the first three hours we climb on path and rock to the edge of the glacier, at about 5,800 m, where we put on crampons and rope up. On the glacier a few sections are secured with fixed ropes and, sometimes, ladders over crevasses.

The last part is a snow slope of 300-400 m, at 30-45 degrees, fixed-roped all the way, that leads straight to the summit ridge. From the top you see Lhotse, Nuptse, Makalu, Ama Dablam, Baruntse, Cholatse and Mera Peak. We stay a few minutes for photos, then go down the same way to camp and on to Chhukung. It is 10-12 hours on the move, the longest and hardest day of the tour.

This is the spare day for the summit: if the weather or the group keeps us from climbing on the planned day, we try the next one, and the walk down to Namche is then done in one long day of about 24 km.

If the summit goes on the first try, we split the descent in two. Today we walk to Pangboche, home to the oldest monastery in the Khumbu valley, with Ama Dablam above the village almost all the way.

We walk down through the rhododendron forest to Tengboche, home to the largest monastery in the region. If it is open, we go in. Then we drop to the Dudh Koshi river, cross it and climb again to Namche, with Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse behind us for the last time.

We are back in the forest, close to the river. The hot shower in Lukla is very tempting, but it often disappoints: the showers are solar, and in cloudy weather the hot shower has to wait until Kathmandu.

The return flight is often bumpier than the one out. From Ramechhap we drive on to Kathmandu. After two weeks in the mountains, a shower, a massage and a good meal are priceless. The rest of the day is free, for rest and shopping.

Flights from Lukla depend on the weather and are often delayed. This day is the buffer for such delays. If everything goes to plan, you have it free in Kathmandu.

Transfer to the airport, depending on your flight time.