The whole point of this trek was to make it to Everest Base Camp and we did. So it was pretty easy to gloss over the fact that we would be going harder and higher the very next day by hiking to the top of Kala Patthar – where we would get amazing views of the Himalayas around us, including Everest. As a group we decided to leave at 4AM in order to capture views of the sun rising behind Mt. Everest. I woke up at 2:30AM with my heart racing and head pounding – I felt like I was drunk, hungover and experiencing a panic attack all at once. Jeremy was gasping for air in his sleep. This is what sleeping at 17,000 feet feels like. I patiently waited for time to pass and at 3:45 we put our boots on (at this point we were sleeping in our hiking clothes to stay warm) and headed down to the main dining hall where we found Sherpas and trekkers that couldn’t get a room sleeping on the floor. We had some hot chocolate and went outside to hit the trail.

With the light of the moon and the stars we started the very vertical hike up. Headlamps were dotting the trail and we looked like ants making our way up the mountain. In below freezing temperatures, we followed each other one-by-one in a single file line. And within 5 minutes I was spent but we had 2.5 hours to go.

It was around 5:30AM that light started to fill the sky and we got our first views of Everest. The view was breath taking. We pushed up the mountain and the cold air was penetrating our down jackets. Snot was coming out of my face at such a rapid rate that my kerchief didn’t stand a chance. Our water bottles (filled with boiled water before we left the tea lodge) were freezing and our hands were too cold to get them open even if we wanted to. Our quick ascent made breathing damn near impossible. I was just a hundred feet from the top and would have to stop every 10 steps just to keep from dying. But we made it.

At 18,500 feet this might be the closest we ever get to the top of the world. We celebrated up top with a few snapshots but were way too cold to stay for long. We made our descent and I said goodbye to Everest for now. We found ourselves back at the tea lodge around 8AM for breakfast and tea. We packed our bags and were excited to start our trek back to Lukla – with our first stop in Pheriche.

We made it to Base Camp in ten days and now we have only four to get back down. We’ve mentally shifted from going up to going down – but we were hardly going down at all. The trail undulates – up a hill, down a valley to the river and back up another hill.

As we approached Pheriche we had a two hour hike through a flat riverbed. Jeremy and I found ourselves alone, just the two of us, for the first time in a what felt like a long time.

Now that we weren’t struggling to breathe and were on a flat stretch of trail we were able to really enjoy each others’ company. Pheriche looked close but it was still a couple hours away. We walked through a river bed and tried to get baby yaks to let us pet them. When we finally made it to our tea lodge we were spent but giddy to be at lower altitude and making our way back home.