JumpEarth Around the World Adventure

Hello everyone. I am back with another blog post for you today about what is quite possibly our last day on a mountain for a while. Yes, you heard me correctly, this might be our last day on a mountain for a few months if our schedule to get off Everest and then tour the world goes according to plan. Today, we climbed from Namche directly to Lukla airport, where we would fly to Kathmandu the next day if things go according to plan. This is our final trek before heading off to Cambodia and seeing the world more, which to me is very exciting and will be a humongous upgrade from trekking all the time, even though trekking is kind of fun. I personally prefer to just rest in one place for a while instead of constantly moving everywhere. But yeah, I am pretty sure this was our last big climb on this whole year trip. So anyways, we started our day off by waking up in the Hotel Holiday Namche prayer room, where we slept last night. Pretty weird to sleep in a prayer room for a night, but it fulfilled our needs for a nice, comfortable room that was actually really fancy. We got dressed and did our things fast, but everyone else also had the same ideas as us, so it was a whirlwind of chaos getting ready for breakfast but when we finally got down, Ganesh was waiting for us. He found his phone that was apparently STOLEN the day before and spent the entire night hiking back to Namche! I felt very sorry for him, but he made it back safe and sound with his phone and a few hours of rest, so he was all good. We then started what I considered to be the easiest descent down the mountain for the last time. We went mainly downhill for the vast majority of the walk and it was quite easy actually. No really hard points or turns, plus seeing everyone go to the base camp with happy smiles and clean clothes was hilarious because I knew what they had coming for them😆😆😆😆😆😹!!! Also, seeing where we had so much difficulty on the way up and going down that was very satisfying and halfway there, we stopped and had pastries for breakfast. We then continued our journey for a long time before reaching a very familiar sarcophagus that was a landmark to me when we had just started the trek. I was so excited and ran up the hill to find the glorious gate of Lukla, the finish line of our trek. I passed it first and in my head, I felt amazing😆😂😘😜🙅🙅🙅💪💖💖✊✊✊✊👌!!!!!!! Finally finishing the entire trek felt awesome and after that, we had lunch and took a small break at our hotel. We had a nice pizza for dinner hours later and one of our porters, Bhanu, gave a really nice speech to us that was very good and made me happy. I just can’t believe that it is all over and I’m so excited to go to Kathmandu.

Walkin’ on a bridge.

Dddooonnnkkkkkeeeeeeyyyyyy!!!!!

A cool photo taken by Troy. It’s very awesome.

A sarcophagus that I used as a landmark on our first day. I knew we were close when I saw it!!

Finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!🎆🎉😆😜😘

Woohoo!!

Hi everyone! I’m back today with another blog post for you about our calm and very exciting descent down the mountain. Today was primarily downhill with only two large uphills… that were 70% of our day. Yeah, they were hard, but the ultimate satisfaction of coming down all that way was much greater than the exhaustion we faced. We started off the day like any other day on the trek, except that we woke up in a nice, warm habitat instead of a minus fifty degrees bunker. It felt so nice and after eating toast, we were greeted outside by three baby yaks! They looked very cute and clearly wanted attention because they were shoving each other to get to us. It was hilarious, but we eventually left and began our long, six hour descent down to Namche, where I would have my first beef burger and where we had our rest day during our ascent. The walk started off downhill, which was amazing due to the fact the it was effortless and that the scenery was fantastic. It was very rocky going down, but it was ok because it was hardly cold and we were far ahead of everyone else including large groups of slow travelers. This downhill was great into we reached our first major uphill on the trek today. It was long and very exhausting because we climbed all the way down just to go up. Yeah, today was a very exhausting roller coaster of up and downhill😓🙍🙀 that made me kind of sick inside. Thankfully, it ended and then we began an even longer downhill for what was probably downhill for and hour. Yeah, roller coaster. It was awesome to see the scenery though and it was even better to see all the hikers climbing up the mountain😅😝!!! We then started another long uphill until reaching a very nice village about an hour from Namche. I don’t know what it was called, but it was the home of the head sherpa of Everest!! His name is Phurba and he basically hires all the sherpas(who set up the tents and stuff)and makes sure that they are alright. We went to meet him in his home, but he was hiking somewhere else. However, we did meet his very nice family!!! We met his wife, who was very nice and showed us her home and then we met his two sons who were also very nice to us. They were all very fun, but the most interesting and center of attention was the little girl who was one and hung out with us the most. She was very funny and did a bunch of funny things like riding a saddle and playing peek-a-boo with us! We also had a very good pizza there and went down to Namche after saying goodbye to our new friends. The hike to Namche was very peaceful and when we got there, we arrived at the hotel we stayed at last time. We were supposed to get our own rooms, but there was a delay so we all had to sleep in the prayer room of the hotel!!!!! The room was very fancy and actually was nicer than the other rooms. We also finally took hot showers and left to go to the bakery, where I finally had a beef burger😘🍔🍟😋! It was so good after what I went through and I had chocolate cake for dessert. We then went back to the hotel where we had a quaint dinner and went to sleep satisfied. Oh wait!! There’s something IMPORTANT I left out. When we got to the hotel, Ganesh discovered that he had left his phone where we slept yesterday and had to hike back all the way there😱😰💀!!!!! I felt so bad for him and he had to walk back the whole rest of the NIGHT to get back to where we were…

 With Phurba’s family!

A picture of Phurba and his employer, Russell.

Above Namche!

Yo yo yo! Hi everyone, I am back with another blog post for you today about today’s life changing moment and the start of our descent down the Everest base camp. Yes, after eight days of hard work, we finally went down the mountain that is the highest point on Earth!! It was a very big and exciting deal for us, so let me tell you about this awesome and great moment. Also, as implied by the title, not only did we climb up the Everest base camp successfully, but we also did it on my favorite holiday known as Halloween! Usually, I would be decorating and Ella would be making her own costume, but I never imagined climbing up the Everest base camp on this special holiday of mine. So yeah, that made it an even bigger deal and all the more exciting. Today, I woke at 6:00 am instead of seven like usual because we were going to have a long day ahead of us. I used the same unused-clothes-in-the-sleeping-bag trick from last night and it worked successfully like last time. We then quickly got dressed and started our final ascent up to the Everest base camp. Truth be told, it was pretty easy going up to the base camp. It was only steep a few times, but very easy compared to yesterday. Also, seeing everyone going up Kalapatthar like we would’ve done today was very relieving and boosted my inner strength. We arrived two long hours later and finally celebrated our life-changing experience😆🙅🙅😹👌✊🎶🎶🎶🎺🎸🎸🎯! We also received presents from Ganesh that were shirts when OUR names and the Everest base camp map on the backside of it! I was so happy that going down was the second happiest part of my day. We began our descent down the Everest base camp until reaching the camp where we slept last night(Lobuche). We took our luggage and began the long and relaxing trip downhill towards our less cold destination, Pangboche. I’ll explain walking downhill using these emojis then describing it with my own words:☺😌💖👏🌄🍃🌳. As you can tell, today was GREAT and waking downhill was more relaxing than I thought. The whole trip down was relaxing and we even visited a memorial to all the people who died on Everest and a local hospital. It was a very interesting walk and a few hours later we arrived at the camp. We played UNO and then I had the most delicious pizza on the trek and then went to sleep happy. HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!!🎃👹😹

Yeeeesssssss!!!! Ella’s rock with blue sharpie and band will remain on top of the base camp forever!

Tadaaaaa!!

The hospital with the Halloween theme!🎃

Hi everyone! I’m back today with another blog post for you today about our exhausting but ultimately satisfying hike today up to a peak called Kalapatthar instead of the Everest base camp like we were supposed to(we are going to climb it tomorrow though). Yeah, we had a slight change in schedule that was for the better and I’ll get into it later, but today was the most exhausting day for me so far. It was exhausting because it was 100% uphill and the altitude matched that of Kilimanjaro! So as you can see, today was no walk in the park but after we finished it, about 74% of the entire uphill on the trek was completed and it felt so darn good. My day started off by me miserably waking up to the sound of a loud alarm clock. I actually found the perfect position to sleep in before waking up😣!!! Anyways, yesterday I learned the horrible cost of leaving your unworn clothes in the middle of the floor so they can get wet and freezing. I didn’t want to go through the same situation as yesterday, so last night I came up with the extremely intelligent plot to put my unworn clothes INSIDE my sleeping back so that they would get warm. As I predicted, my hypothesis was successful and I put on my WARM clothes delightfully😆🙅🎶🎸🎺!!!! I had the usual omelette and toast and left for the final campsite before the Everest base camp. Our hike can be divided into two parts: The trip to the not-Everest base camp and then our long, exhausting walk up the peak Kalapatthar. However, they were both basically the same exercise as yesterday’s steep rock walk, but more difficult due to a bigger distance and altitude. So, the first MOVEMENT we did today was climb uphill steeply on though, jagged rocks. It’s to long to explain just how bad it was, so I’ll explain the entire uphill to the base camp using these emojis:😭😵🍃👹💀💔. Pretty dramatic, but it’s true. So we got to the base camp called Lobuche and had a relaxing thirty minute break. We left all our backpacks inside our rooms and began to hike up to the highest point we would ever go on this whole trek. It was peak Kalapatthar, the single handedly hardest part of this whole trek. We climbed this peak instead of Everest base camp because all the people who were coming back had already been on the peak in the morning and said it was freezing. We were supposed to go up there tomorrow morning like they did, but switched our plans due to all the people who told us. It was the best decision done on this trek because even though it was very hard, if we’d done it at 6:00 am instead of the evening, we would have literally died. As before, I will express the long, 100% uphill and jagged trek using the following emojis: 😵😵😵😭🍃❄💀💔😭👊🌞😈👹👻. Dramatic eh, because I literally nearly collapsed from the altitude and immense energy of the hike. It was all worth it however when we reached the top and viewed the entire scenery before it’s: The Everest base camp, expedition tents, lakes, unfortunate hikers, and even the legendary Mountain Everest itself. It was awesome and climbing down couldn’t of been more of a blessing. A few hours later, we met two Israelis named Yoan and Omar and played games with them, including UNO and an Israeli game called Yaniv. It was very fun and we had great conversions about the trek, life, McDonald’s, and even artificial meat. It was very fun to meet new people and we went to sleep prepared for the life-changing moment that awaited us tomorrow(for real this time).

Climbing Kalapatthar. Hard, but worth it.

On top of Kalapatthar! Yes!!!th

What’s up what’s up everyone? I’m back with another blog post for you today about our short, but really exhausting hike to the final camp before the Everest base camp! As I literally just said, today was only four hours instead of the proposed six, but it was all a ghastly uphill that made me die on the inside. It was very exhausting people and I had to rest constantly due to the massive uphill. Anyways, my day started off by me miserably getting dressed and putting on my wet socks. It was hard and exhausting, but I did it and after breakfast, we hiked up the mountain. The hike up was entirely uphill and the terrain was very rocky, meaning that I had to use extra energy to climb up. Personally, it was very hard due to the fact that my breath kept running out and I nearly collapsed from exhaustion. We climbed on an extremely uneven surface uphill after eating a nice lunch and it felt dead by the time we got up. There was a memorial for all the dead people who died on Everest that was very sad to look at. I honored them all for their bravery and felt very bad for them. We reached our camp, Loche, thirty minutes later and after playing UNO and chatting for a long time, we had a nice dinner and went to bed in the cold night and prepared for the life-changing moment tomorrow.

A very motivational poster we saw at lunch.

The memorial to Rob Hall, a guide who died in 1996 getting his expedition up to the Everest Summit.

The memorial ground to all the brave climbers who died on Everest.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! I’m back people with another cool blog post for you today about our fifth day up to the Everest base camp! Something to note before reading this post is that not many interesting things happened in today’s trek except for a few small things that didn’t really affect me. However, the trek today DID affect me in a good and bad way, so you have your warning in case this blog turns out to be very short. Let’s start off the day by stating that this morning was FREEZING❄😨!!! Literally, it has been the coldest morning so far and when I woke up, I actually went back inside my sleeping bag because it was so cold. When I put on my clothes one by one, they were freezing and gave me goosebumps all over the place. Eventually, I had to man up and put on my -20° clothes as I headed downstairs for an ok breakfast of omelette and toast. It wasn’t horrible to be honest, but it did make my stomach feel kind of uncomfortable because of the altitude and the fact that I just woke up and was freezing. We brushed our teeth afterwards and left for our four hour hike to our next location for the day. Today’s hike can only be described as the same as yesterday’s hike but more exhausting due to the fact that we had fewer breaks. The trek started with climbing downhill for about half of the trek. Really, it was a steep downhill in the freezing cold of the morning. On our way down, we saw a tiny black and white puppy that was trotting uphill confidently. It looked very cute and was apparently following another pair of hikers for two hours up a bridge and through the rocky terrain!! After that cute puppy, we continued downhill for hours before reaching our lunch break where I had potatoes and Ella heard a woman yelling for help in the bathroom because she was locked from the outside. Don’t ask me how or why, but it happened somehow. After that interesting experience, we crossed a bridge and hiked an even longer distant uphill until reaching the campsite called Dingboche and we were exhausted and on the brink of collapse😂🙏. We stayed there for a while and had a delicious dinner that filled me up. It was everything I loved and according to what tomorrow might look like, I am going to need to be prepared.

At dinner, I spotted this newborn baby watching this YouTube clip that was very cringy. It’s sad how phones are taking over even baby’s lives.

Everest TREK Day 4
Yo! What’s up everybody because today I’m back with another super duper awesome blog post for you today about our fourth day climbing to the Everest base camp! So anyways, unlike yesterday, today we actually hiked for four hours to reach our destination and we did not have another sweet rest day😭. This fact lead to literally everything we did today including waking up at 7:00 am and quickly getting ready to leave for the hike. We ate a simple omelette for breakfast today(we eat omelets so much because they grant us protein) and soon afterward, we began one of the most tiring climbs of our entire trek up Everest. Just so you know, today’s hike would have been a whole lot easier if we did not have a rest day yesterday. It softened our muscles so going up today was really, really hard for us. The second reason today’s hike was hard was because 50% of it was a steep downhill and the other 50% of it was a steep uphill. There were literally no flat parts on today’s hike except for the very beginning. Even that was only like five minutes and then it was back to a steep downhill for a few hours. Anyways, our hike today began with my worst nightmare of climbing: Gigantic steep stairs. They require so much energy to climb and by the time I’m done, I’m out of breath and I need to stop for two minutes. The worst part though was that there were gigantic steep stairs for the first thirty minutes of the hike and I sincerely felt like I was going to pass out of exhaustion. Thankfully, it ended and we were approached with the only flat ground on this entire hike. It was actually a road built by a guy who wanted tips to support building the road. He was very sweet and has apparently been doing this for around 27 years! The road was nice, but then we got off and started to walk for the next few hours downhill. My knees where falling apart with every large step I took and dust kept collecting in my eyes from all the passing people and Yaks. The worst part though, was thinking about how I was going to climb this all up once we stopped at the Base camp. It was fun though nonetheless and the scenery was splendid. We crossed a bridge a little while after and started to hike uphill until reaching our stop for the day at a place called Tengboche. The place was very cool looking and after snacking on potatoes, we walked to a Buddhist temple nearby and saw many monks praying there. It was very interesting because they kept having instruments that they would play and they were reciting sacred rituals which were cool. Afterwards, we rested for a while and then played UNO, Connect 4, and chess downstairs which was very fun and I won most of the time. I had pizza for dinner and honestly this trip is awesome despite the annoying uphill and downhill we keep going through.

The monks in the monastery.

 The chess board we played on. Cool right!

Yolo! I am back today with another post for you today about our fantastic rest day on the Holiday Namche hotel on the way to the Everest Base camp. As I just said, today was a fun rest day where we toured the village and had a lot of free time to ourselves. It was like our rest day in Annapurna but with more free time to ourselves. Anyways, I started off my wonderful day by waking up at 8:30 am😆👊!!! After getting dressed and brushed our teeth, we ate a delicious potato dish and embarked on our short, two hour tour of the city. The majority of this hike was walking uphill on EXTREMELY LARGE STAIRS… my arch enemy! It was very tiring but after climbing for a while, we reached a large, pink statue of the first person to summit Everest. It was pretty cool actually and the pinkness of the statue looked really cool. There was also an interesting memorial next to it that had a rock from the highest point on Earth(Everest) and a salt crystal from the lowest point on Earth(the Dead Sea), which I found very interesting. I thought it was a cool memorial that showed the friendship between Israel and Nepal. Afterword, we saw the gear that the first people used up Everest and it was really sad how bad their resources were at the time. We then hiked back to the hotel and rested there for a few hours. Ganesh arrived sometime later and took us out to see a documentary about an avalanche on Everest that happened in 2014 and caused the Shurpas to rebel against the government. It was very interesting and shurpas are the people who set everything up like the camps and hotels. They rebelled because many of them died in the avalanche and the government did nothing about it. After the film, we rested a bit longer and then took a nice hot shower. We had dinner after that and then went to sleep happy.

Tenzing Norgay, one of the first two people to climb Everest successfully, forever glorified in pink.

Ganesh standing next to the cool memorial.

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!