The Highs and Lows of Trekking Everest Base Camp and the Three Passes

Written by Addie Duchin

I’d dreamed of trekking in Nepal for as long as I could remember, back when I didn’t know what altitude sickness was, or what crampons were, or that I could sweat from pores I didn’t know existed. I planned this trip over months - tracing routes, scoring plane tickets, and researching gear. But it wasn’t until I stepped off the plane at Lukla, the gateway to the Khumbu, that it sank in. I was here. I was about to spend three weeks chasing Everest Base Camp (EBC) and tackling the Three Passes, a beastly extension of the EBC trek that climbs up to 18,200 feet across three different mountain crossings. 

As the days and miles stacked up, the scenery unfolded like chapters of a book. From forests dripping with mist to barren landscapes of rock and ice, each step carried me higher into a world ruled by giants. Standing in the shadow of Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse, my brain couldn’t quite process the mountains as real. Even standing at altitudes that dwarfed any mountains in the continental US, the peaks soared so far above me that I had to lean back just to glimpse their summits. 

While I was kitted out in shiny new gear, panting and swearing at every switchback, the local porters breezed past me in Nike slides, shouldering refrigerator-sized loads and scrolling TikTok. It was humbling, to say the least. 

Tea houses started as cozy islands of warmth and rest. Early on, there were hot showers, fresh sheets, and even milk. But as I climbed higher, those comforts vanished like ghosts. Toilet paper? LOL, keep dreaming. 

Back in Colorado, I’d tackled a few 14,000-foot peaks, feeling invincible. In Nepal, I was about to bag my first 15er, 16er, 17er, and 18er, an impressive-sounding resume, if you ignore the small detail of how the human body reacts to thin air. Altitude sickness had always been a footnote in someone else’s misery, something I’d read about in various adventure blogs, dismissing it as soon as I turned the page. Until Kongma La, the first of the Three Passes, showed me how real it could be. 

At 16,000 feet, my appetite vanished completely, and every meal became a battle I would always lose. I was lucky if I could nibble a Snickers bar without gagging. After days of eating almost nothing, and maybe a bit of a rushed acclimatization, I found myself eight hours into a 13-hour scramble, vomiting, dizzy, with a headache that felt like an angry yak tap-dancing on my skull. I reached the pass at 18,200 feet, but any feelings of triumph were overshadowed by my brain screaming at me to get down. I hoped the descent would ease the altitude-induced misery before I fell off either side of the mountain I was straddling.

The descent was long and draining, punctured by my panicked friends checking my wobbly stance and blue lips, debating the necessity of a helicopter rescue. My stubbornness (and my uncertainty about whether my high-elevation heli-evac insurance would even work) shoved me down the mountain and across the glacier straight into a tea house bed. Over the magic of a bowl of garlic soup that I coaxed down my throat, my symptoms slowly gave way to a bone-deep exhaustion. After one of the roughest 13 hours of my life, I slept like a baby. 

After a much-needed rest day in Lobuche, I hoped I was finally acclimatized as we pushed towards Everest Base Camp. It was a much easier hike than Kongma La, but as the altitude climbed, so did my symptoms. At 17,600 feet, my lips turned a dark blue, my face was ghostly white, and I was hunched in a corner of Everest Base Camp, emptying what little garlic soup and water I’d managed to keep down. I felt small and fragile, but in that same vulnerable state, I also felt strangely united with the hundreds of mountaineers who had done the same thing in that very spot. I had just yacked at Everest Base Camp (twice), and I decided that was something to be proud of. I sucked it up, took a couple pictures and began my long hike down. 

As I descended, though, my symptoms didn’t fade; they got worse. My nausea was relentless, and I felt like I was carrying a 20-pound weight on my lungs. We decided to drop below 5,000 meters, which meant another four hours of hiking on top of an already grueling day. By this point, the sun had set, and the final hours were spent in a dark, foggy world lit only by our headlamps following the trail of yak poop. We finally stumbled into Thukla, and although my symptoms had finally started to ease, my morale was in the gutter. I told my friends I didn’t think I could face the last two passes. I’d need to descend and recover. The dinner table was silent and solemn. 

The next morning, I woke up feeling defeated. Over a quiet tea and toast, a large Italian man wearing five down jackets approached our table and struck up a conversation. At first, I was wary of his overly friendly demeanor, but he turned out to be an experienced mountain guide who had summited a couple of 8,000-meter peaks, including Everest. He told us stories of rescues and climbing expeditions, of the loneliness of life in the mountains, and of his upcoming plans to climb in Pakistan. I told him about my altitude struggles and my wariness to continue. He looked at me and said, “Don’t run away from the mountain, finish what you started.” 

We never learned his name, but to us, he is Mountain Man. 

The last two passes were a walk in the park compared to that first one. Once I finally acclimatized, the symptoms vanished like a bad dream, and I reached the top of Cho La Pass with a huge smile and enough appetite to devour a Snickers bar. Thank you, Mountain Man - you were the reason I carried on.

The final stretch of the trek blurred into a symphony of color and exhaustion. Each sunrise painted the sky in shades of fruit salad: peaches, bananas, and mauve bleeding into the snow-capped peaks. My sunburned scalp and blistered feet became more of an observation rather than a complaint. Trekking became a rhythm, one foot, then the other, wrapped in a bubble of sweat, grime, and determination. Dirt clung to me like a second skin, but at some point, I stopped caring. It was part of the journey and the fun. 

This high carried me through the last days, all the way back to Surke, where we hopped into a rattling, twenty-hour jeep ride back to Kathmandu. The trek ended the way it began - abruptly, with a warm shower and a large meal. 

Through the unbearable cold, sweat, and discomfort every day brought an adventure I had always dreamed of living. As I look back on those three weeks, the struggles we faced are largely overshadowed by nights of laughter and cards in dimly lit teahouses, trail talks of past lives and the views of Ama Dablam that left my jaw on the floor every time the clouds unmasked its unearthly ridges. 

I learned that mountains don’t care if you’re prepared or scared. They’ll test you regardless, strip away your comforts, and reveal exactly what you’re made of. And when you’re ready to run away, sometimes all you need is a stranger in five down jackets to remind you, “finish what you started.” 

Thank you, Nepal. I walked, I danced, I skipped. I smiled so hard I thought my cheeks would fall off (maybe they were just frostbitten.) Either way, my face - and my heart - were cracked open by the sheer, wild beauty and adventure of it all.