We were at the top of the Renjo La, the pass that is the lowest point along a knife-edged ridge separating two valleys. Behind us, looming above a turquoise glacial lake, was Mount Everest. In front of us, an immense stone staircase led down into a valley dotted with roofless stone shelters and the occasional yak — a ribbon of green hemmed in by the soaring gray and white of Himalayan rock and ice.
Stunned into silence by the panorama, we descended the staircase and hiked on in a reverie. It wasn’t until we reached the banks of a fast-flowing river a few hours later that we noticed that the landscape no longer corresponded to the lines and dots on our map. We’d hiked for five hours without seeing another living soul, and, perhaps in part because of our solitude, somewhere along the way had taken a wrong turn.
More than 30,000 hikers venture into Nepal’s Everest region each year. Most make a beeline from the airstrip at Lukla to the tattered, wind-swept Everest base camp and straight back. That main trail has developed a quasi-suburban feel: you’re seldom out of sight of fellow trekkers, much less the never-ending stream of mule trains and Nepali porters with wicker baskets strapped to their foreheads. Cookie-cutter lodges and teahouses, not to mention reggae bars and Internet cafes, line the route.
But in December my wife, Lauren King, and I, hiking on our own, chose another route: the Three Passes trek, which crosses through Kongma La, Cho La and Renjo La (“la” means “pass” in Tibetan). It is a relatively new option that makes a continuous loop through the region, visiting the base camp but sticking mainly to less-traveled paths.
In fact, the valley beyond Renjo La remained entirely closed to foreign trekkers until 2002, and the giant staircase down its steep west side was completed only a few years ago. Chris Beall, a veteran trek leader and photographer based in Katmandu, estimates that even now, Renjo La gets at most a hundredth of the number of hikers that flood the main base camp trail.
Our first glimpse of Everest came just outside the village of Tengboche, a few days into our trek, pointed out by a friendly bird-watcher from Wisconsin. From here, Everest was a deceptively squat, bulbous triangle poking up from behind Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain in the world.
To that point, we’d been following the main trail toward the base camp, getting used to the distinctive rhythms of “teahouse trekking.” There’s no need to carry a tent or survive on trail mix with hot meals and $3 rooms available at regular intervals along the trail. That evening, as usual, we gathered around the yak-dung fire in the smoky main room of our lodge to stay warm until it was time to crawl into our sleeping bags.
The next morning, though, marked a crossroads. While our bird-watching friend and the other hikers we’d met along the route continued straight up the Khumbu Valley toward the base camp, we veered off to the east to begin a circuit that would take us through four different valleys, hopping from one to the next by crossing the three passes at 17,500 feet or higher. In the second valley, we would briefly rejoin the main trail for a quick detour to the base camp.
The crowds soon dissipated as we headed up the first valley to Chhukung, a lonely cluster of buildings where we paused for two nights to become used to the altitude. We took advantage of the extra day to scramble up the 18,196-foot Chhukung Ri peak (the highest point of our trip) for a chance to test our acclimatization without full packs before tackling the first of the high passes the next day, the 18,159-foot Kongma La.
We trudged up the side of Chhukung Ri, taking increasingly short breaths. A few hundred feet short of the summit, we nearly turned back. But after a half-hour, we summoned the will to drag ourselves to the top, where we listlessly snapped a few photos before plunging eagerly back down to thicker air. Page 1 of 2