Everest North Base Camp: what it is actually like
The first thing to understand about Everest north base camp is that it is not a trek. There is almost no walking in it. You are driven there, across two of the longest days on the Tibetan plateau, you sleep one night at around 16,500 feet (5,000 m) in accommodation that has no comfortable version, a
That is the trip. It is also, for a large proportion of the people who travel with us to Tibet, the reason they came, and when the sky is clear it is one of the great sights on earth. This article is what we say before anyone commits to it, because the gap between the photograph and the experience is wider here than anywhere else we sell.
The altitude, honestly
Lhasa is at about 11,995 feet (3,656 m). By the time you reach the Everest area you have crossed the Gyatso La at roughly 17,100 feet (5,220 m) and the Pang La at about 17,060 feet (5,200 m), and you are sleeping at around 16,500 feet (5,000 m).
That sleeping altitude is the number that matters. Sleeping high is harder on the body than driving high, and this is the highest most of our travellers will ever spend a night. The air holds roughly half the oxygen of sea level.
What is normal at that height: broken sleep, waking short of breath several times in the night, a headache, no appetite, a resting heart rate that feels wrong, and finding that walking a hundred metres uphill requires stopping. Most people feel some of that and most people are fine.
What is not normal, and what ends the trip immediately: confusion, unusual behaviour or an unsteady stumbling walk; breathlessness while sitting still, a persistent wet cough or a blue tinge to the lips; or any symptom that gets worse rather than better with rest. The response to all three is to go down, at any hour, without waiting for morning and without finishing the itinerary. Losing altitude is the treatment.
Every route we build carries a written descent plan for every night, with the road distance and the driving time to lower ground. There is bottled oxygen in the vehicle, and our guides are instructed to overrule the itinerary rather than push on, without calling anyone for permission. Oxygen helps a symptom for a few minutes. It is not a substitute for descending and we do not let it be treated as one.
This is why we will not build the Everest road into fewer than ten days, and why the two acclimatisation days in Lhasa are not removable on request. How many days you need in Tibet sets out the full ladder.
The drive
Two long days out and two long days back, and they are a significant part of what you are buying.
| Leg | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Shigatse to the Everest road | 7 to 9 hours | Plateau driving, the Gyatso La at about 17,100 ft (5,220 m), the Himalaya appearing as a wall on the southern horizon |
| Over the Pang La to Rongbuk | 2 to 3 hours | A switchback climb to a pass with the panorama, then a long descent into the Rongbuk valley |
| Rongbuk back to Shigatse | 7 to 9 hours | The same ground in reverse, and a genuine relief |
The roads are surfaced and in good condition. The length comes from distance, altitude, passes and checkpoints rather than from difficulty. There are police checkpoints where your permits, the passenger list and the vehicle are checked, and the timing of those is not within anyone’s control.
The Pang La is the moment of the drive. From the top, on a clear morning, you can see Makalu, Lhotse, Everest and Cho Oyu across the horizon at once, which is four of the world’s six highest mountains from a roadside. Many travellers rate this view above the one from base camp itself, and we build in time to stand there rather than photograph it through a window.
The Rongbuk valley beyond it is a long, dry, grey trench, and the mountain sits at the head of it and gets no bigger for a very long time, which does something to your sense of scale that photographs cannot.
Where you actually stand, and where you actually sleep
The place foreign visitors reach is not the climbers’ advance base camp, which is much further up the glacier and requires a climbing permit. It is the tourist base camp area, a short distance beyond Rongbuk Monastery at roughly 16,900 feet (5,150 m).
Rongbuk Monastery sits at about 16,340 feet (4,980 m) and is generally described as the highest monastery in the world. It is small, it is working, and standing in its courtyard with Everest filling the end of the valley is the image most people carry home.
From Rongbuk, private vehicles do not usually continue the final few kilometres. There is a shuttle system and the arrangements change from year to year, so we confirm the current position with our Lhasa partner rather than promising you a specific vehicle to a specific point.
The accommodation, said plainly
This is the paragraph most operators leave out, so here it is in full.
You sleep either in a guesthouse at Rongbuk or in a tented camp, and in some seasons only one of those is open. Either way it means a shared or basic room, thin bedding over a plank bed or a mattress, no heating beyond a stove that burns yak dung in a communal room, no reliable hot water, no shower, and pit toilets outside.
Night temperatures are below freezing in every month, commonly around 14F (-10C) in the recommended season and lower outside it. You sleep in most of your clothes. The stove goes out. You will get up in the cold at least once.
There is no luxury option. This is not a case of paying more for a better room. The money has nowhere to go, and any operator implying otherwise is describing something that does not exist. What a trip to Tibet costs has the full price picture, and the Everest line in it is the one place where the boutique and luxury tiers buy nothing at all.
It is the least comfortable night most of our travellers will ever spend. It is also, reliably, the one they talk about years later.
The view is not guaranteed
If the sky is clear, this is one of the great sights on earth from a place very few people stand. If it is not, you have driven two long days, slept badly at 16,500 feet and looked at cloud.
September and October give the most reliable visibility toward the mountain, with May and June close behind. July and August carry most of the year’s rain, and although Lhasa is often fine, the cloud sits on the high peaks. Winter access is unreliable and the cold at that altitude becomes the main condition rather than a background one. The season-by-season detail is in Tibet month by month.
We will tell you what the odds are for your specific dates before you commit, and we would rather have that conversation at the enquiry stage than have you find out at 16,500 feet.
Who should not go
We say no to this trip more often than to any other single element we sell, and these are the reasons.
Anyone with significant heart or lung conditions, until their own doctor has been asked about this specific altitude and has said yes in those terms.
Anyone who is pregnant. Ask your doctor about Tibet specifically, and about sleeping above 16,000 feet in particular.
Anyone who struggled in Lhasa. If the first two days at 11,995 feet were genuinely hard rather than merely uncomfortable, the answer is to turn the route around at Shigatse. Our guides make this call on the ground and we support it every time.
Young children. We do not build this road for them. Older children can travel Tibet well on a lower route, which we cover in Tibet with older children.
Anyone for whom the accommodation described above is unacceptable. That is a completely reasonable position and it is not a failure of nerve. We build a route that turns around at Shigatse, or a fourteen-day plateau trip with no night above 15,500 feet, and those are genuinely good trips rather than consolation prizes.
Anyone in a hurry. Ten days is the shortest version we will build. If your holiday is eight days, the answer is classic Tibet at the same pace rather than this route compressed.
How we build it
Ten days is the minimum: two acclimatisation days in Lhasa, the city, the road west by Yamdrok Lake, Gyantse and Shigatse, the Everest section, and the return. See Everest north base camp in 10 days.
Fourteen days is the version we would choose ourselves, because it puts a rest day after Everest rather than another driving day, and because it adds Namtso and the Yarlung valley at a point where you are properly adapted. See Tibet in 14 days, Lhasa to Everest and the reasoning in the best two-week route through Tibet.
Every proposal we send lists the elevation of every night you sleep and the descent plan for each of them. That is not a formality. It is the document.
Plan this trip
Tell us your dates and we will tell you honestly what the visibility odds are, what the nights are like and whether we think this route is right for you. Free, and with no obligation.
Related
- Tibet: the complete guide to planning your trip
- Everest north base camp in 10 days
- The best two-week route through Tibet
- What a trip to Tibet costs
- Tibet month by month
Frequently asked questions
Can we walk from Rongbuk to base camp?
Is there any way to sleep somewhere better?
How likely are we to see the mountain?
Plan a trip to Tibet cannot be travelled independently, and the altitude sets the schedule All Tibet cannot be travelled independently, and the altitude sets the schedule trips
