Since my last Nepal trip, going to the Everest base camp had been on my mind for a while. Recently my daughter started accompanying me on hiking expeditions. She has been showing enthusiasm for early morning hikes, as well as joining on long and tiring ones too. In 2022 we went to Humphrey's Peak (the tallest peak in Arizona) and the Grand Canyon rim to the river and back in one day as well. Those two hikes are must-haves for any hiker in Arizona. In the past, we had been on Havasupai hike as well. She was keen on joining on multi-day hikes and I am gaining more confidence in her capabilities than mine. Therefore, I started planning to go on an EBC trek with my daughter in 2023. This could be the last year when she can spare missing out on school and might have a relatively slow summer when she can take summer off. I started approaching my friends/contacts in India, asking for dates-pricing for EBC. Although October-November seemed to be busy months for the trekker companies to plan winter treks and they were not planning for the summer or post-April treks yet. So I had to be patient.
Meanwhile, we went to Diwali party at a dear friend's place, and one friend randomly asked me about going on the EBC trek. He had heard that I have been on Annapurna Circuit in 2020, and thought of asking me to join the EBC trek. I immediately said yes, thinking this could be one of those plans that I seem to make with friends/family which everyone knows are never going to happen. Regardless, it seemed like serendipity for sure. A couple of weeks after that conversation, I went on a hike with another friend in our community. As always while hiking we were discussing where else we should be hiking in the future, and she asked about my next Himalayan expedition. I mentioned that I am interested in going to EBC and my recent conversation with other friends during Diwali party. She as well wanted to join us and asked me to keep posted. These were good enough signs from the universe that it is the time!
I will not bore you with all the other details, but after filtering out many tour operators and considering the recommendations, duration, and experience we finalized on going with Open Skiez Outdoor Leadership, LLP operated by Rahul Deshpande and Leena Deshpande. They are school friends of another friend of mine who is accompanying us on this trek. Rahul and Leens have been taking Himalayan expeditions while and they introduced us to Vikas, who has summited Everest! Once we finalized the tour company, things started moving quickly. Soon enough what had started as a casual conversation started shaping up as a solid plan. As the news spread, we got friends of friends joining this trek and we finally had a total of 15 group members! 10 from Chandler, 2 from France, 2 from New Jersey, and one from India.
By mid-January, we started hiking regularly more or less every weekend. Rahul and Leena were keeping us informed on periodic zoom calls to go over our questions/concerns and to share the details of what to expect on this trek. Vikas as well joined on a few of the calls and asked each individual about their fitness/exercise routines/physical limitations. Soon enough Vikas shared the individual training plan for each of us for the next 5-6 weeks. So that we can be prepared for the strenuous trek. I will be honest that I have not been super regular with this plan but started being more religious about daily walks of 5-6 Km, yoga on most of the days, and weekend hikes. I added squats and lunges to my weekly routine along with some plank and weight training once a week. Could I have done more, yes, but did I do it? No, and time will tell if this was enough or not. Honestly, I feel each trek is different, I would even say every hike experience varies a lot depending on how you slept last night, your attitude, hydration, food intake, weather, elevation, and so many other factors dictate how you feel on each hiking day. So I am not going to worry about if I am prepared or not and believe in the famous saying that mountains will take care of us!
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