Son and Father Trek

What better way to celebrate schoolies than to reach the base of the highest mountain on earth, the mighty Everest. In December 2018, my dad and I set off on what would be an adventure of a lifetime to Everest Base Camp.

The Himalayas is such a vast area of untouched land due to its lack of accessibility. Mountains rolling for miles and miles formed by glaciers the size of giant rivers, carve their way through this rocky landscape, slowly pushing anything in its way. This trip, for so many reasons, was astonishingly fascinating. You would see animals that aren’t found in zoos, running water that was incredibly pure and even the simple sudden changes in the environment as you progressed up the mountain, the whole trip is truly beautiful. But more important than the incredible backdrop was the sense of satisfaction felt once finishing the journey, and completing the journey with dad made it that much better. 

The altitude was tough; however, it wasn’t the most difficult challenge we would face on this trek.

Everest Base Camp is 5,380m above sea level, so you can imagine it was no easy task. The track its self is a very gradual slope, but as you get higher and higher the amount of oxygen gradually gets smaller and smaller until you're at the point where a simple walk will have you breathing as if you have just run a marathon. Also, the further up the mountain you travel the less available non-preservative food becomes. Meats along the trail become scarce which means you need to almost become vegetarian with maybe some hard-boiled eggs as your main source of protein. But none of these compared to night time in the Himalayas. Dad and I could only find time at the end of the year to do this incredible trip, which happened to be at the end of the trekking season. 2018 saw record numbers of trekkers and as a result, the nature reserve had placed a ban on cutting wood until the following climbing season, to allow for the regrowth of the trees.

Because we had come right at the end of the season, most of the places we stayed in limited the amount of wood we could burn for warmth for the night.

Even dried Yak dung was at a premium. As you can imagine, this made some of the nights very difficult. Temperatures would drop below -20 degrees celsius. Dad and I would wear every piece of clothing in our bags in order to keep warm in the freezing weather. The one thing that got me through the icy nights was my hot water bottle. Well, not a hot water bottle, but rather my water bottle containing hot water that I would place at my feet in the sleeping bag in order to warm it up. This made the nights just a little more bearable. 

Doing Everest Base Camp with my dad. 

To be honest, there is no one else in the world that I could have done this trip with. My dad and I had had a fairly inconsistent relationship for most of my teenage life (because of me), so before this trip had even begun there were some obvious concerns. Once we got on that mountain it was almost like our rough past was gone in an instant. There was only one man on that mountain that I knew with all my heart I could trust and that was a major turning point in our relationship.

I spent around two weeks walking to one of the highest places on the earth with my dad going through the cold nights, uninspiring food and low oxygen with him every step of the way. Although he has hiked mountains all his life, I knew that whatever struggles I was going through I could confide in him. Around the three-quarters mark of the trip I was really struggling. Whether it was the altitude, my fitness or maybe even being a bit sick, I don’t know, but what I do know is that I would not have been able to complete this trip without him. I take pride in the fact that I never quit and I like motivating other people to be the same (I think I get that from my dad), but this trip really took it out of me. However, everyday dad would push me to get to the top, motivate me to complete the trip and do everything in his power to make the trip easier for me so that we could complete it together. And for that, I couldn’t be more grateful. 

Here are dad's thoughts on our Father and Son Trek.