4 Facts about Everest Base Camp

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1) Everest Base Camp is located within the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal, which was declared by UNESCO a world heritage site in 1979. The altitude of Base Camp is 5364m.

2) To reach Base Camp, you must fly from Kathmandu to the small Tenzing-Hillary airport at Lukla (2860m). From the airport, the trek is upwards towards the Sherpa capital of Namche Bazaar (3440m)  The town is popular with trekkers and has a weekly market.

3) It typically takes around 6 days of trekkingto reach Everest Base Camp. This depends on the amount of sightseeing, acclimatisation days or variation of the route built into the trek.

4) It’s called Base Camp as it is a basic campsite where mountaineering expeditions begin their bid for the summit of Everest. Expedition support teams are based here whilst mountaineers make their summit bid. The successful 1953 Everest expedition led by John Hunt camped here. Sherpa Tenzing and Edmund Hillary left the camp on the 27th May and reached the summit of Everest at 11.30am on the 29th May 1952.

Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing