| Trekking to Everest Base Camp is an essential part | | | | good weather, fuel and oxygen, Bear and Gilo |
| of the route for every Everest summit attempt. | | | | launched themselves into the air strapped to what |
| There are various Everest Base Camp treks and | | | | looked to be little more than a chair with a motor |
| most begin with a flight into Lukla airport at a height | | | | and parachute attached. |
| of 2860 metres. Each of these trekking routes | | | | Soon they were spiralling up to a height further than |
| provides a picturesque and rewarding way to tackle | | | | that capable by the camera helicopter that was |
| the rise in altitude of 2500 metres to Everest Base | | | | following their progress. However, the cameras |
| Camp on the Nepal side, situated at 5360 metres in | | | | onboard the paragliders showed a spectacular sight |
| elevation. Importantly, these Everest treks | | | | of a ribbon of blue sky merging into the blackness of |
| incorporate rest days to provide trekkers and | | | | space above, which at the heights they reached they |
| mountaineers with a chance to get used to the | | | | could see even though it was daytime. |
| thinner air while enjoying the scenery on the route. | | | | After seventy two minutes of flying upwards, when |
| For mountaineers, the trek to Everest Base Camp is | | | | he was sure he had succeeded, Bear turned off his |
| just the start of their adventure. When they reach | | | | engine and glided down through the stunning |
| the head of the Khumbu Valley, they establish their | | | | mountain landscape that makes Everest trekking so |
| Everest Base Camp on the Khumbu glacier as they | | | | special. The plan was to corroborate their altitude |
| launch into the final stages of their training and | | | | with a global positioning system and altimeters; |
| acclimatisation that comes before any summit | | | | unfortunately, they found in the thin air and sub-zero |
| attempt. It is a gradual process that can take | | | | temperatures, their instruments froze when they |
| months, and often years, of preparation and planning. | | | | were about four miles above the Mission Everest |
| For the famous television survival expert, Bear Grylls, | | | | Base Camp. |
| his 1998 expedition to Everest's summit took three | | | | Although the reading the instruments took before |
| months to complete. At that time, he was the | | | | they froze showed that Bear, at 7621 metres, had |
| youngest Briton to safely reach the peak. The | | | | surpassed the existing paragliding record by 1524 |
| following year, his British record was then eclipsed by | | | | metres and was still climbing, the record cannot be |
| Rob Gauntlett from Sussex, aged just nineteen. | | | | official without a valid reading from the altimeter. |
| But in nine years later, Bear Grylls returned to the | | | | Nonetheless, is clear what Bear had achieved in Gilo's |
| Everest trekking region and made an even more | | | | machine. The images from the onboard cameras |
| audacious and dangerous venture. He attempted to | | | | showed Bear had cleared the height of Mount |
| fly a paraglider to an altitude exceeding the summit | | | | Everest, and the team estimated he had reached |
| of Mount Everest. Bear would fly in a supercharged | | | | about 150 metres higher. This took him to above |
| vehicle designed by his friend Giles "Gilo" Cardozo, | | | | 3640 metres higher than the Everest Base Camp |
| trying to exceed the existing altitude record for | | | | (that's more than two miles) and almost five miles |
| paragliding of 20,017 feet (6101 metres). | | | | above sea level. |
| In May 2007, the team set up their "Mission Everest" | | | | So as you embark on your Everest Base Camp Trek, |
| Base Camp having trekked with their heavy | | | | spare a thought to the complex preparations, |
| equipment to an altitude of 4400 metres in Nepal. On | | | | activities and adventures that may be going on |
| the day of the flight, with three hours' worth of | | | | ahead of you at the high end of the trail. |