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Horse to Lukla

Travel Nepal Ebc Hiking

Time to say goodbye to the Gurkha Inn.

The plan was simple. Hike from Phakding back up to Lukla, get there early, and have a buffer day before Steve and Alice rolled in. We didn’t want to be cutting it close on the last leg, so an early start it was.

One problem. Nicholas and Po On were finally, fully better. Pokin was not. She’d been the one who couldn’t shake it, and she still sounded terrible. Some people just don’t recover at altitude, and she was firmly in that camp.

Nicholas at a wooden table using a calculator and notebooks to total up the food bill
Nicholas settling the final bill. Pages and pages of veg fry pasta. I have seen the ledger. It was mostly noodles.

While Nicholas did math at the breakfast table, the porters started hauling our gear into the courtyard and packing it down. After all the days we’d spent at the Gurkha Inn, the family gave us a proper send-off. Scarves, photos, the whole ceremony.

The Gurkha Inn family draping white khata scarves on the trekkers in the dining room
White khata scarves. A real farewell. We’d basically moved in, so this was earned.

The Gurkha Inn family and trekkers posing outside the lodge

They also handed over a farewell treat plate. I assume the apples were for the horses. The Oreos and the small pile of wrapped candy, however, were clearly meant for me.

Farewell treat plate with apples in foam nets, Oreos, and wrapped candy

Then we geared up and headed out.

Nicholas, Pokin, and Po On posing at the trailhead, Sumi held in front
The crew, ready to go. Pokin in full mask-and-sunglasses armor. She was not feeling great and the outfit said so.

The Bridge, The Donkeys, The Usual
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The way out of town crossed one of the big suspension bridges, which meant the usual ritual: stand there and wait while a cargo train of donkeys decides whether or not it’s their turn.

A line of cargo donkeys crossing a suspension bridge over the valley

A trekker leaning on the bridge cable next to a local man and a waiting mule
Right of way on these trails is decided by the animals. You wait. They cross. That is the system.

After that it was just trail. Down, then up, then more up. Lukla sits higher than Phakding, so the last stretch back is a climb, not a stroll.

A trekker descending a dusty village path with mountains in the cloud behind

This is the part where I have to bring up the horse situation.

Pokin vs. The Horse
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Here is the thing you need to know. This entire trip, every single time a horse came up as an option, Pokin refused. Flatly. She watched Po On ride one back to Tengboche days earlier. Saw it work perfectly. Still said no. She wanted to do the whole thing on her own legs, which is an admirable instinct right up until your legs and your lungs disagree with you.

I never understood this. I make my bud carry me everywhere and it’s fantastic. I have no notes on the system. The system is perfect.

So we’re maybe two hours of solid uphill from Lukla, and Pokin starts coughing in a way that isn’t “I have a cold” so much as “I might fold up on this trail.” Real fits. The kind where you stop walking because you have to.

Nicholas watched it for a bit and told her, flat out, that he was getting a horse. You’d think that would settle it. It did not. Pokin just kept walking, having quietly decided that if she could outwalk the horse, she wouldn’t have to ride it. The horse did not even exist yet and she was already racing it.

So Nicholas went back, found Nilman, negotiated the horse anyway, and then caught up to her on the trail. By this point Pokin had thrown so much energy into outrunning a hypothetical, not-yet-purchased horse that she’d completely wrecked herself. She was now too tired to walk back to where the horse actually was.

So the horse came to her. She lost a race against an animal that hadn’t been hired when the race started. Chestnut, somewhere back in Las Vegas, just felt a great disturbance and has no idea why he’s suddenly so happy.

A saddled horse waiting on a village path while locals stand nearby
Nilman found a local, the local found a horse. Negotiations happened in a language that was not ours.

The horse that showed up was big. Not pony big. Intimidatingly, structurally big. His name was Rocky, which felt about right. He looked at the trail ahead like it had personally wasted his time.

Pokin being helped up onto the dark brown horse in a village square
Mounting up. This took some doing. The horse did not care either way.

And then something annoying happened. She felt better immediately.

Pokin smiling on horseback holding Sumi, suspension bridge in the valley behind
The face of a woman who fought this exact outcome for the entire trip. Note who got to ride up there with her. Obviously I supervised.

You could see the relief from the ground. One minute she’s coughing herself inside out, next minute she’s up on this enormous animal cruising toward Lukla like she’s leading a parade. I rode shotgun for part of it, purely in a supervisory capacity.

Pokin smiling on the horse beside a large boulder carved with Tibetan script
Past the mani stones, looking suspiciously cheerful for someone who lost an argument.

The horse hauled her up that mountain like the elevation didn’t exist. The rest of us scuttled along behind on foot, trying to keep pace with a creature that climbs Himalayan trails for a living. We lost.

Pokin riding the horse on the trail with the group walking behind, bridge in the distance

Pokin and the group nearing Lukla, forested hills behind

Lukla, and the Hotel That Was Too Fancy to Feed Us
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We made it into Lukla without any further drama, which after this trek felt almost suspicious. Checked into our hotel, which was very nice. Too nice, it turned out. The kind of nice where the restaurant is more interested in looking good than feeding you.

So we went next door to a place called the Yak Hotel. Everyone assumed it would be a downgrade. They said the food was excellent, but I’m still not convinced it wasn’t just relief that they’d survived another hike.

Nicholas, Pokin, and Po On smiling around a full table of food at the Yak Hotel
Nicholas, Pokin, and Po On at the Yak Hotel. Three people who expected a sad dinner and got the opposite.

There were noodles, pancakes, a mountain of rice with eggs and cashews stuck in it. I did not partake. None of it was cocoa. None of it was chocolate. I observed, judged, and approved of their enthusiasm from a safe distance.

A plated rice dish with hard-boiled eggs, cashews, and herbs at the Yak Hotel

And that was the day. We made it to Lukla, settled in, and decided to hunker down for the night and wait for Steve and Alice to arrive in the morning.

One more night up here. One more round of goodbyes coming, to the porters, the crew, to D.B., and then the helicopter back to Kathmandu.

The mountain was almost done with us. We were almost done with the mountain. Pokin, for the record, finished the last leg in the saddle, and I will be bringing it up forever.