Everest Base Camp by Bike or by Bus?
I'm a backcountry skier, but I'm also a road biker.
Yea I fit the demo - shaved legs, tight spandex, jump on an ultra small super firm seat and ride for hours. But before you laugh, it sure beats what wrestlers do - put on a tight spandex outfit and jump on another guy.Anyway, like most roadie's there's nothing better than finding an ultra smooth fresh section of blacktop and better yet if it goes for miles and miles. That is unless that road is headed to Everest's Base Camp on the North side. I'll have no part of it.
You know what's going to happen. I don't even need to write it, but I will. We've already seen long boarding expeditions ready to take clients to Everest to longboard the Big "E" Expressway (soon to be known as the Double E).
It makes me cringe but I'm willing to put money that Backroads will soon offer the Everest Base Camp Bike Expedition. If not Backroads, someone else will do it. Then there will be endless "travelers" taking a bus ride to Everest Base Camp, long a place of legend and mystic and now chaos. I've even read musings of a resort. Sadly, it's bound to happen.
In their newsletter this month our friends at KE Adventure Travel are posing the following questions regarding the soon to be paved road:
* Is this a step in the right direction, making base camp more accessible to everyone?
* Or are we overcrowding the fragile ecosystems at higher altitudes in the name of progress?
Got an opinion? Enter a comment below by clicking "comments" or send your $.02 to KE Adventure Travel and be sure to entitle your e-mail "Tibet Road".
Labels: Everest
1 comments
posted by powstash @ 12:09 PM
1 Comments:
I think the idea and plan for the road to Everest base camp is one of the most asinine I've heard in a long time.
I understand there may be some benefits such as better response times/accessibility for emergency services to base camp, economic benefit to the surrounding communities, and increased tourism. I feel that they negatives definitely out way the positives. There is already a enormous amount of traffic through the fragile landscape, this will only increase exponentially. The environmental impacts themselves are enough to ax the plan.
I could go on and on but for the sake of brevity I won't.
In my opinion there are so many things wrong with this plan and so few right with it. I too will have no part of it.
9/26/2007 6:06 PM
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