Everest and the Gokyo Lakes set four of Earth's highest mountains along a single horizon. From the rocky top of Gokyo Ri (5,357 m), Everest (8,849 m), Lhotse, Makalu and Cho Oyu stand in one sweep — four of the six tallest peaks on the planet. Below the summit lie six turquoise glacial lakes, stepping down between 4,700 and 5,000 metres through Nepal's Khumbu region, among the highest freshwater lakes on Earth. They are fed by meltwater from the Ngozumpa, the longest glacier in the Himalayas, which grinds 36 kilometres down off the flank of Cho Oyu. The whole valley lies inside Sagarmatha National Park, set aside in 1976 and, in 1979, the first place in Nepal inscribed as a natural World Heritage Site.
Reaching them is a walk of several days. A small plane drops onto Lukla's short mountain airstrip, and the trail climbs through thinning air past Namche Bazaar, with rest days built in for the body to catch up. Set out from Gokyo village before dawn and, as the first light strikes Everest, the lake at your feet holds the snow walls upside down like a sheet of glass; prayer flags snap in the wind, a bell sounds somewhere far below, and the thin, cold silence is complete. The air near 5,000 metres carries about half the oxygen of sea level, so this is demanding ground — held sacred by the Sherpa, whose stone-walled villages line the route. For many walkers the quiet of this valley is reason enough to choose Gokyo over the busier Everest Base Camp trail on the far side of the ridge. Few corners of the Himalaya gather ice, still water and the highest summits on Earth this close together.