Everest Base Camp Wedding: Ashley and James’s Trek in Photographs

On 16 March 2017, Ashley and James exchanged vows and rings at Everest Base Camp, 5,364 metres up in Nepal’s Khumbu region, with the Khumbu Icefall behind them and the face of Nuptse rising above. Adventure wedding photographer Charleton Churchill trekked in with them for nine days to record the whole journey, from the first trail in boots to the ring on the glacier.

How Ashley and James got married at Everest Base Camp

The couple trained for a year and planned two to three weeks in the mountains so they could acclimatise. After the 35-minute flight from Kathmandu to Lukla they walked for nine days, four to eight hours at a time, through Namche Bazaar, Lobuche and Gorak Shep.

The weather made it hard. Their Sherpa guide said the valley had more snow than it had seen all winter, and temperatures above 14,000 feet ranged from about −8 °F to 10 °F (−22 °C to −12 °C). James developed a deep cough and spent a night of severe breathlessness at Gorak Shep on oxygen. The couple considered flying out, then decided to carry on to base camp with oxygen.

At base camp they had about an hour and a half to eat, marry, pack and catch a helicopter. There was no minister: Ashley, in her wedding dress, and James, in a tuxedo, simply exchanged vows and rings at around −5 °F to 5 °F. Sherpas helped Ashley dress in the cold.

Then the weather closed in and the helicopter could not come. The group spent the night on the glacier, and when the pilot arrived early next morning the air was too thin to lift everyone at once. The couple flew out first; the pilot returned for Churchill and their guide, Naga.

The trek, the camp and the yellow tent

Churchill’s pictures mix wedding portraits with expedition life: packs, trekking poles, a suspension bridge over a snowy valley and a bright yellow tent that doubles as a doorway for a bridal portrait. Boots peeking from under a white hem say as much about the day as the ring exchange.

Charleton Churchill, adventure wedding photographer

Churchill is an adventure wedding and elopement photographer based near Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. He has trained in high-altitude mountaineering and climbed Denali, North America’s highest peak, where he once fell into a crevasse while roped in. He had set out for Everest Base Camp before, in 2015, but turned back after the Nepal earthquake and avalanche. On this trip he also had to work through food poisoning at altitude.

Sagarmatha National Park and the Everest Base Camp trek

The trek runs through Sagarmatha National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. The park covers about 124,400 hectares of the Solu-Khumbu district. Everest, Sagarmatha in Nepali, reaches 8,848 metres, and seven more peaks in the park top 7,000 metres. Snow leopards and red pandas live here, and Sherpa villages, mostly Tibetan Buddhist, have long been part of the landscape.

Key facts for planning:

• Start: fly from Kathmandu to Lukla (2,846 m), as there is no road.
• Route: up the Dudh Kosi valley to Namche Bazaar (3,440 m), then Dingboche (4,260 m), Lobuche and Gorak Shep, below Kala Patthar (5,545 m).
• Time: around six trekking days plus two rest days for acclimatisation on the way up.

Build in those rest days: altitude sickness is the main hazard on this trek, and a slow ascent is the best protection. For a closer look at the route, browse 25 photographs from the Everest Base Camp trek.

Everest wedding gallery: vows, rings and the Himalaya

For another celebration shaped by a love of the outdoors, see Dale and Karlie’s northern lights proposal in Lofoten, or a couple’s wedding journey through Iceland. For mountain paths, villages and lakes, explore Giang Hoang’s Nepal photo journey.