Elevation and altitude
How high is Everest Base Camp?
Everest Base Camp sits at 5,364 m (17,598 ft), on the Nepal side of Mount Everest. It is the one figure in this whole subject that every source we hold agrees on. It is also not the highest point you reach on the trek, and you cannot see the summit of Mount Everest from it.
The high point
What is the highest point of the Everest Base Camp trek?
The highest point of the Everest Base Camp trek is Kala Patthar, at 5,545 m (18,192 ft)3. Base camp is lower than that. Kala Patthar stands 181 m (594 ft) above it.
Kala Patthar is a rock shoulder on the south ridge of Pumori, reached in the dark from Gorak Shep on the morning after the base camp walk. The Everest Base Camp trek is built around that hour. You climb it before sunrise, you stand on it in the cold while the light arrives, and you come back down for breakfast.
You climb it because you cannot see the summit of Mount Everest from base camp. Nuptse stands in the way. That is the fact most sites on this subject get wrong, and it is the reason the trek has a second high point at all. The full account of the viewpoint is on Kala Patthar, the actual Everest viewpoint.
Why Kala Patthar is published at two different heights
Two heights circulate for Kala Patthar because two points share the name. The viewpoint, where the trail stops and where the photographs are taken, sits at 5,545 m (18,192 ft). The high point of the same ridge, above the viewpoint and off the standard walk, has been measured by GPS at 5,643 m (18,514 ft)4.
Across the Everest pages of Nepal Unique Treks and Expedition Pvt Ltd, the licensed Kathmandu operator this site belongs to, Kala Patthar appears at 5,545 m, 5,550 m, 5,555 m and 5,644 m, a spread of 99 m. Three of those figures describe the viewpoint, because the higher two are roundings of it. The remaining figure is the reading taken from the ridge above.
We publish both points instead of one average, because the average describes no place on the mountain. If you are planning an acclimatization profile, the figure you want is the viewpoint, because the viewpoint is where the trail goes. All four of those numbers still sit somewhere across our own parent company’s pages and its internal ledger. We would rather say that here than quietly pick one and hope.
The reference
Every place on the Everest Base Camp route, with its height
The table below gives every named place on the Everest Base Camp trek and the routes around it, in meters and feet. Lukla to base camp is 2,504 m (8,215 ft) of net height gain, walked over several days, with two acclimatization stops built into it.
Every figure here is the figure we use on the rest of this site. Where our own parent company published more than one value for a place, we applied the reconciliation rules recorded in our fact store and took one. Where the disagreement was too wide to settle honestly, we publish nothing and the row says so.
| Place | Height | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Getting to the trailhead | ||
| Kathmandu | 1,400 m (4,593 ft) | Where the trip starts and ends. The flight to Lukla leaves from here. |
| Lukla | 2,860 m (9,383 ft) | The airstrip in the Khumbu. The walking starts at the gate above the runway. |
| The classic route, walking up | ||
| Phakding | 2,610 m (8,563 ft) | First night on the trail. You lose height from Lukla to reach it. |
| Namche Bazaar | 3,440 m (11,286 ft) | The Sherpa town, and the first acclimatization stop. Two nights on every itinerary we run. |
| Tengboche | 3,860 m (12,664 ft) | The monastery on the ridge, and the home of the Mani Rimdu festival. |
| Dingboche | 4,410 m (14,469 ft) | The second acclimatization stop. Two nights on every itinerary we run. |
| Lobuche village | 4,910 m (16,109 ft) | Lodges on the moraine. Not the same place as Lobuche East, the climbing peak lower down this table. |
| Gorak Shep | Not published | The last beds before base camp. Also written Gorakshep. We have not settled its height, and the section below says why. |
| Everest Base Camp | 5,364 m (17,598 ft) | The destination. South side, in Nepal, on the Khumbu Glacier. |
| Kala Patthar, the viewpoint | 5,545 m (18,192 ft) | The dawn climb above Gorak Shep. The highest point of the standard trek. Also written Kalapatthar. |
| Kala Patthar, the ridge high point | 5,643 m (18,514 ft) | The top of the same ridge, above the viewpoint. Not part of the standard walk. |
| Side trips and acclimatization objectives | ||
| Khumjung | 3,790 m (12,434 ft) | The Sherpa village behind Namche Bazaar, walked to on the acclimatization day. |
| Chhukung | 4,730 m (15,518 ft) | The settlement east of Dingboche, and the way to Island Peak and the Kongma La. |
| The three high passes, on the longer routes only | ||
| Renjo La Pass | 5,360 m (17,585 ft) | The western pass, also written Renjola. Crossed on the Gokyo and three passes routes. |
| Cho La Pass | 5,420 m (17,782 ft) | The link between Gokyo and the base camp trail. Also written Chola Pass. |
| Kongma La Pass | 5,535 m (18,159 ft) | The highest of the three Everest passes, and generally the hardest. |
| Peaks, for scale | ||
| Island Peak | 6,189 m (20,305 ft) | Also called Imja Tse. A climbing peak with its own permit, not a trekking stop. |
| Lobuche East | 6,119 m (20,075 ft) | Sold by some operators as Lobuche Peak. A climbing peak with its own permit. |
| Mount Everest, the summit | 8,848.86 m (29,032 ft) | Sagarmatha in Nepal, Qomolangma in Tibet. Nobody on this trek goes there. |
Feet are computed from the verified meter figure by the page itself. No feet figure on this site is typed by a writer, so the two can never drift apart.
A hollow circle marks a height we have not settled. A half circle marks one name that two sources measure at two different points, where we publish both.
The Everest summit, the two Kala Patthar points and the three passes each come from their own source, listed below at2345. We never publish one figure covering all three passes.
Pheriche, Gokyo Ri and the Everest View Hotel are missing from this table on purpose. Our sources disagree about all three by more than we are willing to average, and each goes in as soon as a primary source settles it.
What we have not settled
Gorak Shep is the highest place you sleep, and its height is unsettled
Gorak Shep is the last settlement before Everest Base Camp and the highest place on the route with beds in it. We do not publish a single elevation for it.
Gorak Shep appears at 4 different heights across the material we work from: 5,140 m, 5,164 m, 5,170 m and 5,180 m. That is a spread of 40 m. It is not wide by the standards of this subject, and it would be easy to take the middle one and move on. Almost every site on this topic does exactly that.
We will not, because Gorak Shep is where you sleep at your highest point, and sleeping altitude is the number that decides how a night goes. A figure we cannot stand behind is worth less to you than an admission. The Survey Department of Nepal, or a published topographic map of the Khumbu, will settle it. When one does, the row above gets a number and this page will record that it changed.
What we can tell you without a figure is what the place is. Gorak Shep is a handful of lodges on a sand flat below Kala Patthar. It is dusty, it is cold after dark, and most people sleep badly there. It is also the only lodging within reach of base camp, so every itinerary spends a night in it.
The contrast
How high is the summit of Mount Everest compared with base camp?
Mount Everest is 8,848.86 m (29,032 ft) at the summit2, which is 3,485 m (11,433 ft) above Everest Base Camp. You do not go there on this trek. You stand at the bottom of it and look up.
Nepal and China agreed that figure together and announced it on 8 December 2020, after a joint trigonometric and GPS survey. The accuracy is quoted in centimeters. An older figure was in general use before that announcement, and it is still in circulation across the trekking industry, including on our own parent company’s pages.
We use the 2020 survey figure everywhere on this site and nothing else. If you find a different height for Everest on any page here, it is an error and we want to hear about it.
The summit is a different activity from the walk to base camp. Different permit, different skills, different price bracket. We do not sell it, and everything on this site about the trek stops at the foot of the mountain.
One name, several places
Is there more than one Everest Base Camp?
Mount Everest has two base camps, and only one of them is the trekking destination. The south base camp is in Nepal, at 5,364 m (17,598 ft), and you reach it on foot from Lukla. The north base camp is in Tibet and is reached by road.
On this site the full name, Mount Everest Base Camp, always means the south side in Nepal. If you came here looking for the country that holds the south base camp, the answer is Nepal, inside Sagarmatha National Park. The north base camp is a different trip with different permits, and it is not something we run.
We publish no height for the north base camp, because we hold no verified figure for it. There is no honest way for us to print one.
The numbered camps above base camp belong to climbers, not trekkers
Base camp is the only camp on Mount Everest that a trekker reaches. The numbered camps sit above it on the climbing route, past the Khumbu Icefall, and they exist for summit expeditions. The Everest Base Camp trek does not go to any of them, and no trekking permit allows it.
People search for the height of Camp 1 often enough that it is worth being plain. We publish no elevation for any of the numbered camps, because we hold no verified figure for them. They are also not fixed in the way a village is. A camp is a position on moving ice, and the route each season decides where it goes.
What the numbers mean
What the air is like at these heights
The air at Everest Base Camp holds the same share of oxygen as the air at sea level. What changes is pressure. Fewer molecules of air sit in the same space, so each breath delivers less oxygen into your blood than the same breath does at home.
That is why this page matters more than a list of trivia. An elevation on this trek is a load. Every height in the table above describes how hard your body has to work to stand in that spot, and the work rises the further down the route you read.
Your body answers by breathing harder, and then, over days, by adjusting. Acclimatization is the word for that adjustment, and it cannot be hurried. It is why we build two acclimatization days into every Everest Base Camp itinerary we run, at Namche Bazaar, 3,440 m (11,286 ft), and at Dingboche, 4,410 m (14,469 ft). A hike that drops either one is a shorter trek with a worse chance of finishing.
People ask for the oxygen level at base camp as a percentage. Our figure for it is not something we have verified against a primary source, so we print none. When we have one with an authority behind it, it goes in this section with its source and the date we checked it.
What altitude does to a person, the signs worth acting on, and how we pace the ascent are on altitude sickness and acclimatization. Nobody climbs to base camp and there is no rope on this route, but whether you can walk it is a fair question, and it is answered on how hard this trek really is.
The ground itself
What you stand on at base camp is a glacier
Everest Base Camp sits on the Khumbu Glacier, at the foot of the Khumbu Icefall. There is no building and no viewing platform. What is there is rock, ice and, in spring, the tents of the summit expeditions.
The last stretch from Gorak Shep crosses moraine, which is the rubble a glacier pushes aside as it moves. Underfoot it is loose rock lying over ice. That is why the hours on the base camp day run longer than the distance suggests, and why the path shifts between seasons.
The Khumbu Icefall is visible from base camp. Trekkers do not cross it. It is the start of the climbing route, and it is the reason base camp sits where it does rather than higher up the valley.
We publish no length, no depth and no elevation of its own for the Khumbu Glacier, because we hold no verified figure for any of them. The altitude we do publish, 5,364 m (17,598 ft), is the camp on the glacier surface. The same heights drawn as a profile, with the distance between each stop, are on the Everest Base Camp route, distance and map.
Questions
Questions people ask us
How high is Everest Base Camp?
Everest Base Camp sits at 5,364 m (17,598 ft) on the Nepal side of Mount Everest. It is the one elevation in this whole subject that our sources agree on without exception.
How high is Everest Base Camp in feet?
Everest Base Camp is 5,364 m (17,598 ft). The feet figure on this page is computed from the verified meter figure rather than typed, so the two cannot disagree.
What is the highest point of the Everest Base Camp trek?
Kala Patthar, at 5,545 m (18,192 ft), climbed at dawn from Gorak Shep on the morning after the base camp walk. Base camp itself is lower, at 5,364 m (17,598 ft).
Which country holds the south base camp of Mount Everest?
Nepal. The south base camp sits inside Sagarmatha National Park, in the Khumbu region of Nepal. The north base camp is in Tibet and is a separate trip.
Sources
Where these figures come from
Every number above is listed here with the body that publishes it and the date we last read it. If a figure has changed since, write to us and we will correct the page and say that we did.
- Our own reconciliation of the route elevations Built from every Everest itinerary published by Nepal Unique Treks and Expedition Pvt Ltd, the licensed Kathmandu operator this site belongs to, then reconciled against its internal fact ledger. Where pages disagreed we applied the rules recorded in our fact store and took one value, or published none. The reconciliation is an internal document with no public address. Checked 12 September 2026.
- Nepal and China, the joint survey of the Everest height Announced by the Nepal Survey Department through its Mount Everest Height Measurement Secretariat, jointly with China, on 8 December 2020. The link below is the report published on the day. Read the source Checked 12 September 2026.
- The Kala Patthar viewpoint elevation Specialist consensus across independent sources, for the point the trail actually reaches. The section above lists every figure our own parent company publishes under this name and says which point each one describes. Read the source Checked 12 September 2026.
- The Kala Patthar ridge high point, measured by GPS GPS survey by Dr Luis A. Ruedas of Portland State University, from forty eight averaged readings taken in December 2006, with a second reading using WAAS in October 2008. Read the source Checked 12 September 2026.
- The three Everest pass elevations Taken from specialist consensus across multiple independent non-operator sources. The individual sources are listed in our research file, which is an internal document. We never publish one figure covering all three passes. Checked 12 September 2026.
Keep reading
Where to go next
- Kala Patthar, the actual Everest viewpointThe two heights, the dawn climb from Gorak Shep, and why the summit stays hidden from base camp.
- Altitude sickness and acclimatizationWhat thin air does to a body, the signs worth acting on, and how we pace the ascent.
- How hard the Everest Base Camp trek really isDaily hours, the three hard days, and the beginner question answered straight.
- The Everest Base Camp route, distance and mapThe same elevations drawn as a profile, with the distance between each stop.
The heights are the easy part. The pacing is what gets people home.
Every figure on this page is one we use ourselves, because we guide this route. The plan that moves you between them, night by night, with the rest days in the right places, is the itinerary.
Published 12 September 2026. Last checked 12 September 2026 against the issuing authorities. A hollow circle marks a figure we have not settled yet. A half circle marks one where two authorities disagree, and we show both.