At midnight I got up to take a leak. Stumbling outside in my thermal underwear, my somnolence was shattered by the moonlit scene. The mist had cleared to reveal a monstrous, mountainous panorama. I was transfixed. Fantasy, danger and splendour seemed to merge. Shooting stars streaked past the gargantuan summits (which I later identified from a guidebook as Arakam Tse, 6423 metres, Cholatse, 6335 metres and Thamserku, 6608 metres). The cold gnawed at my skin; it was self-evident why the Sherpas believe their gods live in these mountains.

A two-minute pee turned into half an hour of wide-eyed gazing; the scene was hypnotising, making me believe in some greater power. The cold had been irrelevant at first, but then I realised I was freezing. I headed back inside, threw on all the warm clothes I had and hunkered down into my sleeping bag.

By now I was hyperventilating and realised the cold had sparked a touch of acute mountain sickness. I couldn't sleep because every time I was about to drift off, my body jolted me awake, reminding me to breathe.

The mountain is the master

In the morning Pema gave me some oxygen from a portable cylinder and I managed to walk up another few hundred metres to Machhermo. There's a medical post there for overworked porters and the occasional overcome trekker; a young Aussie volunteer doctor gave me the once-over.

Feeling somewhat stronger the next day, although still under the fog of altitude sickness, I set off to Gokyo to catch up with the group. Now and then my senses would come alive, intensely and without warning. Snapshots of incredible clarity punctuated that day: colourful lichen on rocks, the crunch of snow beneath my boots, the sun reflecting off icicles, the cold smell of the wind, the black-blue sky.

The teahouse in Gokyo overlooked a vast, frozen lake and in the north we could see Cho Oyu in Tibet, at 8201 metres the world's sixth highest mountain. We spent a day relaxing and acclimatising. By the time we left, our bodies were primed for high-altitude (in trekking terms) exertion.

Two days saw us at the village of Dingboche, near Ama Dablam (6812 metres) which has been called the most beautiful mountain in the world. Its sheerness and detachment from the rest of the Himalaya made it distinctive and a favourite peak among the group.

On leaving Dingboche, we soon found ourselves on a vast glacial moraine above Periche Valley, with Taboche Peak (6 367 metres) dominating. The walking was easy Nepalese 'flat', which really means slightly uphill, the diluted air celestial in its purity and the views yet another mind-blowing dimension.

Just before we stopped at Thokla for lunch, we walked past a Canadian climber who'd come down from Camp Two on Everest to alleviate what seemed to be a serious case of altitude sickness. We watched a helicopter come up the valley to take him to hospital, but a porter told us later he'd died. That afternoon, on our way to Lobuche, we passed a sobering number of chortens — Buddhist shrines made of small rocks — erected in the memory of mountaineers who had died trying to climb Everest.

The feet of the Goddess Mother
At Lobuche we prepared for our longest day yet: we walked for three hours to Gorak Shep, then another three hours to Base Camp, then back to Gorak. So it was up earlier than usual, around 5am, to start walking at first light.

Once we'd reached Gorak, we slimmed down our packs and started off along the edge of the Khumbu Glacier, a chaotic, surreal formation that separated us from Nuptse, one of the 'lesser' prominences on Everest's East Ridge. It's a peak of 7861 metres with cliffs that shoot straight up more than two kilometres from the glacier. Boulders the size of houses lay strewn across the ice.

As we got to Base Camp (5400 metres) it started snowing. There were a hundred or so tiny-looking, multicoloured tents, the homes of aspirant summiteers and their back-up crews. The intrepid community looked absurdly small against the massive backdrop of the glacier and the ominous Khumbu icefall. With bad weather encroaching, the area looked decidedly unwelcoming. Pema wanted us to get back down to Gorak as quickly as possible and we were more than willing to oblige. The thick snowfall made visibility poor and the walk back along the glacier was not at all easy.

Back at Gorak, we acknowledged that the final push to Base Camp had been a letdown. While it was an accomplishment to have got there, we'd mistakenly anticipated too much. It didn't provide bigger and better views; you can't even see the massif locally known as Chomolungma — the Goddess Mother of the Earth — from the camp.

What it did provide was a glimpse into the steeliness it would take to attempt to reach the summit, another three kilometres up. For me, Base Camp had been effort enough.

The walk back down to the village of Pangboche was blissful, with what seemed like superfluous oxygen pumping through our veins. But it was just as well that we were trekking downhill — the monsoon weather arrived on the first of May, turning the days drizzly and damp, with glimpses of blue sky only in the early mornings.

Back at Namche, the town seemed deserted. We were among the final trekkers of the season and, after a last night polishing off a yak steak, savouring our first beer in three weeks and a hot shower, we too would head to Lukla and home. But for the gods, the mountains would soon be alone.

Trekking trivia

• Nepal was closed to foreigners until 1950.
  
• Eight of the world's 10 highest mountains are in Nepal.
• Himalaya is Sanskrit for 'Abode of snows'.
  
• First summit of Everest: 29 May 1953.
  
• Everest grows about 4 mm higher every year because of tectonic plate action.
  
• Everest isn't particularly important to the local Buddhists, whose most sacred mountains are Khumbila, just north of Namche Bazaar, and Mount Kailas in Tibet.

This feature originally appeared in Getaway Magazine.