Everest Base Camp Trek - Post Monsoon

I am finally getting close to booking my Everest Base camp Trek for Oct/Nov 2013. I've narrowed it down to two companies, World Expeditions and KE Adventures. Has anybody had experience of trekking with these companies and if so, which would they recommend.

At the moment I'm edging towards World Expeditions. It is a 24 day trek, predominantly camping at their permanent sites. The trek includes Mera Peak, visiting their Everest Exped at Base Camp and finishing with an ascent of Island Peak (6180m).

Thoughts/comments would be appreciated.

Don't know anything about either company. However, 24 days sounds a bit optimistic for EBC and Island Peak. It does depend a bit where you start from. If you start from Jiri it sounds fairly ambitious. However, if you are flying to Lukla it sounds doable, as long as you acclimatize OK.

The trek starts from Lukla, here is the URL (linky thing not working)

http://worldexpeditions.co.uk/index.php?section=trips&id=285315

What I like about this is that it is predominantly camping and there is a conscious effort to give something back to the community through various initiatives. Also Peter Hillary is one of the Directors so the is a good pedigree to the compant.

Seems like a sensible itinerary, with plenty of time for acclimatization around Lukla. In 1987 I went all the way from Namche to Ama Dablam Base Camp in one day and was very ill. This was even though we had walked all the way from Jiri, gaining altitude slowly. I descended a few thousand feet and made a rapid recovery. However, I learnt an important lesson. I had assumed that as I had spent a lot of the previous summer at 4000m in the Alps, I would be OK.

If you are both fit *and* acclimatized it's possible to go from Namche to EBC in two days. You can certainly descend from EBC to Namche in a day. So your itinerary looks sensible.

If you get a chance try to visit Khumjung. It's slightly off the normal trail (about an hour from memory) above Namche. It's probably the most memorable place I have ever been to.