Rongpu to Everest Base Camp

I'm interested to hear from anyone who has recently walked from Rongpu Monastery to the EBC. I believe it's about 8km and not too steep. I'm sure that it's a well worn path too.

What is the condition of the path - any loose stones etc.? And, how long did you take to get there, and then get back?

Thanks.

From Rongbhu Monastery to Everest Base Camp is not a path, but a wide dirt road.The road is in good condition with no large rocks. The road from Rongbhu to base camp gains only about 200 meters in elevation over the 8 kilometers.

You can not really walk from Rongbuk to EBC, now the EBC is only open for mountaineers, common tourists can not enter...

Besides, your driver will firstly drive you from Rongbuk Monastery to a place where there lots of yak-hair tents set up, mainly for lodging and selling souveniors, and this place is where you'd better start walking to "EBC" , it is not a long distance, but very challangable due to the high altitude, it costs like 1 hour just for a one way walk by taking some short-cut near the main road, full of stones but much interesting; and if you do not want to hike, from here you can also buy tickets for a green bus to "EBC", costing RMB 25 per person