We started at 3:40 am from Namche Bazar at the big rock at the top of town. Our goal was to get to EBC and back in less than 24 hours (ideally less than 18 so we could get back before the pizza place in town closed). The first piece is rolling, relatively smooth terrain followed by a descent to the river. After a bridge crossing, there is a steep climb up to the monastery at Tengboche. After the monastery, we picked up an escort of about 9 very friendly dogs for a few miles. They saw us to the next bridge crossing. There is a split after the bridge toward EBC (on the left, can't miss it) with a climb up a hill to some lovely prayer flags. After the split, we had a nice false flat with many yaks and then another climb up to cross a narrow part of the Everest moraine. From there, it is pretty much a straight shot up through Lobeche and Gorak Shep. On the way down, we got freezing rain, a little snow and some pretty intense wind, followed by crazy fog after dusk. We arrived back in Namche in time for pizza and beer! I was accompanied/ supported by Tyler Andrews.
If you are planning to do this route: BRING MANY LAYERS and make sure to have a waterproof jacket and shoes. There are lots of teahouses/ little shops along the route to obtain water cookies (or other snacks of your choice, beware of bakery signs, we only found one actual bakery in Lobeche), make sure you have cash on hand. There were a few traffic jams on narrow trails along the way involving a mixture or yaks, humans and the occasional horse (anticipate about 30 minutes of "yakffic" jams).