Dingboche 4400m, 3 hours
I awoke shortly after 5am but stayed in my warm ‘walrus’ sleeping bag for another hour.
Breakfast was better than dinner last night, however both Spencer & I have a bit of tummy upset.
I started off earlier as I wanted to go super slow and I knew they would quickly catch me. The trek up to Dingboche was quite pleasant and we arrived within 3 hours which was great. Once we got going we kept a nice steady pace and our stomach worries disappeared.
We are at the Sonam Friendship Lodge for the next 2 nights – right across from where we stayed 2 years ago in 2011. The rooms are large and look new – we also have a ‘squat box’ toilet in the room which is a bonus.
The dining area is bright, sunny and cheerful and the food is good – yeah! After lunch Bikesh took the guys for a short hike (the wind picked up and the clouds were to the ground), and I chatted with some of the folks from a large Aussie/New Zealand group. They did their acclimatization trek today and following it one couple has decided to turn around. Their oxygen saturation level is too low and we heard them say ‘this trip is just bigger than us’. Poor folks, they are only 1/3 into their trip.
I also overhead another group saying that an Everest climber from IMG (International Mountain Guides out of Seattle) has died. I need to check this out further!
Hearing things like this is a good reality check!
Bikesh went off to visit with friends so we ordered our own dinner and Tshiri and Ishower did fantastic at making sure we got our meals. We were laughing that we would tell Bikesh that we were starving and went to bed hungry! Then Charles decided that Tshiri is our new guide and he would be the porter. Of course this brought giggles from the guys.
And as per usual we all retired to our rooms shortly after dinner. Amazing how you can never get enough sleep up here.
Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Nice to hear from the walrus.
-from the inchworm.