Day 11 21st February 2011

Dingboche to Lobuje ( 4928m)

A gradual climb above the Pheriche Valley then descend to cross the Khumba Dughla.  From here we witness the huge terminal moraines of the Khumbu Glacier flowing off Mt Everest.

Onwards to a tea house at Lobuje.

The scale of the mountains and the distances are incredible

A 6.30 am wake up call, revealed an overcast day.  We set off just after 8, from or Dingboche lodge.  We took the track, we had climbed the day before, then veered off to the left, for a hard pull for an hour.

What was that Who song - I can see for miles and miles and miles...............

As you can see we are well above the tree line now

The day was still generally cloudy, interspersed with some clear patches.  The route followed the Kongma La Trek, which took us up to a height of 4800m. We stopped for lunch at the bottom of the valley - lots of carbs again, chips , toasted cheese sandwich and tuna, of course all washed down with a few more cups of tea.


This is the lodge of our lunchtime stop

The trek after lunch was tough, quite rocky terrain.  In England you would do this distance in 30 minutes, here it took 3 times that.

A rather icy cold river

The last half hour was flatter and finally down to Th Eco Lodge at Lobuche - which was originally a summer village for yak herders. We probably trekked for 6 1/2 hours today.

Still plenty of snow to contend with!

The Eco Lodge is named because it is constructed from stone and aluminium rather than the more traditional timber.  This lodge and the previous one are solar powered, the ones prior to that being run from hydro-electric power.  The little led lights will only keep going until about 10pm - if you can stay awake that long!!

Day 10 Sunday 20th February 2011

Today is an acclimatisation day at Dingboche and exploring Chukung Valley

A breakfast of porridge, tea, fried eggs starts the day off well.  We head off for an acclimitisation walk at 9.15, up the hill beyond the stupe, up to an altitude of 4750m.  Even at that height we are still in the valley & everywhere you look you are surrounded by magnificent mountains, absolutely stunning.

Starting the walk from Dingboche

Our lodge is to the far right of the stupe

Still plenty of snow about

Mountains, mountains, mountains

When you are still acclimitising to the altitude, you're only able to walk 30 paces before you have to rest, to gain your breath.

Another group of trekkers coming up the mountain

We took about 2 hours to climb to the top, but only half am hour to come back down

The clouds rolling up the valley

Back down for lunch, chips and a toasted cheese sandwich and of course more tea. Carbohydrates and liquids, the perfect diet for altitude.  We had a free afternoon, some stayed at the lodge, sleeping, playing cards, reading.  We stayed for a while then went off to explore the village.  Not much to see other than yaks! Most of the lodges are still closed, too early in the season for much trade.  We saw more snow leopard prints in the snow.

The park sign at the end of the village

Nellie the nak with her pretty earing

It stayed clear most of the day, the mornings were generally very clear with the deepest blue skies, today it stayed clear most of the afternoon.  A cloud rolled through us at about 4.40 and the temperature dropped from 16degrees to 7.  Back in the lodge for tea and biscuits.  It cleared at about 6pm for 10  minutes, just in time for us to catch the sunset

Day 9 19th February 2011Climb from Deboche to Dingboche

A very cold night in Deboche, probably -10°c or colder.  Even if you get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, the lack of oxygen means that you get back to your sleeping bag breathless.  There isn't much insulation in the lodges if any.  If you leave a drinking water bottle out of your sleeping bag it's frozen in the morning.

A relatively easy walk to start our morning, dropping down the valley with a few climbs, but we're getting more used to them now.

 

We stop at a lodge for tea at about 10.30, with a magnificent view of Ama Dablam.

 We then walked on to The Everest View Lodge for lunch

As it was still sunny & bright we can see everest.

The cloud starts to follow us up the valley

A walk down the valley after lunch, cross the river (Imja Khola) and then a steep climb up to Dingboche (boche means flat), quite a large village nestled in the valley.  We arrived at the Paradise Lodge at about 3pm.  We are now above the tree line at 4400m

Day 8 Friday 18th February 2011

We leave Khumjung at 8.30 after a hearty breakfast of porridge and eggs.  There's still more than 10" of snow on the ground.  Our walk today will take us up to Deboche

Oh what a wonderful morning

 The tracks are a bit slippery with ice after a freeze last night,a relatively easy downhill walk to start with

I hope they can find some food

We saw some indian eagles soaring above us on the way up, unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to take a good picture.

Have we really come that far?

We stop to give some gifts to the children

A stop at Phungi Thanga for tea in the morning.

Our walk takes us to Tengboche Monastry, where we stop for lunch.

A couple of bridges have to be traversed on the way

Our lunchtime stop is at the monastery of Tengboche.  The monks are enjoying the snow and actually skiing down the gentle slope behind the monastery. Their skis are home made, using short lengths of plastic water pipe bound together.

This is one of the best views I've had from a toilet!!

Rich tries the skiing, friendly monks around here!!

After lunch we visited the monastery, we were invited into the central prayer room, where the monks were chanting their 108 prayers

Beautiful coloured silk decorations

We trekked on further downhill from Tengboche as Dawa our guide thought it would freeze overnight and make the route treacherous in the morning

We arrive at Paradise Lodge at Deboche at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon

Day 7 17th February 2011, Namche Bazaar to Khumjung (3795m)

The day arrives bright and clear.  The trouble with being woken up at 7 in the morning with your only bowl of washing water for the day, is that you can't afford to lie in bed, because the water goes cold in 5 minutes!
It was like the 1960s at home, before central heating; it had been so cold that night, that the inside of the window pane was frozen over

One of the streets in Namche

I can't stop taking photos today the scenery is breathtaking

We started our walk to the Sagamartha National Park Headquarters, where we get our first glimpse of Everest and a few other of the high peaks.

It's getting hot already, down to my shirt!

On the way, we stop off at the Everest View Hotel (about 11 am) for hot chocolate.

People either looking up or down in amazement, how far have we come - how far to go

 

The miles are just dropping away

Everest ahead

Our lodge in Khumjung

We have (another) cup of tea and then we go off to visit the school, monastry and hospital

 

The Entrance to Khumjung School, built by Sir Edmund Hillary

 

Having enjoyed our walk around the town, we drop back down to our lodge for our evening meal and bed at 8.30 (it's tiring doing all this walking!)