The View north from the 5th lake (Ngozumpa) near Gokyo.
Namche
Namche, Solukhumbu, Nepal
A lot has happened since my last post... Roddy had an encounter with his nemesis (also known as his body) part way through a trek, and had to return to Canada. It was heartbreaking to see and I feel terrible for him. After accompanying Roddy to the airport in Lukla, I set off on my solo journey through the Khumbu. Day 1 took me from Lukla to Dole (4048m.) The net gain in altitude was approximately 1400 meters! If I had not already been acclimatized, the hike would have killed me (literally.) It was a big day with around 11 hours of hiking and many rewarding views. Next was Dole to Machermo (4410m), which was a pleasant short walk of around 2 hours. My next stop was in Gokyo (4790m), where I spent a few days exploring the area. Gokyo is a beautiful village located on the 3rd of a series of 5 alpine lakes. I hiked up to the 5th lake (Ngozumpa) (4990m), climbed the Frostbitten fingers (Donag-Tse) (5800m), Knobby view (Ngozumpa-Tse) (5553m), and Gokyo-ri (5340m.) All had awesome views of some mighty big mountains. From Gokyo I walked across the Ngozumpa glacier to Thangnak (4600m.) I crossed the Cho-La pass (5420m) from Thangnak to Thukla, which was a little sketchy because it had snowed the night before, this made route finding a little interesting on the glacier. The next highlight was the walk to Mount Everest base camp along the Khumbu glacier. The camp was .... well it was a bunch of tents on a glacier.... But there were 2 pretty wild looking helicopter wreckages to look at. The Khumbu icefall is pretty amazing to see up close, especially when the massive ice blocks shift and fall. The next day I climbed Kala Patthar (5554m) to watch the sunrise over the Himalaya. It was Beautiful... and bloody cold sitting on that peak. For the rest of the day I walked back down the valley to Namche (3460m,) arriving after dark. I've been meeting many intersting people along the way including americans who work out of the US embassy in Islamabad, Irish medical students, and Italian particle physicists. My plan as of now is to head up the Bhote valley for a 3 or 4 days before returning to Kathmandu. Then I'll head to the Annapurna region.
