Monthly Archives: April 2010
After the previous days hike and a good night of sleep, it was amazing how good both Ian and I felt when we woke up this morning. After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast (again!), we headed off down to the road to Dole. The trail was amazingly well maintained, with fitted flagstones making a good bit of the surface, and nice steps space out at a comfortable distance. After a mile or so we came to what seemed to be a work gang, all busily paving the trail with new stones. I was impressed with the organisation of the effort and was wondering to myself who was paying for their labor; well, not five minutes later the answer was right in front of me as an older Sherpa gentleman had set up a stand on the side of the trail soliciting donations from trekkers. It was definitely worth a couple hundred rupees for a trail that was so easy on the legs!
Not much father down we came to a Stupa that was dedicated to Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa who was with Edmund Hillary on the first successful climb of Everest. Soon after, we came around another bend and got our first glimpse of Cho Oyu, the 6th highest peak in the world. This would become a constant companion for the next few days as we followed the valley northward towards Gokyo, and one of those things that really makes you feel like you are some place special.
After about five hours of slow but steady climbing, we finally arrived at the village of Dole. Our guide was pretty impressed with our progress…according to him we were about an hour and a half ahead of the normal time to arrive. I spent the afternoon reading and wandering around. At this altitude the skies were not nearly as hazy, but the afternoons were bringing in clouds that covered the mountains, and the first really chilly weather we’d experienced. All heat in the lodges is produced by burning yak dung in a central stove, and I was very pleased when they finally fired it up and served dinner. It’s veggie fried noodles or fried rice for dinner from pretty much now on, but when you’re hungry it tasted like a real feast!
After coming from sea level to nearly 12,000 feet in less than a week, it was time to stop for a day and let my body adjust to the altitude. Nearly all trekkers stop in Namche for at least two nights; those who don’t have about a 50% chance of needing an expensive helicopter evacuation later on down the road! After yesterday’s uphill slog, the last thing I really wanted to do was to climb up some more, but working out sore muscles is the best thing for them, so it was off to do some exploring around the town.
Our first stop was at the Sagarmatha National Park headquarters where they had a pretty decent museum that talked about the sherpa lifestyle, the flora and fauna of the region, and the geology of how the Himalaya mountains formed. The museum doubles as an army checkpoint, and the helicopter landing pad gave us our first really good view of Mt. Everest and the other high peaks surrounding it.
The museum was only our first stop, and we headed up hill to the Syangboche airstrip, which was in even worse condition than the one in Lukla. There were two or three flights of 6 passenger planes per day in good weather, mostly ferrying rich Japanese tourists to the Everest View hotel where they can stay in rooms that have extra oxygen pumped in so they can mitigate the effects of the high altitude. We hiked up to a lodge near the Everest View where we stopped for tea and the best views yet of Mt. Everest. We hung out there for a while, just absorbing the scenery and taking tons of photographs. Eventually we decided it was time for lunch, so we headed back down to Namche for amazing pizza at a German bakery in town. The rest of the day was spent in happy relaxation and repacking as we got ready to leave the “lowlands” and really head up to the high country.
