Feeling nice and acclimatized from our second day spent at 4410m, we woke up and headed to breakfast in the cold cold morning with only minimal complaining. As we were leaving the lodge, Matt gave us each one of his Snickers bars and told us to be careful. Wait, wasn't he the one climbing Everest?
We spent what was by now and average morning walking in the average direction of (you guessed it) up. It was another relatively short day and we arrived in Lobuche around lunch time. After some much needed momo, we set off on the days afternoon adventure. First we slogged up the ridge to the east of town. The ridge itself wasn't that spectacular, but it brought just above 5000m and gave us our first view of the Khumbu glacier! The glacier was almost entirely covered in loose rock and sand, making rather unimpressive, but waaay off in the distance you could see the very tip of the Khumbu ice fall. We documented things thoroughly and continued on. Our next stop was the Pyramid research station. Originally built by the Italians it's some sort of station that does research on something to do with altitude... probably. It's built right next to the pyramid mountain (more of a pointy hill) and contains an absurd amount of plexiglass for a building built this far up a mountain.
When we returned to the lodge for 3:00 tea, I dug down to the bottom of my pack and brought out some Oreos that I'd been carrying around since Kathmandu. I was still thirsty after tea (read: I'd only peed once all day) so I decided mix things up a bit and ordered an entire pot of “Hot Orange.” I wasn't at all sure what hot orange was, but when it arrived it was indeed both hot and orange. Actually it turns out it's just hot powdered orange drink (Tang to be precise). They have to boil the water anyways so this way you get something warm and full of sugar! The small pot ended up being around 4 cups and put me well on my way to filling my urine quota for the day.
Later in the evening we played some more Hello Kitty Uno with our guide and a member of the lodge staff. We went to bed and lay awake listening to the loud Russian girls in the adjacent room wishing we only knew how to say Заткнись и спать!
We spent what was by now and average morning walking in the average direction of (you guessed it) up. It was another relatively short day and we arrived in Lobuche around lunch time. After some much needed momo, we set off on the days afternoon adventure. First we slogged up the ridge to the east of town. The ridge itself wasn't that spectacular, but it brought just above 5000m and gave us our first view of the Khumbu glacier! The glacier was almost entirely covered in loose rock and sand, making rather unimpressive, but waaay off in the distance you could see the very tip of the Khumbu ice fall. We documented things thoroughly and continued on. Our next stop was the Pyramid research station. Originally built by the Italians it's some sort of station that does research on something to do with altitude... probably. It's built right next to the pyramid mountain (more of a pointy hill) and contains an absurd amount of plexiglass for a building built this far up a mountain.
When we returned to the lodge for 3:00 tea, I dug down to the bottom of my pack and brought out some Oreos that I'd been carrying around since Kathmandu. I was still thirsty after tea (read: I'd only peed once all day) so I decided mix things up a bit and ordered an entire pot of “Hot Orange.” I wasn't at all sure what hot orange was, but when it arrived it was indeed both hot and orange. Actually it turns out it's just hot powdered orange drink (Tang to be precise). They have to boil the water anyways so this way you get something warm and full of sugar! The small pot ended up being around 4 cups and put me well on my way to filling my urine quota for the day.
Later in the evening we played some more Hello Kitty Uno with our guide and a member of the lodge staff. We went to bed and lay awake listening to the loud Russian girls in the adjacent room wishing we only knew how to say Заткнись и спать!
or, Sois bouche et dormir, for the uninformed
ReplyDelete