In the morning, it was cold. Everything was covered in a thick layer of frost; the ground, the small stream that ran by our window, even the group of yaks walking around outside! The yaks! Every time the wind picked up it would start blowing the frost through the air, making it look like it was raining ice. Something made me think we had a cold day ahead of us.
Our first stop, and home for the night, was Gorek Shep. It's the last town before Everest Base Camp, which was (not surprisingly) our goal for the day. With lunch we ordered a few Snickers bars and what turned out to be a few very large small pots of hot beverages. I made it 6 full cups into my hot orange before throwing in the liquid sucrose towel. We also ran across a group of fellow Vancouverites and made diner plans with them for the evening (not that plans were really required. The lodge was so small we couldn't have avoided them had our lives depended on it).
With and extra two liters of what was by now body temperature orange sloshing around inside of me, we took once again to the trails and headed towards Everest Base Camp. The road was long, and difficult with most sections being covered in loose rock, meaning you actually had to pay attention to where you were going instead of letting your mind wander. Combined with the rolling nature of the path (damn that Nepali flat), the sheer wind and the bright sun, it was quite a tiresome journey. We had to take several “small breaks” along the way so I could go stand behind a rock for a few moments. At one point me and the guide were each taking separate “small breaks” leaving Jennie to wait alone at the top of the hill, taking the only legitimate break in the group.
We eventually made it to the start of Everest Base Camp, or at least the big rock that pretends to be the start of Everest Base Camp. It looked pretty much just like you'd expect: a bunch of tents sitting on some rocks off in the distance. Like RoVent, but with less snow, and a lot less oxygen. What was interesting, however, was the Khumbu ice fall. All of the snow and ice that slowly (and sometimes very quickly) peals itself off of Everest and the surrounding peaks comes to settle in the bowl at the foot of the mountain. From there it slowly (and sometimes very quickly) makes its way down the slope, taking a left at Base Camp, before settling down and becoming the Khumbu glacier. The ice flow passed very close by to where we were standing, and we somehow managed to convince our guide, albeit somewhat reluctantly, to take us down and let us play on the glacier.
The ice field was spectacular! Everywhere you looked there was another amazing feature to see. Rocks balanced precariously on the ice, seracs of every shape and size, and raging streams of frigid water flowing every which way crossed by brides of ice. Our guide led the way (not that he didn't normally do that anyway) to make sure it was safe. He tested ice bridge, peered under every rock and found us a path through the maze of seracs. He brought us all the way to a small steep sided valley in the ice and even located a spot where we could take pictures of each other surrounded by the ice. That's right, he's that good!
After we'd finished playing on the ice, we walked back up the scree covered slopes to the large rock and met with our new Canadian friends who has just arrived. We trekked back over the long windy slopes from Base Camp to Gorek Shep and collapsed into our seats at the lodge. We ordered some Snickers bars with our 3:00 tea and, as planned, ate dinner with the Vancouverites. Jennie managed to score some of their leftover antibiotics (their trip was coming to an end and they had been more fortunate than us) so we bought a $10 can of Pringles to share while we all played Hello Kitty Uno (our guide and an Israeli couple included).
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