Forty Five Minutes Down

To Dingboche, Nepal -- 4410m (14,460ft)

I was happy to hear Dex, Kylie, and Meg slept well.  I really don’t know how they do it.  I’m up every two hours to pee, like clockwork (TMI).  

It was clearly below freezing as the tiny streams of water outside the lodge were frozen solid, giving Dex and Kylie hours of enjoyment, sliding down shallow inclines and breaking out plates of ice.  

Since today was a rest day, we planned to head up the ridge behind town.  Well, at least the adults did.  Dex and Kylie were happy to play outside the lodge, and Meg was content to climb partway up the ridge, which topped out at 5070m (16,600 ft).  

What a slog!  The barren hillside just kept going up and up and up.  Meg turned around at the first set of prayer flags after 50 minutes, while Kevin, Craig and I continued up for another hour and forty.

As always, the views were tremendous.  Given the thin air, our pace was anything but speedy.  The ridge was right at the crux of two main valleys -- one that Kevin and Craig would head up to get to Chhukung and the other that we’d be following up to Gorakshep and the Everest Base Camp.  Craig and I spent some time at the top trying to figure out which peaks were which with the help of the topo map.  The jagged knife-edged ridges on some of the peaks were amazing.  

At the top

Looking down on Dingboche

At 12:45 p.m., after enjoying the view for half an hour, Kevin and I headed down, while Craig -- inexplicably with phone service -- stayed to call Sharyl.  I was having visions of fried noodles, so I pretty much just made a beeline for the bottom -- two and a half hours up, 45 minutes down!  

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful.  I had a headache after lunch so went to lie down for an hour or so.  I met up with Meg and the kids afterwards in the bakery for apple pie, banana bread, and a lemon tart -- all very good.  Dex and Kylie had spied some games on the bakery shelf, so we played Score Four and Mastermind to pass the time before dinner.  

Despite being fairly late in the season, the lodge was full tonight -- a couple from Australia with a guide, a group of older men from England, a Belgian and Chilean woman, a 20-something lone American with a never-ending supply of trivia....  It’s neat to see some diversity, especially with respect to age.  Maybe we have a few more Himalayan hikes in us yet.