Everest Base Camp 2008 - Day 10

Day 10: Thursday, October 30, 2008

Starting point : Lobuche (Altitude: 4925m/16160 ft. Start Time: 8:15 am) End point : Tyangboche (Altitude: 3865m/12680ft. End Time: 3 pm)

It was easily the best night's sleep of the entire trip. Just woke up a couple of times and went right back to sleep. I guess we were getting acclimatized.

It was a beautiful morning at Lobuche. The mountains still looked great, even though we had been seeing them every day.

 The rising sun falls on Tawoche. Kang Tega, Thamserku in the distance.

The campsites at Lobuche (probably a lot more comfortable than Kalo Pathar Lodge (seen in the above pic near center)

 Lobuche campsite with curious equipment

We retraced back, past the Khumbu Glacier moraine, the memorial and quickly descended the steep path to Tughla.  After Tughla, we took the fork to the bottom of the Khumbu Khola river and walked on the valley floor.

 Instead of staying high on the Dingboche trail, we walked down to the valley floor.

After 45 minutes or so, we were near Pheriche.

 After crossing a long distance on the valley floor, almost near Pheriche.

We were at Pheriche by 11 and had lunch at the Nagarcot Lodge where we would have stayed had we continued on the previous day. We expressed our regrets to the owner for not showing up the previous day. It was nice meal we had there (Dal, Bhat, Tarkari). We still had plenty of gas in the tank to walk further and dismissed any thought of stopping at Pheriche for the night.

So we made it back all the way till Tyangboche. A distance of 10 miles for the entire day which is quite a high number on this trip. The final half-hour ascent from Deboche to Tyangboche in the fog proved to be difficult after the long descent from Lobuche. Several trekkers were finding it to be a struggle as well. It was past 3 pm and it was late. As feared, the lodges were full and we just barely managed to find a dormitory bed in the Trekker's Lodge. It was barely a hole in the wall with two bunkers. We got the lower one.

We paid another visit to the Monastery and could see why the lodges were packed. The prayer hall was standing room only. It was similar to the previous week except for the addition of two reed instruments which actually played the occasional melodic phrase.

Lively dinner time at the Trekker's Lodge. We are sitting in front of our dormitory bed (covered by the privacy screen)