Altitude: 4240m to 4850m
Atmospheric Pressure: 630mbar to 587mbar
Trek: 6.2km / 2Hrs
Last night in a bed then, slept all the way through without
problem. Waking up only due to dry nose and mouth due to the altitude and also
to use the pee bottle.
After breakfast, we set off to a crisp morning. The ground
is frozen and the fresh breeze forces everybody to wear gloves and wind proof
until the sun gets out of behind the clouds.
To keep warm, I decide to follow Brian at the front, leading
the group to Lobuche base Camp.
The pace is good and eventually we stop to take layers off
as the sun is warming us up.
The whole day should be between 3 and 5 hours, but we get to
base camp in 2 hours.
A small group of us stuck to Brian who wanted to “stretch”
his legs and kept the pace high, even through the last 200m climb.
Today is quite a big jump in altitude (600m), and we end up
sleeping at the same height as Mont-Blanc and Monica is expecting a few
headaches for the people pushing too hard.
I feel good again, and the stomach bug is definitely behind
me, great news.
Just before we get to camp, we walk through the memorial of
some of the people who’s bodies are still up on Everest, Rob hall, Scott Fisher
to name just the most famous ones.
As we reach the top of the wall, we can see the massive, 54
tents, camp site which will be our base camp for Lobuche. Even the other people
on the trail stop to have a look at the site, with all its green tents lined up
and the 4 big mess tents, it looks very professional.
As we move into the camp, it all feels so familiar as it is
the same layout as for Manaslu and we’re all calling home already. With a tent
each and 2 dinning tents, full of hot drinks and snacks…. it’s heaven!! It
feels great to be back in this environment, so much better than the lodges.
We all pick our individual tent for the next couple of
nights and get settled in.
This year, Russell has made a deal with a new sponsor
(Toread, the Chinese outdoor company), and all the tents are new, with that
nice fresh smell, luxury!
It might have been our last night in a bed for a while, but
it’s nice to have a tent each.
I guess the down side will be how cold it gets at night, but
we’ll see that later on today.
Once settled, we all meet up in the dining tents for snacks
and hot drinks until our bags arrive and everybody seem to be excited to be
here, the atmosphere is of laughter and banter (not always good to be French in
those cases ).
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