9-04-2012 – Lobuche Base Camp– Everest Base Camp

Altitude: 4850m to 5300m

Atmospheric Pressure: 587mbar to 558mbar

Trek: 3Hrs / 10kms

Slept really well and this morning my rest heart rate is the same as at sea level, surely a good sign that I am acclimatizing well.

Exciting day ahead, we’re on our way to Everest Base camp, which should take 4 hours for the fastest people. I opt for breakfast outside again, looking at the mountains around us under a bright sunshine.

I must admit that I have made a mistake yesterday, during our rest day.

Everyday so far, when we were trekking, I’ve always been very careful to apply sun screen and cover my face. However, yesterday, I didn’t do either, and it would appear that when I was sitting outside, having a nice chat with the guides, I got quite badly sun burnt….. DOHHHHH!! I must try to be more careful from now on.

I set off at the front, just behind Adrian. There’s one rule we’ve all painfully learnt whilst on Manaslu, it’s to never try to follow Adrian. He’s a machine and you just burn out when trying to follow him.

I carefully follow his pace, which still makes me breath heavily, a good stimulus for my body, I say to myself. After all, we have 4 to 5 days of rest once at Base camp to recover.

The path starts quite flat, but ondulates a lot towards base camp, and the going is quite tough. I can feel the headache coming, so decide to slow down a little bit.

The views are fantastic, we’re surrounded by the tall mountains around us. We catch a better view of the summit of Lobuche, with our “camp site” at the top, where we’ll be spending a couple of nights next week.

The path follows the glacier which comes down from the Khumbu Ice fall and Western Cwm. We follow the path on the side and eventually can see Everest base camp in the distance.

As we get closer, we can make out the Himex camp, recognizable with its “White Pod”. This looks the biggest camp by far.

Eventually, the path drops down onto the glacier, and after walking around a small lake in the ice, we finally reach base camp where we meet up with Russell who welcomes us to Base Camp.

This place is amazing, and so rough. The sherpas have been here 19 days to set it all up amongst the very unfriendly shape of the glacier. This can not be an easy job!!

Also, from the base camp we can easily see the Khumbu Ice Fall. I must admit, this is much, much worse than anything I ever imagined. It is HUGE!! Who ever thought it was a good idea to cross this monster must have been smoking something they shouldn’t have had!!

As dinner approaches, I feel the headache settling in, I did push quite hard today and this is the (expected) result.

By the time I make it to bed, it’s quite bad and I decide to take a couple of Neurofen’s.

To help me take my mind of it, I decide to watch a movie on my laptop, which works a treat.