After leaving Lobuche, you walk alongside the Khumbu glacier. With the perfect blue sky that we experienced this day, and the very distinct moonlike, sparsely vegetated, shifting high altitude landscape, this is like nothing we experienced before. EBC and the way to EBC is truly magical. The EBC is basically sitting upon an glacier (the Khumbu Icefall), meaning that everything moves and tent and stupas are moving and set up again every year. The day was indeed very long, as it took us almost 6 hours to move into the very end of the Khumbu “Bowl”. We arrived EBC at 14:00 and went to the Peak promotion camp, where the camp crew and clients were celebrating the Nepalese new year, dancing and singing. Eating lunch in a sun chair, overlooking the Icefall and Nuptse, with just a mountain ridge separating us from Tibet did certainly qualify for the best lunch ever. After that, we went on to the Mountain madness camp, were Tendi Sherpa and his colleagues relaxed in their main tent, after being busy with preparations for the clients that had yet not arrived. Tendi had been up to Camp II building up supplies for the Everest expedition (He is managing 3 separate expeditions to Everest, Lothse and Nuptse). Apparently the Icefall was much safer this year than previous year. After having a soup it was time for us to move back to Gorak Sheep after some 2 hours t EBC, much too early as this place has a unique and distinct feel. We would like to stay some additional days, but with tickets booked, and work waiting in Sweden, this was simply not possible. The hike back to Gorak sheep took 1.5 hours. Khala Patar tomorrow is the only climb left, then we start to descend again.
/Erik and Fanny