It was our first relatively cold night. We were awakened by the sounds of a yak’s bell outside our windows around 5:15. The yak had somehow made it into our small rock walled pasture and must have been looking for a way out. One brave soul jumped into action and rustled him away from the windows and out of the pasture. Tim has a future running with the bulls.
We had a great breakfast of garlic butter on flat bread with porridge. As we were finishing Tendi, our lead Sherpa, gave us a briefing of the “acclimatization hike.” We quickly finished and headed out for the morning’s hike.
The trail quickly steepened and everyone but Dave and the Sherpas were breathing hard. As we gained altitude, the view of the surrounding peaks became better and better. We past stupas and a few memorials and we soon found ourselves scrambling over the black rocks to the summit of Nagkarthshang at 16,800 feet. We spent an hour enjoying the panoramic views of the mountains before heading down.
Hiking up to Nagkarthshang Hill
The descent went quickly and everyone was embracing the down part of the trail. Halfway down we were met by Rinji with hot lemon tea, which was a welcome break at 15,400 feet. Unfortunately John missed the break and kept heading down the mountain. It quickly turned into something out of the Discovery Channel with the episode focusing on a lone American trekker being chased down by two Sherpas. It took them no time to catch him and John was back again under the watchful eyes of our Sherpa team.
Enjoying with hot lemon tea on top at 15,400 feet
The rest of the team caught up and everyone finished the hike back to the lodge together.
Snowfall behind the Hotel family
We enjoyed a late lunch of chow mein, tea, and a refill of boiled water in our bottles. Life has become very basic now with talk surrounding food, sleep, medication and yes…defecation….with the latter being discussed more than the others.
Following lunch we all went our separate ways for naps, reading or updating journals. We had our first snowfall this afternoon before our afternoon tea. All and all it was a great day and everyone is again healthy.
