Day 15. High Camp to Dzonglho (15,912'/4850m)
Last night's snow didn't amount to much; maybe a cm or two. When I got up to pee about 8:30 last night, the sky was clear, the stars were twinkling, and the moonlight shone brightly on Lobuche. Lovely! We didn't have a particularly early start to the day. By the time we were out of our tents and moving about we saw quite a few climbers already making good time up the snowy part of the mountain. We had breakfast in the sunshine and left camp about 9:30. We were in to Dzonglha by noon, including a few leisurely stops along the way.
First - some pictures from our high camp.
I'm still coughing a lot but don't feel too bad other than a general overall weakness. Helen is feeling pretty rough from her day yesterday, and her voice is just about gone. Lenka, on the other hand, looks like she could go run up there again today. Vera, Dan and Steve look good. Liba is still fighting something, and Vladka still doesn't look great.
We turned/veared right before getting down to base camp. We had a fairly level walk for a while, then dropped to a river before climbing a bit back up to Dzonglha. It looks like we'll be saying good-bye to some of our familiar mountains - Ama Dablam, Cholatse, Lobuche, etc. - and picking up a whole new set of companions as we get near and over the pass. As we were sitting around our lunch "table" on the ground waiting for lunch to be served, the dzopkios arrived and just kind of wandered amongst us. This might have bothered me a few weeks ago, but it seems perfectly natural now.
As I'm lying in my tent reading a bit and writing this, I can't help but notice that everything is beginning to get a tad smelly. I looked in my guidebook for info on yesterday's climb and while it does say that Lobuche is the hardest of the trekking peaks that ordinary commercial groups attempt, it also says that "the average angle for the entire climb is not steep......" what?!?!
I had a nice chat with Helen about her climb yesterday. I'm really glad for her that she made it, but I'm also glad that I didn't go.
It sounds like tomorrow is going to be another long and challenging day. It's now 3:30pm and the warmth has gone out of the sun for another day. Time to snuggle up in my bag for another cold night.
