Pherice 13,911ft to Lobuche 16,175ft
The aim of the day is to get to Lobuche all in one piece and without any acclimatisation problems. I Slept OK, one of the downsides of taking Diamox is it gets rid of the water in your body which means a couple of trips to the toilet in the night, not too bad at home but when you’ve got to get out of your warm sleeping bag into the freezing cold, pitch black night, put your boots and head torch on and wander off to the toilet it’s not so great.
It’s a lovely day when we set off at 9am, the Sun is up and the temperature is rising. From Pherice a couple of hours of steady walking follows with a gradual incline up the valley until eventually you join up with the path that has come over from Dingboche following the ridge that we had climbed over yesterday.
At the joining of the paths there is then a fairly steep incline up to a col where the village of Dhugla (Dughla) sits at 15,069ft. We stop here for lunch and lemon tea and it is a good place to rest, bask in the Sun and refuel as we can see the path ahead zig zagging steeply upwards to a ridge that marks the start of the Khumbu glacier. The lemon tea goes down well and suitably refreshed we set off to climb the 1000ft or so to the ridge.
At this height the short but steep haul up the trail takes it out of me and I am grateful for the rest at the top. The ridge itself is adorned with prayer flags and Mani stone memorials that commemorate Sherpas and other climbers who have lost their lives in the mountains. Sitting in the rather sombre atmosphere of the prayer flags and mani stones I take a while to admire the views, particularly of Ama Dablam, still our ever present friend.
After resting I was grateful for the reasonably flat ground that followed as we enter the Khumbu valley proper and make our way to our bed for the night in Lobuche at the suitably named ‘Above The Cloud Lodge’, its height given as 4,930m. For the British or non metric reader this converts to 16,174ft above sea level and it is our last stop before Kala Patthar. Entering the Khumbu Glacier Valley I get a real sense that I am entering into the presence and heart of the high mountains, they are unseen as yet but they are there and they are getting ever closer.
For map and route details of this walk click ‘Learn more below
