Day 8 Highlights
- My Birthday
- A very long hike
- A very rough and killing part of the hike
DAY 8 Travelogue
Happy Birthday to âMyselfâ
6:30 breakfast and 7am on the trek. The day is quite fresh and bright but chilly. We will go through the same trek that we did yesterday for some time and then it is divided into two, we will take the one going on the slopes rather than up this time. We are making slow but good progress as the first couple of hours trek is not two difficult and it is gentle climb, nothing crazy so far. When the angle becomes steep, we almost die. The trek is going through green fields of grass and we go through some muddy patches at times. All the people that we see everyday are on the trek and everyone starts their trek almost around the same time to reach the next stop early. The tea houses get crowded later in the day and itâs hard to find a better place to stay.
The trek is on the slopes of a mountain, the same one we climbed yesterday during our acclimatization hike. There is a wide valley down on the left and a small village some 150 meters below. Thats where we will stay on the way back as we will take a different route then. The trek now started to descend means that there will be some treacherous steep later.
After a couple of hour of trek we could hear some river flowing and we immediately knew that there is going to be quite an uphill coming. The trek is already going down to meet the river and to cross it. The river is not big but it is gushing down through rocks at enormous speed. We are crossing the bridge and see a small settlement of may be a couple of tea houses. It is cold but sunny here so we are taking a good earned break and are having black tea that has been our hot drink most of the times. Our guide and porters are also sitting with us and are also having the same black tea. I hired another porter today to carry our day packs, this I decided to do to increase our chances for the last leg of our hike going up. In Dengboche there is a rest day for the porters and they tend to find some extra work for extra money. He is a nice boy and is walking with me today as my backpack is full of technology gear including my cameras.
There are quite a few other people some are going up and some are going down. There are colorful backpacks all around here and there are more women than men. I have seen many girls traveling alone here or in groups of girls but there are hardly any group like us with two males; yes there are bigger groups of men though. This place is called as Dughla (Tukla), we have already climbed about 300meters today and about the same is left now.
From this point onwards I could only see up and up and up the rough mountain goes without a particular trek. It is very steep and we are just getting started on it. This is a very tough hike and is killing us as we make slow progress. Itâs a mountain that we are climbing and there are several treks to follow and is hard to choose one because all are going through rocks and boulders. We are forced to take several breaks to rest and regain some energy before continuing again as that is the only choice we have because we want to complete what we came for. Another moment, another place many wouldâve given up already and we met a lot of people on the way who could not make it and returned from one stage or the other. Everyone is moving slowly and not just us, but some better than the others. I can see some old folks climbing up also and really appreciate their efforts and the love for the mountains, they have come a long way already and are doing great. It has become possible because of their healthy lifestyle that we all should follow but we hardly do.
This is the most difficult part we have done in the last couple of days or may be our energies have depleted too much owing to not eating. We are slipping, falling but still going up to reach the very top of this small mountain. We've left Tukla way down as well as the small river and cannot even hear it anymore. What we can see the rough rocky and dusty steep going somewhere.
We are at the top of the hill now and find out several memorials build up here. These memorials are in the memories of climbers who perished while climbing Mount Everest. Some 150 people have been perished on this mountain since people started to climb and conquer it. I can see the memorial of the famous Sherpa who disappeared in a crevasse while trying to conquer Everest for the 11th time, he is known as Super Sherpa. I can see memorials of climbers died in the 1995 disaster. Into-thin-air was written after that and several movies tried to portray the same. I can see the memorial of Scott Fischer and several other renowned climbers who died while doing what they loved to do. This is a place to pay respect and to honor them. We are also spending some time of silence and at the same time taking some rest in the sun. Iâm lying down on the rocky floor that has grass at some places, it is quite cold and I am still in four layers. The sun is shining bright but itâs not warm, my cap is on my face and my head is on a flat rock and I am enjoying the rocky bed at the moment. In another few moments weâll be on the trek yet again.
We are almost at 4800 meters above sea level now. Our tired bodies are being dragged again by our will power and we are heading towards Luboche which is our final destination for today sitting at 4930m (16269 ft). Still long way to go before we finish our hike today. We have to just keep on going; the river has come on the left hand side now as we descend again to cross it. The view has opened up due to the vastness of the valley. Once we reached the top we thought we might have been done for the day but there is still a few kilometers and 150m gain left in our todayâs hike. Though it is on a gradual hike, we are crossing the river to the left by a small bridge. We are long way above the tree-line and there are only some small shrubs/grass and the rest are all rocks, water, dirt etc.
We are covering distance at a better pace now as obviously it is not too steep. We are sure that Luboche is not to far now, the time is late afternoon now and we are hoping to make it before the early evening. Now we could see cloud covered and snow covered peaks around us from close. We are trekking at around 16000ft above sea level and today is going to be our first night at this height. Finally we could see some place at a distance and that is for sure Luboche. A settlement of a few tea houses and that is about it for this place. I can see some glaciers not melted yet in the village. Everyday Iâve to explain that it is colder than yesterday because we are gaining altitude every day. Today we gained about 650 meters in altitude that is one of the maximum we gained so far. The allowable is 350 to 400m for the day. We are again stationed in very small room and are taking some rest before we go and take our seats for the rest of the day in the dining room. Going to the bathroom is quite a task here as it is very cold even in the early hours of evening. Air is really thin up here and one could feel the effects of altitude. This place is a small village with only a few tea houses for tourists to stay. There is a small stream passing alongside the village and there are frozen puddles all around other that some glacial ice we see on the track. There are beautiful mountains around this place and less vegetation in the shape of some mountain grass or weeds. Boulders and rocks are what we see mostly. But we are happy that we are just one stage behind very our target now.
âHappy Birthday to Myselfâ as I just turned 42 today and this trip is a gift to me from my family. What a way to celebrate my 42nd birthday. Iâve tried to get signals on my cell phone but am not able to get any and I do not have the energy to go on higher grounds where I might get some signals, therefore I just said hello to my family in my imagination. Iâm sure all of them would have been trying to call me from all parts of the world.
Iâm sitting with the young German boy that I see every day running on the trek and this is the first time we interacted. I havenât seen him talking to anyone whilst on the trek or even while on the same tea houses as ours. I think he has been shy or something, because once we started to talk he opened up and is quite an interesting boy. He is doing volunteering in Nepal and is teaching English at a small village and now as there are holidays in Nepal he got a chance to explore the mountains with one of his students who is his guide for the trip. He practiced climbing 900 stairs to one of the temples in the village every day. No wonder he was running on the trek and moreover he is just 18 and kids do not get tired anyhow. I remained in the good company till the evening and then couple of more acquaintances from the trek also joined us including the Irish couple. Weâve been crossing each other numerous number of times, they are very nice people. Both of them left their jobs and are on a one year world tour â interesting. Many of the tourists are using their headlamps to take notes or read books as the light in the tea house is not adequate. As the night falling very fast we retired for the day to get ready for another tiresome day tomorrow.
