Everest Base Camp Trek Journal – Day 5

by Sara on Thursday, October 20th, 2011

in Asia, Hikes, Mountains, Stories, Tours, UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Stopping for a breather with great views of Ama Dablam in the background

I woke up feeling pretty good. We took hot showers from a bucket. I didn’t think it was as amazing as the boys claimed. For most of the morning we had clear skies and sun. Finally! From Pangboche we could see the peak of Ama Dablam, which we were told is supposed to look like a mother and baby, and Lhotse, which is nearly as high as Everest. If the clouds had ever fully broken we could have seen Everest, but not today. We left around 8:45 AM and hiked for about 2 1/2 hours and were done for the day. Gradual uphill the whole way but not too bad.

Hiking along the Everest Base Camp trail towards Dinboche

On the hike we saw our Swedish friend Jun headed back down. He got sick in Dingboche and had to turn around to go down. He had skipped the acclimatization days and had a fever and stomach problems. I’m glad we’re not skipping any of ours. Jun didn’t see Everest and was planning to go all the way down and end his trip. Despite that he was in good spirits. Maybe because he felt better. Maybe he was proud to have been here and that was enough. It was interesting to think about since I know our group will all be very disappointed if we don’t make it up.

One of our porters carrying 2 bags easily as we struggle with day packs at elevation

Once we got to Dingboche (“boche” means small village in the Sherpa dialect, gets confusing with all the town names sounding the same), we had a lot of time to kill. We played cards for hours. Boo even played with us for awhile. We all felt too braindead to do much else. The team has started collecting nicknames. Some girls in Namche dubbed Andrew “Gnomeo” because he has a red ski cap and because they said he was being very nice to them. Dan is “Princess Tingles” because his hands are tingling from the altitude and because he’s always the last one ready. Also because he’s been wearing a pink fleece that goes well with his bunny ears. Sam is “Spoons” which was derived from silver spoon because his answer when we were talking about what food we’re craving was caviar. Mike is Mad Dogg (two g’s) because of the awesome beard. No nickname for me yet.