September 11, 2010

Gorak Shep to Tukla. Kala Patthar. Chasing Cock.

We wake up at 4.30 this morning for a 5 am start up Kala Patthar. We walk out bundled up against the cold with our headlamps on and lit. The sky is blessedly clear and a grayish predawn light touches the snow-capped mountains around us.

This is our third day in a row of heading to 18,000 plus feet and we are moving slowly. We’re all a little tired this morning. I started a z-pack for my bronchitis and am starting to feel a little better, but Lisa is now feeling nauseous. Not fun. So we head up slowly but steadily in the dawn, pausing occasionally to take pictures in the changing light.

At 6.45 a.m. we reach the summit, a rocky point covered in prayer flags and, this morning, a thick layer of slippery frost. We’re standing at 18,500 feet and the peak we are on is dwarfed by the giants around us. Then the sun breaks over the top of Everest. It’s an unbelievable moment. All the mountains light up. Pumori, Everest and Lhotse. Ama Dablam in the distance. The valley is cut with low-lying clouds. It’s breathtaking.

We stay at the top for about a half an hour and then head down as the clouds and mist roll in. About halfway down, we run into our three Aussies and their outrageous guide. He’s yelling with me back and forth about breakfast and is actively trying to convince his charges to go back down, as they’ll see nothing with clouds.

Near the bottom, we flush another covey of Tibetan Snowcocks and Dawa and I start chasing them across the mountain until I finally snap a decent picture.

We have breakfast in Gorak Shep and then head out for Tukla, our stopping point for the night. I burnt myself pretty badly (through 75 SPF--a talent I assure you) on the way to Base Camp yesterday, and am completely covered today against the sun. Dawa laughs at me and says I look Japanese this morning. Must be the fashion, as I’ve rarely seen a freckled Japanese woman.

Along the way to Tukla we pass a ridge covered in cairns and prayer flags that are memorials for all the Sherpas and climbers that have died on Everest—eerie and solemn monument to the many dead on the mountain.

We head on to Tukla. As we sit outside in the sun, chatting before lunch, a guy approaches and says he heard us speaking English and wondered if he could join us as he was traveling alone. He is Jack, a lawyer from Atlanta. He joins the four of us at tea and dinner that night and we strike up a friendship of sorts.

We all collapse in bed pretty early, since we’d gotten up at 4.30 for Kala Patthar.



Pictures:

Lhotse and Everest Predawn (Lhotse is the closer one that looks higher, Everest behind)

Everest and Lhotse

The Valley and Ama Dablam in the distance

Sun rising behind Everest

Lisa and Anita and Dawa atop Kala Patthar

Frosty Flags on Kala Patthar

Tibetan Snow Cock

Memorials for climbers

The three of us on top of Kala Patthar