Kala Pattar and the start of the return journey

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Wednesday 10th April

This trek had two main objectives, firstly to reach Everest Base Camp itself, and secondly to reach the summit of Kala Pattar in order to see the 'classic' view of Everest. We achived the first objective yesterday and the intention today was to achieve the second and then begin the return journey to Lukla.

It is generally considered that the best view of Everest from Kala Pattar is around sunrise. In theory Everest can be viewed from there at anytime but in the afternoon it is more likely to be clouded over and therefore the best chance of a good view is early morning. For this reason we were woken at 4am and dressed and met down in the dining room for a cup of tea at 04:30. At 04:45 we left the lodge wearing head torches to attempt to climb Kala Pattar. Kala Pattar is actually part of the much larger mountain of Pumo Ri (7165m) but because it has its own obvious summit (5600m), it can be considered a peak on its own as well. Th walk starts by crossing the cricket pitch-sized very dry powdery mud flat immediately in front of the lodge; after that it is a continuous steady uphill climb. Another group had obviously set out about 30 minutes ahead of us as we could clearly see the lights from their head torches. Passing them before we had been walking for an hour was a psychological boost and we eventually got to the summit at 06:15, just one and a half hours later which we considered quite good. The temperature had been quite mild when we set off but with the exposure at the summit it was now very cold and I was wearing gloves for the first time during the whole trek. The temperature also discouraged us from staying very long at the top and we started descending 15 minutes later. Despite the cold, by the time we got to the summit it was now broad daylight and the views were truly spectacular. There was the slight disappointment that most of Everest itself was obscured by cloud, but the views generally definitely made the morning's excursion definitely worthwhile.

We were back at the lodge at 07:15 for breakfast, then it was time to pack our holdalls for the porters to carry, have a rest and be ready to set off walking again at 09:15. We are now on the return journey but because we will be going mainly downhill, and in a much more direct route, it should only take us four days to get back to Lukla. we reached Lobuche, our destination for today, at 11:15. Lunch was at 12 noon and after lunch nobody had much inclination to do anything else more strenuous than chat, read and play cards! Dinner as usually was at 7pm.

Throughout this trek we have been blessed with excellent weather. It has been sunny for the walking part of the day almost every day; we have had no rain and my cagoule has been worn only once, to reduce the wind chill on Kala Pattar this morning. Snow has always been visible on the higher peaks and in the last few days we have walked past patches of snow that have obviously been there for sometime but we have not had to walk through through snow at all. In fact the conditions underfoot have been mainly dusty. There is nearly always a very fine layer of dust on the track. The only exeptions to this have been when we have been climbing uphill on bare rocks or on man-made steps which we have encountered many times.

We normally have 4 Nepalese trekking with us each day. The sirdar, Tanka, always stays at the rear and waits patiently if anyone starts to lag behind for any reason. With him will be one or two more junior Sherpa guides who will be prepared to carry your day sack if you are particularly tired, or are suffering the 'digestive system problems' that by now almost everyone in the groups has suffered at least once. At the front is the main guide, Bishnu. He ensures that we keep at a steady slow enough pace, his most common utterance being 'bistari, bistari' which means 'slowly, slowly'. We stop for regular breaks for 5 or 10 minutes in addition to the mid-morning lemon tea stop (if there is a tea house available). At each rest stop, Tanka encourages us to take a drink of water. The recommendation is to drink bewteen 2 and 3 litres of water on each day's walking.

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Photos

The Khumbu Glacier
viewed from the summit of Kala Pattar

Everest
viewed from the summit of Kala Pattar

Base Camp and the Khumbu Ice Fall
viewed from the summit of Kala Pattar

Kala Pattar
the summit, with Pumo Ri behind

Gorak Shep
returning after climbing Kala Pattar