Everest

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Day 11 - Shergar to Rongbuk (EBC)

The day started with a Chinese breakfast consisting of soup (a bit like rice pudding), with a plain dumpling. Needless to say, no-one ate very much and we were glad for the cereal bars we had brought from home.

The condition of the roads deteriorated unto dirt tracks full of potholes and boulders, meaning the our driver had to concentrate on every move. We made our way upto the La Pang Pass to catch our first glipse of Everest and the surrounding mountains. The view was breathtaking, and we were able to see Everest crystal clearly, which was a great relief as a number of other groups that had just come back hadn't seen it at all. Also in view were 3 of the other 10 highest mountains in the world - Makalu, Lhotse and Cho Oyu. After taking photos at the top, we descended down the equally challenging road, which was particularly difficult when you met traffic coming the other way.

We then continued our journey towards Everest, and round each corner she came a little closer, still free from clouds.

Our journey ended at the tented village just past the Monastery at Rongbuk. We had until now kept the possibility that we would be sleeping under canvas a secret from Mum, as we were unsure how she would react to the news. Unfortunatley, since arriving in Lhasa, she has been suffering with headaches and this would probably be the final straw. As we pulled up out the "Hotel California", the clouds started to gather on the horizon. We had lunch inside our accomodation, cooked by our local owner and set off for base camp.

Instead of the horse and carriage in previous yearts, this has now been replaced by an eco friendly bus to take you the 8km to actual EBC. The camp itself is occupied by the Chinese army, and once again our papers had to be checked before we could go the extra few steps. We went up onto the hill, but Everest was partially covered in cloud. We waited for some tim to see if it cleared, but she just kept on teasing us until we eventually had to admit partial defeat.

We returned to our "hotel", which was warm, but smokey, and continued to read/sleep until the light faded. Russ and Dad kept darting outside to take photos of the sunset over Everest. We ordered some tea, but Mum was feeling much worse and all she could manage was hot water. Her condition was not helped by the "facilities" at the camp, which made both mum and i sick. After tea, there was really nothing else to do but start to bed down for the night. Our accomodation only afforded us 1 electric light which wasn't powerful enough to even play cards by. We unfurled our sleeping bags, added extra layers to the ones we were already wearing, and our host and the Guide then gave us extra duvets and pillows for the night. We turned in for the night at 8.30pm!

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Photos

Everest
(our First View)

As the song goes welcome to the Hotel California
(our accomodation for the night at base camp)

Cloud cover comes in quickly over Everest as we have a look round base camp
(Qomolangma local name for everest)