Gorak Shep to Dzongla via Kala Patthar

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I am currently sitting in the comfortable Mountain Home Lodge in Dzongla, enjoying the fire after our dinner. It has been a long and exhausting day and I’m looking forward to my bed. Even if it is a single that I can’t push next to Stephens (who’s body heat is welcome when it’s around -20 outside).

Today started with a walk up to Kala Patthar, at 5550m. Despite starting from 5100m it was a hard slog up and I found it exhausting. We were lucky with beautiful sunshine yet again, and the views when we got up there were spectacular.
After taking photos we headed back down to Gorak Shep to collect our bags.

We left Gorak Shep just after 11am and ended up taking a short detour to the Italian research centre on the way back to Lobuche. This is a strange glass pyramid surrounded by mountains and looks quite out of place. We arrived by 1220ish and ordered some lunch. This unfortunately took over an hour to arrive. The Sherpa stew Stephen & I ordered was at least filling and yummy, the other orders were less successful.

Leaving around 2pm we walked past Lobuche and headed towards the Cho La pass. The clouds had descended by this time and the wind had picked up. It was incredibly cold. Taking the less well trodden route towards Dzongla we were starting to get a little worried about reaching a teahouse before it got cold. The route was hard to spot due to the cloud but Stephen and Robin managed to keep us on track after taking some compass bearings. Fortunately, around 4pm, the sun started to try and peek through the clouds and we got our first views of Dzongla. We arrived in the village around 430pm and were relieved to find beds for all of us.

According to Robins watch we have walked around 23km today and I think I can feel each and everyone of them!
Tomorrow we head over he Cho La pass - I just hope I feel better after a decent nights sleep.

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Photos

View from Kala Patthar
Looking down the valley where we had come from, over the dirty grey glacier