Everest Base Camp Day 7

It’s freezing cold and 4.45 am in the morning. The water in fact has frozen inside your water bottle (which is in your room). So what do we do? Set off at 5.00 am to hike up Gokyo-Ri to get a good view of the sunrise!

A view from around 100 metres up.

And then at around 150 metres the sun started to show itself behind the mountains.

A close up of the first rays hitting the peaks.

We stopped at around 250 metres which took us to 5,050 metres above sea level. Amazing feeling to be more than 5 kms high and not in a plane! The pressure is below 50% here and breathing is quite hard as we ascended.

Just to prove I was there.

A couple of hardy ducks down below.

A man made bridge/dam to cross the lake. You really really do not want to get your boots wet as even dry the toes were freezing.

A new lodge is being built. There is no machinery. Three Nepalese chisel the stones by hand. They work in sun and snow. A very tough job.

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And this is where one of them sleeps at night. Again, very tough. Assuming they are part of the family that will own the lodge, it will eventually massively boost their income. A lodge can generate more income in a week than the average Nepali earns in a year.

Today is the last day in Gokyo. Tomorrow we have to decide whether to take the Chola Pass for three days over to Lobouche. It’s been snowing again today so it may be a marginal call.