Solu-Khumbu part 3: Cho La to Gorak Shep

As we went to bed in Thagnak, someone looked outside and we were all quite pleased with the possibility of clear skies the next day.



A 4am wake up came all to early and we set off up the valley toward Cho La (While common, saying 'Cho La Pass' is a bit redundant, somewhat analogous to saying PIN number). Once we got to the view point the pass looked fairly obvious. Off to the left there was a gorgeous looking glaciated pass with, what I thought, was a fairly straightforward route. On the way up we got a good view of the Kangchung peaks


From what you've probably gathered as a somewhat intelligent reader, that wasn't the route. But we set off toward the pass and got to the base. It was supposed to take 3-4 hours to get to the top of the pass, but we were already at 3 hours at the base and it was going to take more than an hour to climb this thing. I put forth the idea of climbing the right hand debris cone and kicking steps in the snow in the top, but other members of the group wanted to go along the steep looking left wall where there was a possibility of no snow walking. We ended up splitting up, but being within talking range. After climbing for a while Hakara found that his was was completely impassible and I found my was not too bad. After seeing most of the group hanging out at the bottom of the pass I decided to come down and report my "this is passable" findings. The last thing I expected to hear was "this isn't Cho La"... well shit.

Apparently we were in Cho La Col, a 5700m pass used by climbers. Chalk one up for adventure there. The French couple decided, even in the increasing clouds and no visibility at higher altitudes to climb the pass - they had a deadline. We thought it was a terrible idea but it worked out. The rest of the group headed back to Thagnag for another try.

4am the next day came pretty quickly and again we had pretty good weather. But it had rained all last night, which means snow for us in the pass.


We made our way up to the pass, now realizing where we were going. With a few inches of snow on big slippery rocks it was slow going. And once we got into the pass the scree was having a nasty habit of moving, but because of the snow you never really could tell when it would. The snow made the whole valley a very picturesque local, but made our efforts quite a bit slower.


Once we got to the pass we took a nice rest and continued on to the glacier I should have been walking on the day before. Some cravasse hoping ensued, but nothing too serious.


We arrived in Dzongla and settled down for the night. I woke up early and tried my hand at some long exposures at night since the Cholatse face was fantastic and dominated the skyline. Also I went to bed so early that 3am was enough sleep for me.


The next day we walked the few hours to Gorak Shep (5200m) to ready ourselves fo Kala Pattar.