After someone's recommendation we stayed in the first place we saw - the Himalayan Lodge. Holy crap was the food good! We are days walking to the nearest airport and much more to the roadhead, but I got some of the best damn hashbrowns I've ever eaten. Oh and the view out of my hotel room was not too bad.
That is Pumori peak in the background.
The main viewpoint for Everest and the surrounding mountains is Kala Pattar. Essentially a bump on a subsidiary ridge of Pumori, Kala Pattar sees thousands upon thousands of tourists every year. Since many of us at the lodge wanted to get up before sunrise, we decided to leave around 4 or 4:30 in the morning. As Sebastian and Hakara lost their alarm clock (well a cheap cell phone used as an alarm clock), I got the job of "weather checker" with a request to knock on their door when they should get ready to leave.
Well 3am came and it was snowy, 4am - not much better. 5am was starting to look familiar and by 6am the snow had piled up around 6 inches outside the door. Back to bed and no need wake the sleeping beauties. We spent all day sitting in the lodge, drinking tea, and waiting until the next time we could order food. After a few hours of snow a train of dozens of people left to go down to Lobouche and most of the other lodge inhabitants took off for better weather. We, however, were determined to get good weather. The four of us (Sebastian, Marie, Hakara, and I) all had time for a rest day anyway. Several other people filtered in to the lodge from lower down: Pella, a Hungarian doctor, Chris, a nomad from Australia, and Zahi, an Israeli electrical engineering student. I finally met some more Americans (Phortse Tenga was the last time I'd seen anyone from the US), one from Atlanta and one from Denver, but I can't remember their names at the moment.
We played a lot of Uno (thanks Sebastian) and dried all of our clothes by the fire all day, hoping for better weather tomorrow.
We woke up the next day to a few stars, but obviously a high cloud layer. By 4:15 we were off towards Kala Patter, slogging through a foot and a half of snow. Since it was dark and none of the four of my group really knew the way, we waited for the rest of our lodge group, several of whom had guides. The Georgian's guide look the lead heading up the hill, but with many calls from his client to slow down and go less steep we weren't making good progress. In 15 minutes I was right on the heels of the leader with Harkara in tow. The Sherpa guide was more than happy to let me lead so he could go slow with his client. So began my slog to the top. Almost 3 hours of stumbling over rocks through knee deep snow I reached the top of Kala Pattar just as the first rays of sun hit the snow on the top. The sun came up right behind the rocks of Everest's summit.
Yeah the mountains were pretty good.
Below us in the valley Ama Dablam ruled the skyline.
And Everest and Nuptse seemed so close you could touch them.
And look it's me, with Everest
With the sun beating down on us for several hours, we made walked back down to Gorak Shep. Sebastian wanted to make it down to Kathmandu so he took off towards Dingbouche, but the rest of us (after lunch) decided to go up to Everest Base Camp (EBC). Many people think that EBC will have the best views of the mountain and is a must see, however that's not really true. There are great views, but none of Everest. And especially just after the monsoon EBC is pretty sparse. But we headed up anyway. A few hours of walking along the Khumbu Glacier past some great mountain faces was a good way to spend the afternoon. Here Pella walks by the Nuptse face.
There wasn't much there and the group was tired from walking all day so once we got to a good look out and took an hour break we made our way to Gorak Shep and back towards the civilization of Kathmandu.
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