6 April - Pheriche

Overnight low in our room was 41F. Altitude is 4240 metres (13900 ft)

Today was a rest day in Pheriche. Not a ton of exploring of the surrounding area today. We are getting up there in altitude, and actually resting on a ‘rest day’ has a great deal of appeal. Here are a few snippets gathered from here and there that will hopefully transmit a little bit of the flavour of the trek.

I’ve gotten into the habit of taking a picture of whatever pointy mountains stand guard over wherever it is we are staying, so here is the shot from Pheriche.

The view from the front door of our lodge

Tomorrow, we will be hiking to Lobuche Base Camp. Lobuche is a mountain roughly 6000 metres high, which is referred to as a “trekking peak”. The term “trekking peak” might be considered somewhat misleading, though compared to highly technical or very high altitude mountaineering, the term is appropriate. To get to the top, it is necessary to have some basic mountaineering skills – use of crampons, ice axes and fixed ropes. However, given those skills, one can follow a route to the top. I have no desire whatsoever to do what is necessary to climb an 8000 metre peak.  However, the thought of taking a couple of days of basic mountaineering instruction and going up a mountain such as Lobuche seems tempting. We have a good view of Lobuche from the patio of our lodge.

I am Lobuche. Gaze upon me and be tempted.

The dining room in our lodge is cozy. Expedition members will filter in and fire up whatever devices they have, trying to get a couple of minutes of actual internet connectivity to post to Facebook, or send a text or email. Or in my case, upload a blog entry. Here in Pheriche, we have extremely narrow pipes. Uploading a 200K photo can take 5 minutes. <sigh> First world problems, right?

Tell them about the stove!!

In all cases, there is a stove in the middle of the lodge dining room, and this lodge is no exception. I have found the temperature dynamic to be pretty impressive; it is quite hot during the day, unless it is overcast. Once the sun goes down, or if cloud cover forms or blows in, it becomes cold quite quickly. It is always a welcome site when the lodge owner comes in to the dining room with kerosene and stove fuel and lights a nice hot fire. What, you ask, is used for fuel in these stoves?

Poo

Not just any poo, either. This is artisan, sun-dried, rock-cured poo.

In other news, Julia felt pretty energetic, and hiked up to the top of a ridge near our lodge. Later in the morning, when she had topped the ridge, clouds had begun to form. The photo below is toward Pheriche, and shows the same mountains as in the first photo above.

A walk in the clouds

In the afternoon, a number of us headed to the German Bakery. This was a lodge, quite similar to our own, that sold hot chocolate and baked goods, including apple pie and black forest cake. The baked goods were, frankly, nothing to blog about. The consensus opinion was that the lodge was pretty much like ours, except more expensive, because you could give them money for things that were not available at ours.

Between the bakery and our lodge was a memorial that had been erected to those that have died on Everest. In between the two halves are inscribed all the names of those to whom the memorial is dedicated.

On a lighter note, there is a meme that ripped through the group for a couple of days, that of coming up with a special Khumbu verse to the song #SELFIE.

Oh no, I can’t breathe, I feel like I have Acute Mountain sickness…

Oh, wait… never mind, I’m fine

Is that a yeti?

Let’s go hike up to the ridge

Watch out for that yak

Are we, like, there yet?

Is that guy filming us? That is so creepy. Shall I go to his tent?

How much is the beer here?

I haven’t washed my hair in days

Let’s take a selfie!

Perhaps you have to be here…

On rest days, washing is a big deal. I've mentioned the hair and bod thing, but a rest day is also a prime opportunity for the doing of laundry. Laundry is hand washed. Lower down, laundry might be dried in an electric dryer. Here, it is hung out to dry.

After sundown, other means are necessary
to take care of things that are not dry.

Oddly enough, sometimes burning yak poo smells like pot, and when that happens, it’s like being at a rock concert. Which seems appropriate.