15 March
(Day 5 of trekking)
Awaking on Day 5 to another invigorating (read freezing) morning of -13 it was a little difficult to rollout from under the sleeping bag or doona with a spring in our step. To give you a sense of how cold that is the dripping water from the tap in the toilet had frozen solid.
A great breakfast of omelettes, toast, baked beans and potato curry helped get our enthusiasm firing.
On our way by 8am we were heading towards Mongla, this saw an initial descent and then a climb back to just over 3,980m. We made pretty good pace, not deliberately as you are supposed to do this slowly, that said it gave us a great opportunity again to see some of the peaks even closer
After a great lunch of vegetable momo’s, spicy pasta and vegetables we were back on our way, heading to our final destination of Dohle which sits at an elevation of 4,100m.
Another great day of diverse animals and extreme landscapes.
For the first time we encountered working Yaks on the trail, an amazingly beautiful and large animal. We also saw wild yaks, a Himalayan Tahr (not a mountain goat) that came out and stood blocking the track for a while, more horses, eagles and vultures flying almost at eye level because we are so high.
The scenery was constantly changing depending on where you were and how often if ever the sun touches the ground. Many beautiful examples of frozen waterfalls and even frozen rivers.
I personally found today to be harder than previous days, some agreed and many thought other days were harder. Considering we were descending then ascending then desccending and ascending again, our total elevation gain for the day was over 800m which is pretty good.
Tonight we are staying in a small village called Dohle which sits at 4,100m.
Another difficult at times but extremely satisfying day. We are going the slightly longer and less traditional way to Base Camp via Gokyo Lakes, that means that we haven’t bumped into too many other trekkers along the way which is great.
