Pheriche

A leisurely three hour walk brings us from Pangboche to the town of Pheriche on Sunday, October 20.  The town sits adjacent to a huge glacial out wash and is surrounded by massive peaks.  We're well above tree line now, and the clouds are moving in which brings even more of a chill over this normally cold settlement.

Lunch is the usual French fries and rice with vegetables.  It's amazing how much food we're eating now after moderate exercise.   Except for evenings in the tearooms, the tea houses are unheated so our bodies are continuously making heat just like when tent camping.  At 14,000' our bodies are not only working hard to keep us warm but also to acclimatize to this elevation.  

Our afternoon is spent quietly reading, resting and hydrating in the tearoom.  Eventually the wood stove gets lit and the burning yak dung eases our chill.  We slowly peel off layers as the temperature inside increases until it's warm and we're down to shirtsleeves.  I'm enjoying this reprieve from the cold, all the while knowing the trip to my room and speedy sleeping bag setup will be done at a temperature around 30 degrees!  Dinner and conversation done, I'm off to bed at 7:40 zipped up and cozy within ten minutes.

On Monday, October 21, we wake up to a fresh coating of snow.  It's still lightly snowing and pretty darn cold, probably 25 degrees or so.  We've got a casual morning schedule with late breakfast and an acclimatization hike up to the ridge behind the hotel.  At this elevation, it's helpful to hike or climb up higher than where we sleep.  This effort makes the body think it must survive at the higher elevation, and therefore makes more red blood cells to scavenge as much oxygen as possible from each breath of rarefied air.

We begin our day hike up the hill above Pheriche and quickly gain elevation.  Within an hour we've reached 15,000' and the views are opening up.  The snow has mostly stopped, and the clouds are thick overhead.  Fortunately there are still great mountain views in every direction.  We can see way down the valley toward Pheriche and Tengboche.  The views up the valley include Lobuche Peak which, at 20,000', is commonly used as an acclimatization climb prior to an attempt on Everest.  To the right of Lobuche is the terminus of the Khumbu Glacier, and beyond that is Everest Base Camp.  Looking east, we get a fantastic view of the west face of Ama Dablam with the Dablam glacier in profile just below the summit.  The north ridge is a less frequently traveled route to the top and we discuss how "sporty" it looks.  

Tomorrow we head up a valley to Chukkung where we will spend two nights and hike up to Chukhung Ri's summit at over 18,000' for further acclimatization.  

Within a few minutes the fog rolls in and engulfs us in a white cloud.  We continue to climb up the ridge to a final elevation of 16,144' before calling it good and heading back down.  Before long we're in a tearoom drinking coffee and talking about our hike.  It was a good morning, and the remainder of our day is spent lounging around reading, writing, eating and drinking.