Life of Wry

Trip Day #13, Trek Day #7

Two things defined this day:

First, it was to be an 1870′ climb to the top of Gokyo Ri.  The summit of Gokyo Ri (17,585′) is reputed to provide one of–if not, THE–best panoramas in the Himalayan range.  If we were lucky enough to get good weather, we would feast our eyes upon the granddaddies of the Himalaya: Everest (29,029′), Lhotse (27,940′), Makalu (27,838′), Cho Oyu (26,864′)–the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th highest mountains in the world!

Secondly, staying another day in the Gokyo environs would provide an additional day of high altitude acclimatization, and ensure our bodies were prepared for crossing the Cho La Pass (17,782′) two days later, and getting to Everest Base Camp (17,598′) three days later.  The nearly 1900′ one-day ascent of Gokyo Ri was more than is generally recommended, but we wouldn’t be too long at that elevation before descending. And again, one of our objectives in acclimatizing was to hike high, sleep low whenever possible.

Pradip and Homnath brought hot tea to our rooms at 4:45am, earlier than usual, but we wanted a pre-dawn, pre-breakfast start.  Laura and I thought we were moving right along, but found we were the last to mobilize. Worse, as I was hurrying down the hall, I realized I couldn’t see a thing, as I’d forgotten to put my contacts in so I needed to go back, which was going to further delay our departure.

Then more difficulties: my practice–because of dry, bleedy cuticles–was to lotion my hands to maximum goopiness before putting my gloves on, which I’d done this morning.  This made putting contacts on extra challenging; it’s not like it’s easy to find a place to wash one’s hands.  Additionally, my contacts had frozen into un-round shapes overnight so they were difficult to place on my eyeballs. And I had to do this in a cold, dimly lit room without a mirror while in a hurry.  Needless to say, this took awhile, which made me even later.  Nobody was amused.  It was now 5:45, we’d lost our pre-dawn departure. We walked in silence for the first little while… which was either anger toward me or general nervousness, I wasn’t sure.

But moods changed quickly as we realized we had a perfectly cloudless sky above–fantastic news after patchy cloudiness and snowy weather the days before.  If we could get to the top within the next couple of hours, we were sure to get spectacular views. We were eager and relieved. We walked delicately across the frozen end of the lake, then began a brutal ascent.

I was in the mood to walk fast, persona non grata that I was, and took off after Rick, who bolted up the mountain like a goat (he would later say it was the best hiking day of his life).  It took him an hour and a half to get to the top, me two hours, and the others followed after that.  It was very steep and super slow climbing, one foot in front of the other, stopping only occasionally to drink, stretch, catch my breath, and take pictures.. like this one as the sun finally rose over the ridge.

If you look carefully, you can see the village of Gokyo beside Dodh Pokhari (the lake). The small squares and rectangles are buildings.  Our teahouse is the one farthest up the hill from the lake.  That massive, bumpy plateau above Gokyo is the gravelly remain of a glacier–the receding Ngozumpa Glacier–said to be one of the largest in the world.. or was. The impacts of climate change are very evident. Our trek the next day would be across this glacier, the route of which shifts as the glacier melts.

The above picture was taken about 30 minutes into the climb.  The sun felt gloriously warm (it wasn’t), and it melted a lot of ice, making the climb feel safer.

Here’s what it looked like looking upwards as we picked our way up the slope, note clear, clear sky:

And turning around to look down, this was the view (note ice and snow still on slope):

We made it to the top!

Here I am, exhilarated, looking relaxed, but oh so pooped!  That’s Cho Oyu (6th highest mountain in world) behind me. Tibet on the other side of that.

Here’re Leslie and me.  Leslie was feeling some altitude effects, but soldiered through:

Here are Laura, Karen and Rick:

And a great shot of Homnath:

And a few minutes later, Laura doing what we all felt like doing: napping in the sun.

We ended up staying on top of Gokyo Ri for two hours taking it all in and allowing our bodies to adjust to the 17,585′ elevation (three thousand feet higher than I’d ever been). Here are some views… first, Rick’s great shot of EVEREST!  Right there!

And here’s Leslie’s of Everest (with shroud of cloud) a little further back, including some of the surrounding mountains:

Here’s a range of mountain tops through prayer flags:

There was a little buddha altar in the middle of some prayer flags.. so peaceful and comforting to see:

Here’s a nice one I shot at the top, prayer flags flying.  You can make Rick out, standing atop another part of the peak; I joined him over there right after I took this picture. Below you can see some of both the receded glacier (left) and active glacier (right, top). This glacier feeds the raging Dodh Kosi river that we followed for most of the trek:

This shot gives you a good sense of the texture of a receded glacier:

Here’s a shot Rick took looking back down at the Dodh Pokhari lake (frozen white blob), the village of Gokyo (triangular piece adjacent to lake in lower left), the Ngozumpa Glacier (bumpy plateau on left), and our route through the glacier the next day (no, you can’t really see the trail).

Karen shot a closer view of the settlement.  Again, our teahouse is the large blue house highest on the hill:

We had to take a group shot (Rick, me, Hom, Laura, Pradip, Leslie and Karen) just before descending:

Going down was a lot harder on my legs, an hour and fifteen minutes of relentless down. Was very glad to reach the bottom.  I was just exhausted when I reached our lodge.  Rick snapped this shot as I came up the final rise.  So flattering, thanks Rick:

However, after lunch I felt a lot better.  Mostly, it’s the bone chilling cold and elevation that get you.  The climb is tough, but made tougher by the thin air.  I was also coming down with a cold, one that lasted about three days.  Laura had a nice sudafed-Vitamin C-tylenol powder, which came in handy!

Here’s Karen, pooped, photo also taken by Rick:

And one I shot of our guides Hom and Pradip.  Not as pooped, but definitely enjoying a quiet afternoon:

We played Oh Hell, a really fun card game, did more time in the cyber cafe, and drank tea and hot chocolate until dinner:

This lodge is well known for its pizzas, so some had that.  I had dahl bat, hot tea.  Bed by 9:00!