Dzongla to Gorak Shep – A Trouble Halved

We’re getting quite good at this. Looking at our original schedule we had two days walking from Dzongla to Lobuche and Lobuche to Gorak Shep, up towards Everest Base Camp. We’ve decided to roll it into one.

Nepali spelling of place names is not always consistent. Dzongla or Zongla is where we ended up last night, tired but elated after a great Cho La crossing. Today’s walk is in red on the map below. We’re effectively walking around Lobuche peak to Lobuche village for lunch. The grey canal to the right of the red line is the Khumbu glacier. After lunch we’re walking beside and along the glacier up to Gorak Shep.

I hadn’t come across the 8000 Inn, Pyramid Lobuche before. Up in the hills. One review says ‘It is really clean and pleasant compared to the survivable but fairly grim regular lodges, and we were actually toasty at night with electric blankets’. Well bully for you, soft bedwetter. Why not stay in the other regular lodges like we do where previous occupants have already wet your bed for you!

We set off with the warm sun on our faces.

Feeling on top of the world Ma. Thanks Jimmy.

Even the lower glens, at a modest 16,000 feet, are beautifully remote.

We’re getting fitter and fitter, although the lack of oxygen really grabs and squeezes your heart and lungs. Your whole being becomes only burning legs and rapidly pumping heart and lungs, going uphill, and a relaxed, sauntering, coxcomb appreciating the views, going downhill.

Very soon we were high above the banks of Chola Lake and working hard. The altitude difference between breakfast and lunch was negligible, a bit like Minehead to Poole on the South West Coast Path, but the ups and downs to get you there are like the 21st Century history of Sheffield United.

Looking at the map above, the vast majority of trekkers come up the valley from the south that leads up to Dughla and on to Lobuche. Our track came round from the west and joined the main trekking route just south of Lobuche. From here on was partly familiar territory, due to mine and Killer’s trek two years ago. This is the view looking down towards the main trekking route and around.

Before too long we had veered north and could see quite a few trekkers walking up the other side of the valley on the main track, and the bottom of the Khumbu Glacier, in a high wall of ice and terminal moraine.

Dan is intent on saving the cost of recharging his appliances, so he brought along a solar recharging unit to carry on the back of his rucksack. It’s only fully effective if at 90 degrees to the sun. See you later matey!

We arrived in Lobuche for lunch and it was a good place. We would be staying here tomorrow night. The staff were attentive and the food was good.

Then we set off for Gorak Shep. This was a walk along the moraine before moving over and walking along the glacier itself. It would take around three hours to reach there and the weather had dipped. If the views were going to be good then we intended to dump our stuff at the guest house and climb Kala Patthar to see the sunset over Everest.

The view from the top of the moraine down the glacier was like a linear Baked Alaska. Strangely it reminded me of when I worked in the steel mills in Sheffield. The molten metal running down a channel from the furnace. Completely contained, in theory. Like the glacier.

Looking up the glacier the white colouring below the mountains was chunks of ice fallen from the Khumbu Icefall. We intended to see them tomorrow.

We arrived in Gorak Shep mid-afternoon. This is the highest trekkers’ accommodation on the Everest Base Camp route. In case photos of Dan and myself in shorts and T shirts confuses you meteorologically, the flat sand coloured area surrounding Gorak Shep is a frozen lake. It is covered by sand.

As we sat in our guest house the viewing conditions were not clear, so we decided to climb Kala Patthar early tomorrow morning. The summit is just visible behind and to the right of the peak in the middle. Its height seems to be the subject of some debate. Likely to be around 18,300 feet it will be the highest I’ve been if I get to the top.

To quote Wiki, The Kala Patthar hike is considered a challenging hike in the Everest region of Nepal. It requires a moderate to high level of fitness, endurance, and some prior hiking experience at high altitudes.

As one of the few septuagenarians to try it this year then I can assure you, my dear darling family and friends. It will be a piece of piss!! You’re not dealing with a soft southern bedwetter here matey boys and girls. I’m a northerner.

Hold on, I didn’t mean that I’m a soft, northern bedwetter I meant I’m a northerner and then by definition not a bedwetter. Well, maybe once or twice. Under exceptional circumstances. No I will not specify the circumstances. Well ok then. I was upset because United lost.

Night night.