Got decent sleep after waking up in the middle of the night; a bit over 6 hours. The temperature of my lodge room was cold (37 degrees F)  – I was happy to have my warm sleeping bag. When I looked outside my bedroom window, I was excited to see blue sky. So I got out and walked around the village around 0600. I enjoyed the silence of the morning; locals were milling about, but all the trekkers were either snug in their sleeping bags or sipping a warm drink in the lodge dining rooms. The views were absolutely amazing!

We met for breakfast at 0800, and headed out for our acclimatization hike. We were going to ascend a local hill to gain some more altitude to help with our acclimatization process. It was a lot of climbing (duh). The further up we went, the greater the views became.

We got awesome views of Lhotse and Ama Dablam. We hit our altitude goal of around 15,000 feet. Many of us were still feeling good, so we pushed further up to 15628. This will make our coming days easier as we continue to ascend to base camp.

We then descended to the nearby village of Dingboche and stopped in at a bakery (same one that made the birthday cake from last night). I had a slice of apple pie me (tasty!) and also bought a slice of banana bread to hike back to the lodge for later. We then hiked back over the ridge to Pheriche.

Clouds had been slowly rolling in all day; clear in the morning and cloudy in afternoon is pretty much the norm (or so I’m told).

We had a late lunch (1430) and slipped in a few minutes late to the altitude sickness talk. Altitude sickness is no joke, but as long as you don’t ignore the warnings you should be fine. Our team has acclimatized very well.

After the talk, I paid for the luxury of a hot shower; it may be my last such chance for many days. I had a light supper due to the late lunch and pie; Chicken Noodle Soup. Our guide squared the plans for the day away, and then it was time for bed. I’m sleeping with my electronic devices in the foot box of my sleeping bag now to try and preserve their batteries.

Before sleep, I checked my O2 stats: 93-94 %; time to move on up the mountain valley!