We started the day off with another change of plans. When we met For breakfast at 0630, we learned that one of our teammates had gotten sick in the night, it appears they got food poisoning. Altitude sickness is not your only foe. Water, meat, and ever fruit/vegetables can be your enemy. This team member was ultimately flown to Kathmandu, they should be fine.

We regrouped and headed out around 8:00 AM. The first half or so of the journey was not too terrible. The group was pushing pretty hard, some of us were trailing behind because we were still stopping and taking pictures; I didn’t invest all this time and money to ignore everything on the way out.

Along the way, it occurred to me that our entire environment had changed. The barren mountainside had turned green and we were down in trees and moss. I could see the village we were eating at (Tengboche), but I could also see we were on the other side of the river. That meant we had to go down the back up!

After a slightly strenuous climb back up, we arrived at Tengboche. You could see the huge monastery on the right as you entered town. Lunch was good; I ended up talking to some folks from Maine that were on their way up and looking for pointers. I told them to avoid Gorak Shep if possible 🙂

After lunch, the real work began. We headed down for about an hour, and it was hard down; that’s the roughest on me (my knees especially). Then a gruelling 1 hour up. It was BRUTAL. Things eased a bit, but we still had a good bit of climbing to do. There is no flat in the Khumbu Valley; you are either going up or going down.

We still passed some excellent scenery and pretty stupas.

I was oh so happy to finally see Namche; it meant rest and food were not far off. We got showers (what’s better than a hot shower – a free hot shower!), met for supper,  put devices on charge, and collapsed for the night. Over 13 miles of that terrain; they move us out a lot quicker than we moved in to the valley (no worries about taking it slow for altitude sickness going down).