Laying in bed at 4900 meters listening to the wind howling and I hear Stacey make the comment through the paper thin walls “well at least no trees are going to fall on us”. Too true. For those not familiar with altitude, we leave the trees behind at around 3800 meters.
We woke this morning to cloud. David had warned us our luck on the weather looked like running out. With two days of patchy snow forecast, we decided we would make the hike up to Kalar Patar after arriving into Gorak Shep.
A slow steady hike up to 5100 meters saw us at Gorak Shep by 10am. An early lunch, not that we were hungry but knew we had to eat something. Snow was falling but nothing too heavy.
We all stayed together as a group and a little over two hours saw us all on top of Kalar Patar. In all my trips to the Everest region two thing have happened that hasn’t happened before.
Firstly we had no view of Everest. Every trip I’ve done we have been lucky enough to have good weather for our summit to KP. Luckily it was high cloud so we could look down on Base Camp and still see the Khumbu Glacier in all its glory. We even saw a few tents set up at Base Camp.
The second thing that hasn’t happened in all of my trips is a wedding proposal. Yes, Stacey proposed to Dale on top of KP with a beautiful diamond ring that she could only manage to take her gloves off for a few seconds to put the ring on. Dale and Stacey on behalf of Team EBC 2018 and Treknepalwithme we wish you all the very best for your future lives together. Thank you for making our summit on KP even more special.
Now relaxing back in the lodge. A few eyes are closed amongst the group but they have lit the heater for us. Hard to imagine we may not sleep well tonight. After ascending over 600 meters I feel like I could fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. Normally we try to stay awake until 7pm but tonight might be an exception.