Everest Base Camp trek day 11 - Carry On Up The Khumbu

A cold start, with all of our water bottles partly frozen and ice covering the window.

"What kind of nutters," asked Lise, pacing around the dining room to keep warm, "come to the Himalayas in January? I mean, seriously..."

"Seemed like a good idea at the time...." I shuddered.

"You know it's minus four in here?" The wall thermometer said as much.

"Well according to my watch it's a nice balmy 14 degrees"

My watch - a snazzy Suunto job with compass, gps, altimeter, barometer and all the works, was great at everything except the temperature. It had told me it was 18 degrees in the middle of a Cairngorm winter blizzard, and was something of a running joke. In the middle of the night, however, I had checked it just to see, and it had said -2. Draw your own conclusions about the true temperature...

We ate our bowls of porridge hungrily, eager just to get started and stop freezing our nadgers off. I asked the lodge owner for some hot water, ruefully offering my nalgene flask with its half-litre of solid ice in the bottom.

In a slight daze, we set off for Dingboche, our fingers and toes chilled in the early gloom, desperately waiting for the sun to hit our valley. Songs began to play in my head, acoustic power ballads by Frank Turner - the kind Lise refers to as "dog on a string music" - and I began to feel strangely emotional.

The early part of the hike was easy enough, but by 10 o'clock the steady ascent was starting to take its toll. As we entered Pangboche, a pretty, laid-back village in a flat part of the valley, I was feeling dizzy, achy, and sick. I had to sit down.

"Please brother, rest," said Bagbir, his eyes once again studying me for signs of AMS. "I think, if you are not feeling good, maybe we stay here tonight?"

I knew that would put paid to our hopes of reaching Base Camp and ascending Kala Pattar. We would have to cut one of them, or - dangerously - our one remaining rest day.

"I'm OK, just a little light-headed," I said. "In terms of general co-ordination, I'm fine - look!" I danced a little jig, knowing that if I showed signs of becoming uncoordinated Bagbir would probably insist on taking us back down - and he'd be right.

I finished with the classic Bruce Forsyth slap-and-step-forward-with-a-grin. Lise and Bagbir looked at me in silence for a painfully long second.

"I think," said Bagbir, very slowly, "maybe we try one more hour....?"

So on we went, taking lunch in Solame seemingly right at the foot of Ama Dablam. Bagbir had told is that a Korean team had summitted it just a couple of days ago, and just below the top I could see what looked like tracks. Unfortunately neither the camera nor the binoculars could get quite enough zoom to be sure. Bagbir said they climbed on the other side anyway.

As we continued our relentless plod up the Khumbu valley, we found ourselves in a broad flat plain at around 4100m surrounded on all sides by mammoth peaks. Lhotse looked all the more frighteningly huge from this closer distance. We could see Everest's yellow band over the Lhotse-Nuptse wall, Thobuche to the left, with Pumori just visible in between.

"It feels more like we're properly in the mountains now," I said to Lise.

"Yeah," she agreed, "this place is amazing!"

Eventually, we began another gruelling ascent up the final 250m to Dingboche, with the huge scree heaps leading to Ama Dablam on our right. As we topped out, Dingboche appeared to us, plenty of lodges spread out through dusty fields.

We checked in to the Hotel Family, and immediately liked what we saw - a large-but-cozy dining room, a twin room with space, comfy mattresses, and even a private toilet. OK, so it was an Asian squat-style toilet, but I'd been practising my aim, and hell, compared to the last place, this was like the Hilton.

I changed up to clothing level 2 - fresh, thick, Patagonia base layer tights and winter-lined Craghopper trousers. Lise, meanwhile, had well and truly nested, a defiant cheeky grin poking out from behind layer upon layer of fluff - fleece, hat, sleeping bag, blanket, nearly all of it at least partly pink.

"I'm happy," she announced, "I'm not moving!"

Later, as the light began to fade, we moved into the dining room to order dinner. Bagbir took our order.

"How are you feeling now, brother?"

"Good, thankyou!"

"For dinner?"

This was a big test. I'd been pining for potatoes for the last few days, but since I'd got sick, every time I'd ordered them he'd politely suggested that plain rice "maybe better" - sometimes politely suggesting several times until I got the message.

I took a deep breath. "I'd like... the fried potatoes with vegetables and cheese!"

His eyes met mine, again searching for signs of my condition.

The universe held its breath.

"OK"

It was my turn to be happy.

We sat around the stove in the center of the room, warming our hands, swapping small talk with the others - an amiable mix of trekkers and their guides all swapping tales. At one point, a sudden loud bang from the stove made us all scatter with assorted expletives, as a piece of fuel - dried yak dung - exploded in the heat.

We talked to a young sherpa, guiding a solo Japanese client, who was worried about his ascent up to Lobuche (4950m) tomorrow without the usual rest day here. "My boss, he not have time," he said, "he say no."

We felt a little concerned for their safety. It was a sobering reminder that the sherpas put themselves at just as much risk as their clients, and if a client was insistent on ignoring the standard acclimatization schedule, what could they do?

As the evening drew to a close, we turned to bed. Chastened by the previous teeth-chattering night at Deboche, we'd worked out a plan. Before turning in, we filled our Nalgene flasks with hot water drum the kitchen and wrapped them in Lisas thick socks.

I wore my thick base layers and fleece, pulled my microfleece sleeping bag liner around me, climbed into the sleeping bag, wrapped my down jacket around the feet, pulled the provided blanket over the lot, and topped it off with my midweight gloves and beanie.

I woke up several times in the night to take layers off. Still, high class problems and all that.