Everest Base Camp trek day 13 - Lurching up to Lobuche

We stood leaning on our poles, gasping for breath in the cold morning air at the top of the steep hill directly behind the lodge, right at the start of the trek from Dingboche to Lobuche.

"How high have we climbed now?" asked Lise, in between gasps for oxygen that just wasn't there.

I checked my watch.

"10 metres," I panted, "only 390 to go..."

"Al..." she replied, "....don't do that."

The mornings were becoming increasingly hard, as Lise's panic breathing (Cheyne-Stokes Respiration, apparently) was getting worse, the temperature was dropping and the air was getting thinner. To start the day with a hill like that on top of everything else, just seemed malicious.

Once over the brow, we had a long section of gentle ascent, with spectacular views of Thobuche and Cholatse just the other side of the small Pheriche valley. We started to defrost as the sun hit our backs, and the morning became quite pleasant.

After a couple of hours, we stopped at the small village of Thukla for a tea break at the appropriately named Yak Lodge, where Lise tried to make friends with the yaks in the field, to no avail and to Bagbir's obvious consternation. We sat in the sun, chuckling at the fact that we were drinking tea in the sunshine at almost the height of Mont Blanc. Then we set off upwards.

The guidebook had said "...the hill immediately behind Thukla can be tough..." so I was prepared for a slog. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was the wind. As we struggled in the altitude just to put one foot in front of the other, the biting, icy wind seemed to cut right through all of our carefully layered clothing and make a complete joke of my midweight gloves. The hill seemed so steep and relentless, the air so thin and cold, the wind so vicious, we were having to dig deep into our reserves of will to keep going.

"I can't feel my fingers!" Lise gasped.

"Me neither," I replied, "...or my toes!"

Bagbir looked concerned. "Please brother, every time we stop, make like this," he started punching his fists together, wiggling his fingers in-between punches. We followed, and managed to get just about enough sensation in our fingers to realise how cold they really were.

Onwards and upwards we trudged, stopping every few metres to catch our breath and shake our hands, starting to think that if we couldn't rewarm soon, then frostbite was becoming a very real possibility.

At long last we reached the top of the hill, but still the wind blew. As we stumbled across the plateau into the field of Everest memorials, I was struck by the sight of so many piles of stones, each one for someone who'd gone to climb the mountain and not returned. The cold, the exhaustion and the feel of so many lives lost all piled on top of me, and I choked back the tears as I leant on my poles.

On the other side of the field the path began to descend slightly, and we were at last out of the wind. Before too long we saw the welcome sight of the blue-roofed lodges of Lobuche. Exhausted, frozen, and dizzy with the altitude, we flopped on the benches in our lodges dining room, and two bowls of tomato and garlic soup appeared in front of us. We ate in a shell-shocked daze.

After soup, we had the energy to head up to the room and sort out our packs. On our return, we saw a familiar face in the dining room:

"Bruce! How are you?"

It was comforting to see a familiar face, and to be able to chat freely in English. Lise and Bruce nattered for ages, I read my book and joined in now and again whenever I could shake the altitude stupor.

After dinner, we got out the travel Backgammon set again. I was determined to improve my abysmal record against Lise since we'd picked up the game for the first time a couple of nights ago - won 1, lost 6, a fact which gave Lise some repeated amusement. After the first game, however, Bagbir came over looking interested.

"Would you like to play?" we asked.

"Yes!" He nodded.

There followed an hour long session of increasing deviousness and undisguised joy at "blotting" each other off the board, at the end of which I was 2-1 up. Lise chatted to Bruce about altitude problems and her panic breathing.

We figured it was a good time to call it a night, as the next day was going to be hard work. Just as he left, Bruce handed us four Diamox, saying, "as I say, never take medical advice from some bloke you just met in a lodge, but if this helps you get a decent night's sleep... well, the worst it's going to do is not work, put it that way."

It worked. Lise got a decent nights sleep at last.