Namche Again

I'm back in Namche again, still trying to beat this lousy chest cold I've been fighting. Every time I go back up to altitude it gets worse so I'm hanging out in Namche for a few days until I can get it sorted out. Brian is still up valley in Gokyo and will probably join me here in a day or two.

The trek that we did was pretty impressive. We went up the valley to the west of Namche through Thame. This valley doesn't have any really huge peaks in it so very few trekkers head up there. For us it was great to escape the crowds that flock towards Everest Base Camp. We spent two days hiking up this valley and then crossed over a pass called Renjo La into the Gokyo valley. Climbing up to Renjo La took about six hours and was over 1000m of elevation gain. The trail up to the pass was mostly stone steps, thousands of never ending stone steps. I was exhausted when I finally reached the pass, but the view was incredible. I think that the view of Everest from Renjo La is one of the best anywhere. All of the other views we had gotten of Everest so far were of just the peak barely peaking above the Lhotse face. The view from Renjo La really put the mountain in perspective. From Renjo La we were far enough away from the mountain to really appreciate its immense size. I can't wait to put up the pictures when I get back. The descent down to Gokyo was steep but the views were great the whole way. Gokyo sits right on a beautiful alpine lake. The lake is a bright blue color, just incredible.

I hiked down to Namche from Gokyo yesterday in hopes of finally beating this chest cold. I'm just hanging out in Namche until I get better or Brian arrives and we decide to head down further. This means I've got some time on my hands so I'll try to post again in a day or so.

Hope everyone is doing well. Just a couple weeks until I'm back in Alaska.