Deboche to Dingboche

Thursday 7th May, am, (14250 feet)

Like having a mountain growing out of your back garden...

Yesterday’s trip from Deboche to Dingboche went well and was completed by about 1 pm. Another 2000 feet of height gain! But it didn’t feel anything like the really steep end-of-day hikes that we had had to do in recent days.

The 'normal' view of Ama Dablam, from the Tengboche direction

Our accustomed view of Ama Dablam
  • It was another day of clouds during our walk, but just before sunset Ama Dablam appeared (the back side of it, which looks quite different; goodness me it is SO close, just over the back of the hill opposite, in fact).
  • Then it was the turn of Island Peak out to the east to appear. And then the Lhotse/Nuptse wall revealed itself. In fact there were suddenly high mountains all around us. It’s a really great spot.

Ama Dablam from our Dingboche lodge

Ama Dablam dressed in gold

(from our Dingboche lodge)

Colin and I went down to the river (me crossing a bridge twice which had no handholds - now there’s a change from a few days before!) and climbed halfway up the hill beyond it. Instead of going totally up to the ridge line, we decided to climb back down and go all around the village to investigate the chortens (religious monuments) on the other side of the valley. 

But the big ‘what if’ was: suppose we had gone up to the ridge line. Suppose at that moment the mist had cleared, then Ama Dablam (all 6814 metres of her - about 22,500 feet) would have loomed out of the mist. This would have been like having a mountain growing out of your back garden! I would have fallen off the hill with shock.

But I didn’t feel so good later - danger of diarrhoea developing. I know everyone is supposed to get it some time in Nepal, but I just fancied being the odd man out. I was up twice in the middle of the night - in fact the second time was during a great storm when it was whiteout conditions. That certainly made the journey to the outside loo (some 20 yards away) an interesting one!

This morning the thick mist has cleared and you’d never know there had been a fierce storm last night.

We are getting great views of the mountains all around us.

We had a acclimatisation day at Dingboche, so we went up the valley in the direction of Island Peak to Chukhung.

Island Peak

Island Peak at the end of the valley

It was a really pleasant walk. Arriving before 11 am, we had plenty of energy left to do some exploration.

Stewart the climber, who was accompanying us, went off and climbed Chukhung Ri (about 19,000 feet).

We were not quite so adventurous, but by scaling the hillock on the left of the picture, I got above 5000 metres (16,700 feet) for the first time.

I was so giddy with happiness I started running down the hillside, paying no respect to the altitude. This rebounded on me later when I felt unwell and had no appetite.

Chukhung

At Chukhung, with Lhotse/Nuptse behind

Forward to: Prisoner of the Yak | Home | Contents