Everest trek - Day 8 - Thukla to Labouche

4600m to 4940m (+340m)
3.0km - 3 hours

It rained all night, and is still raining this morning but the clouds seemed thinner and were moving faster, giving us more and more faces to drool over. I had a very good nights sleep last night so was ready for action, which is good as the path out of Thukla is immediately up, for a long time. In fact most of today's 340m vertical is in the first hour or so. At the top of the first section are many memorials to dead Sherpas and climbers, including Scott Fischer who died in the 1996 Everest tragedy.

Memorials

After the memorials the path goes past the end of the Khumbu glacier, which just looks like a huge pile of rocks. From there it turns right and the rest of the walk following the river to Labouche is easy. I nearly ended up in the river slipping on a stone while trying to fill my water bottle!

End of the Khumbu

We strolled into Labouche, excited to reach 5000m! There's not much lodge choice - high season must be a free-for-all - but now there's no-one else here apart from us and the South Africans who are staying in the lodge next door. We choose the Sherpa lodge, the furthest away as you enter the village, next to the expensive eco-lodge. The weather was spitting something half way between rain and snow and the staff quickly crank up the stove with some yak pancakes and we set up camp in the toasty restaurant. The owner confirms what we'd heard about the weather clearing tomorrow, he says the snow is a good sign, meaning the weather is turning winter and the monsoon finishing - we may have timed this trip perfectly! Me, Helen, Dave and Tom have a hot bucket shower (not together) in an outside corrugated hut. I had one just so I could say I'd had a shower at 5000m! It wasn't as much of shock as initially thought, the worst bit trying to dry yourself and get some clothes on as quick as possible. I had been wearing the same T-shirt now since we'd left Kathmandu, not wanting to change because of the cold! Needless to say I put the same T-shirt back on after the shower!

I get food envy when Martin the Swede orders a giant plate of tuna noodles, so order one too. Later we have snickers rolled in pastry and deep-fried - very tasty, expensive and bad! We play some cards and drink lemon tea. I take a depleted camera battery to the lodge next door for charging for 300 Rupees an hour.

Snickers roll