12 april Xigar(New Tingri), 4350m asl.
In my last report I wrote about our upcoming night in the Snowlandhotel in Nyalam and the expected rodent guests :-)
Well Noel stuffed most of the holes in the floor with empty bottles and it seemed that few if any rats have entered our room, though Lynne swears some popped up near my sleeping bag..
11th april we all went for a little hike near Nyalam; just besides the 3750m high town are some nice hills which are perfect for acclimatisation. Most people went to the little summit at 4300m, Noel, Lynne and I stopped about 70m below and enjoyed the wonderful scenery.
When you travel from Zhangmu to Nyalam you actually cross the main line of the himalaya range and only now, when looking back from this hill you see how dramatic the range is. Jagged peaks covered in white snow, 8012m Shishapangma to our right and numerous other wonderful peaks completing this high altitude skyline. It is again a privilige to be here and it is very nice to see that my clients and travel mates are as appreciative of this beauty as I am. Many other climbers are often just focused on the summit and do not recognize the wonders of the route towards it.
Though we took it easy going up, Noel, Lynne, Lorenzo and I raced down the rocky hill, good training for the upper legs!
After another rich and very nice lunch we didn't do much until dinner, which shows again that expedition climbing is not that hard at all..
The place with the lights Nate and I saw the evening before actually turned out to be a local and very cheesy disco/karaoke bar, unfortunately our chinese was as bad as their music, so we stuck to dancing to an old Backstreet Boys dvd.
This night the rats were behaving quite nicely, just running about on our ceiling. Much worse were the dogs who kept most of us out of our sleep by barking nonstop right outside our bedroom. Of course the smarter one amongst us used earplugs and slept well
Today we continued our journey towards and on the Tibethan plateau. The gravel road took us slowly up the Yakri Shong La pass at 5050m. You can feel the altitude and the cold wind here, but the brilliant views of Shishapangma and the thousands or prayerflags made up for that.
About half an hour later we turned just another corner and suddenly looked directly at 2 huge mountains in the distance, one almost bare of snow, the other completely covered. Though more than 85kms away there was no doubt about the pramidal shaped rock in the distance. Sagarmatha, Quomolungma, the Mother Goddess of the earth, or better known as Mount Everest. This is what we came for and it is impressive as it is beautiful. The other mountain is the huge 8201m high Cho Oyu. It looks bigger as it is closer, but the ever present snow plume at Everest's summit leaves no doubt about which mountain is the highest peak on earth.
Our hotel is very nice and besides excellent food even has warm showers in the evening! And it appears too be rat free, so we will enjoy our 2 nights here.
Discuss about the highest mountains on the seven continents
