17 October 2014 – Climbing Kalapatthar

Today the clock rang at 4am. Dennis and Jonas together with the guides walked up Kala Pathar to see the sunrise over Everest. Jan spent the morning in a warm sleeping bag instead. The morning was wonderfully clear. If you turned your headlamp of and only letting the half moon shine, you could see the contours of the surrounding white mountains, and also an astonishing clear starry sky with millions of stars!!! Just amazing!!! Makes you feel small!! Climbing Kala Pathar is not easy. It makes it even harder if it is cold, and it was today!!!! We started at 4.30 and it began going up immediately. Climbing in darkness with just a headlamp is not easy.  Fingers and toes were numb after half the way. After 1 ½ hour at we summited Kala Pathar, 5545m!!! Spending not more than 20 minutes on the top trying to take pictures with stiff cold fingers is hard work! Going down goes faster. We arrived to Gorak Shep at 7.10 after a record descent J. Breakfast at 8 and then we were off to the lodge at Lobuche again were we spent our night last night. The trek took just 1 ½ hour. We sat outside in the nice weather getting a better tan waiting for lunch. The afternoon was off for recovery of tired bodies.

Tomorrow the real expedition starts with the trek to Lobuche high camp at approx. 5300m. The plan is to summit Lobuche east, 6119m, on Sunday morning Nepal time. (4 hours ahead of Sweden) Todays trek to Kala Pathar was just a little appetizer of what is ahead of us! We need all of you that follow the blog from home to cross your fingers for us!!!! We are going to need it!!!