Nepal Trek Day Twelve: Dingboche - Debuche

Over the next three weeks, I'm taking a trip down memory lane with a look back at our trip to Nepal last December. For all of the entries about our trek, click here.

The worst part of our twelfth day of trekking was that I woke up that morning with little sleep as I had spent most of the night up with a horrible cough (this marked only day five of my antibiotic regimen). We hit the trail around 9:15a after breakfast. Today's hike included a lot of retracing our steps. I was super-happy to hear that we would be heading down toward Lower Pangboche, rather than taking the death-defying trail out of Upper Pangboche on our way to Debuche. 

We arrived in Debuche around 12p and immediately headed to the dining room for lunch. Following our meal, D and I got a small pot of black tea to share and relaxed while listening to a few more episodes of This American Life (our new favorite activity) on my iPod. Later in the afternoon, Dilip was tasked with taking D and me up to the Tengboche Monastery, where we spent some time wandering around the grounds. 

We returned to our lodge around 3:30p and spent some more time chilling (literally and figuratively) out before dinner. We were both still a little hunger after our meal, so we ordered some apple pie (really, more like apple baked inside a dough roll) to share for dessert. It was pretty tasty!

Given the low-light conditions (we ate dinner by the light of our headlamps), we soon headed off to bed. We'd be up early in the morning to make our way from Debuche back to Khumjung and on to Namche for the night. 

1. Ready to leave Dingboche, 2. Morning mountain view, 3. Along the trail, 4. Along the trail, 5. Trail view, 6. Gateway, 7. Stupa along the trail, 8. Suspension bridge!, 9. Hey little buddy!, 10. Lodge menu, 11. What're you looking at?, 12. Tengboche Monastery, 13. Me at the Tengboche Monastery, 14. Dilip, 15. Our lodge in Debuche lodge

Nepal Trek Day Eleven: Dingboche - Chukkung - Dingboche

Over the next three weeks, I'm taking a trip down memory lane with a look back at our trip to Nepal last December. For all of the entries about our trek, click here.

Today was another nice and easy day. D left for his hike around 5:30a while I slept in for another couple of hours. The original plan was to meet up with Dilip for breakfast in the dining room, but when I arrived, Dilip was still asleep in a pile of blankets in the corner of the room. Since I had no where to go, I just sat and read a little, drinking some black tea to keep warm. Eventually one of the lodge workers came around to take my breakfast order, and I opted for the chocolate pancake. (Why not?) By the time I finished breakfast, Dilip was up and at 'em, and after he ate his meal, we both headed out to Chukkung. Since Dilip didn't speak much English (or in the very least, was too shy to try), our walk to Chukkung was fairly quiet, but that was fine by me. 

Bharat met us as we crested the last hill before Chukkung, and we all walked together the rest of the way to where D was waiting in the lodge where we would be eating lunch. D and I shared a small pot of milk tea and coconut crunchies while he regaled me with the tale of his morning hike and summiting of Chukkung Ri. The most astonishing event was that he and Bharat saw a (super-elusive, and rarely-sighted) snow leopard as they left Dingboche in the morning. I was definitely ruing my decision not to go with them in the morning -- as that would have been an awesome thing to see. Pretty amazing. 

Following lunch, we all headed back to Dingboche as a group. Bharat pointed out where he and D had seen the snow leopard in the morning, and D and I stopped to see if we could find any prints or other evidence of the cat. No such luck, however, especially since yaks had since made their way through the area as they grazed. 

The rest of the day and evening were mainly uneventful. D and I spent some of the time sharing the earbuds of my iPod and listening to a couple of podcast episodes of This American Life. I had a repeat of last night's veggie burger dinner, and it was just as good as the previous night's. We opted to call it a night around 7p. Tomorrow we would start making our way back toward Namche; the end of our trek was quickly approaching.  

1. Along the trail, 2.  Hiking into the sunshine, 3. More mountain views, 4. Lodge menu, 5. Chukung, 6. D pointing to Chukung Ri (which he summitted that morning), 7. Nibbles the horse, 8. Climber memorial, 9. Along the trail, 10. Construction zone

Nepal Trek Day Ten: Pangboche - Dingboche

Over the next three weeks, I'm taking a trip down memory lane with a look back at our trip to Nepal last December. For all of the entries about our trek, click here.

{Dingboche at dusk}

I woke up feeling a bit better today. After breakfast, we packed up our stuff and headed onto the trail around 9:15a. Today's hike was pretty low-key as it was mostly flat with just a few steep inclines. So much better than yesterday's hike! We arrived in Dingboche around noon. After dropping our stuff into our room, we headed to the dining room for lunch. After lunch D and I got a small thermos of hot chocolate to share, and sat outside for awhile reading our books (I spent the majority of the trek reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). After awhile, I retreated back to our room after the wind picked up (we were at 14,000+ feet so it was already quite chilling to begin with). Luckily our room had a window seat, where I perched with a pillow and continued to read for a while in the warm sunlight. 

Later in the afternoon, D and I took a short hike around the village, and I took a few photos of the surrounding mountains in the last light of the day. Pretty gorgeous views as usual. We headed into the dining room for dinner around 5p. Tonight I ordered a veggie burger with "finger chips" -- oh, it was so good. Kind of embarrassing that one of the best meals I had to date in Nepal was a veggie burger, but there you go. 

Prior to retreating to bed, we discussed our plan for the morning. D and Bharat would head up to Chukkung Ri around 5:30a, while I would stay back at the lodge and eat breakfast. Later, I would head to Chukkung with Dilip leading the way, and there we would meet up the other two after they had summited the mountaintop.

1. Village of Pangboche, 2. Along the trail, 3. Mountains views, 4. Bird!, 5. Himalayan goats, 6. Rimpoche holy site, 7. Me and the mountains, 8. Bridge crossing, 9. Mountains around Dingboche, 10. View from our lodge room, 11. Lodge menu, 12.  Sunshine hitting the tops of the mountains, 13. Evening lights hits the mountains around Dingboche, 14. Dingboche at dusk , 15. Veggie burger and finger chips (yum!!)