I think everyone slept pretty well last night, which is great considering we are actually closer to 16,400ft and came up from 14,500ft the night before.

Conveniently, the lodge next door has high speed Internet, so it’s not quite the journey to get on the information super highway. Only 500 Rupees for 30minutes, or about $6 USD, which isn’t too bad. Plus, they had their stove going sooner than our lodge, so it was quite warm. It was also nice to run into my buddy Dean that I met on Vinson last December in Antarctica. I think our spots at basecamp aren’t too far apart, so we should be able to catch up.

Today, we took breakfast at 7:30, and I think the French Toast has run its course with me and I’ll be moving on tomorrow. One more day and then we get French press coffee on a regular basis instead of the instant Nescafé with powdered milk we’d been having on the way in. Occasionally though, they use Nak milk, which is pretty strong and sometimes it’s just way too much. On a side note, a Nak is the female counterpart to a Yak. If you get Yak milk, you should seriously consider how exactly they got that…

We headed out, and went past the Italian research center and then up along this sub ridge of Lobouche Ri. After a rock scramble for a couple hundred feet, we called it good when we’d got to about 18,000ft or so. When we got down off the rocks, we just chilled out for a bit as some of us (aka Scott) got the data connection on his tablet working and he just sat and did emails for a while. The rest of us headed down the hill and back to the lodge for some tea, a game or two of chum and then lunch.

We’re all pretty psyched to head up to base camp tomorrow where we can spread out a bit more and settle in for a while. Plus, the food situation shouldn’t be so sketchy, and we should be able to take ‘showers’ a little more easily. Allegedly, it’ll be bottomless food & water. Can’t wait to start the next phase of the expedition!