Days 210 – 212: Nepal Trek Days 8 – 10: The Cho-La Pass
We had a very short 2hr hike ahead of us today (since we already climbed Gokyo Ri the day before), so Phurba told us to sleep in and meet him for breakfast around 9:30AM. Since we were getting such a late start, we had the dining room to ourselves until the day-hikers started returning around 10AM.
We gathered our stuff and said farewell to the Fitzroy – seriously the best teahouse on the trail! When Igor left a modest tip for the staff after settling the bill, the manager was so flattered he gave each of us a chocolate bar for our climb up the Cho-La Pass! As an FYI, we had stocked up on Snickers bars back in Namche, and Lindsay was hording them very carefully – saving them for our upcoming 8hr hiking days. Her excitement over those two extra candy bars was so intense, you’d think Christmas had come early!
After a wonderful 2 nights at the Fitzroy Inn, we say farewell to Gokyo
To reach the Cho-La Pass, we had to hike across the top of the Ngozumpa Glacier. While the glacier is covered in rocks and doesn’t *look* impressive, it’s the largest glacier in Nepal and is constantly moving, making it very dangerous to cross if you don’t know what you are doing. Phurba told us that the guides have to forge a new path every season, due to the melting ice. Going off-trail is dangerous as you don’t know if there may be a weakened crevasse hiding under the gravel. As if the instability of the ground weren’t bad enough, Phurba also warned Igor to stop dawdling to take so many pictures along the valley ridge – the rocks along the sides of the hills were prone to avalanches! Never has such a short hike been so deadly…
A lazy yak suns himself by the lake as we pass a flock of Tibetan Snowcocks (heh, heh – snowcock…)
The Ngozumpa Glacier is thinning due to rising temperatures in the Himalayas – the ice & snow melt creates lots of different colored lakes and ponds on the surface. Throughout the day, we would turn our heads quickly as we heard the CRACK of chunks of ice crashing into the waters
We carefully follow a narrow path through the gravel top layer of the Ngozumpa Glacier
The peaks of Cholatse & Taboche create a beautiful backdrop for the walk across the Ngozumpa Glacier
After a short 1.5hr hike across the glacier, we arrive at the Cho-La Resort in Thangnak in the late morning. We don’t have enough time to cross the Cho-La Pass today (we learned our lesson in Gokyo not to try and do too much in one day!), so our group had a lot of down time. While Igor’s Nepali SIM card had had decent reception in bigger villages like Namche and Gokyo, we finally had to spring for paid Wifi and an hour-long charge for the laptop in order to ease our afternoon boredom.
Chillin’ out at the Cho-La “resort” – our porter sat in the sun with some of his colleagues, while Igor & Lindsay hung out in the teahouse dining room
We lost our 4G/Edge when we left Gokyo, so we bought a Wifi access code so we could catch up on Facebook…although after reading all the nasty election updates, we wanted to disconnect again…
Clouds came in *early* today – the mountains were completely covered by 1PM! Maybe it’s a good thing we climbed Gokyo Ri yesterday after all!
In order to keep the weight down, Igor and Lindsay only brought one laptop on the trail, so we had to share. We finally called it quits at dinnertime (more dal bhat!)
We woke up EARLY for our crossing of the Cho-La Pass. Not only did our itinerary estimate the trek would take a good 8hr (BTW – it only took us 6), but we were once again faced avalanche danger: the mountain face leading up to the saddle between the peaks is a ridiculously steep wall of loose rocks. Phurba told us the night before that it is much safer to cross early in the morning when all the rocks are still frozen to the ground. As we tramped along the rocky trail in the shadow of the mountain, *desperately* trying to get some circulation into our frozen toes and fingers, at least we were pretty confident that a stray bolder wouldn’t come crashing down on our heads.
We are out the door before sunrise to start the grueling hike up the 5,330m Cho-La Mountain Pass
The Cho-La Pass is cruel – after about 45min of hiking up a tough incline, we reach the summit…of a hill…which we then need to climb *down* only to go STRAIGHT UP AGAIN. Stop teasing me! I only want to go up ONCE!
After a final view of the Gokyo Valley behind us, we start crawling up the rocky face of the Cho-La Pass – the trekkers ahead of us are microscopic, we can’t even distinguish their brightly-colored jackets against the boulders
Of course Igor ran up the friggin’ mountain pass like a billy goat on steroids – Phurba dutifully waited as Lindsay huffed and puffed her way up…slowly, slowly…
While the western face of the Cho-La Pass was a shaded, frigid, barren rocky landscape, once we crossed the summit we were suddenly bathed in sunlight, looking down at a snow-covered glacier which had a slick little footpath snaking along the ice
Taking a moment to savor the summit of the Cho-La Pass
The descent from the Cho-La Pass was much more enjoyable, though still challenging as we had to cross yet another glacier! Luckily, this one was much shallower and far less dangerous than the Ngozumba (although Phurba still warned us to stay on the trail to be safe) – our biggest worry was slipping on the icy surface (which was getting slicker and slicker from the warming sun and foot traffic from other trekkers) and bruising our bums.
The glacier-capped summit of the Cho-La Pass
Heading down the other side of the mountain pass…very carefully!
Our trail is covered in icicles and snow!
Hiking across this glacier is not as easy as the first one – the thin layer of snow barely covers a very slippery surface of ice
We are not the only ones making our way along the ice-path – the trail is packed with fellow trekkers and porters
A couple of boots crossing the snowy Cho-La Pass
We finally reach the end of the snow and get our first glimpse of the valley beyond
Cholatse towers to our right, and Ama Dablam rises in front of us as we arrive at the small settlement of Dzongla
When we reached Dzongla, we discovered that we had slim pickings for our accommodations for the night. (Supposedly) The only teahouse that had ensuite bathrooms, didn’t seem to understand exactly how Westerners *use* the toilet – not sure if it was worth paying the extra USD $20/night at this point as we would have rather shared a *real* toilet with others than use a literally half-assed john. We just had to shrug our shoulders and enjoy the local charm of the EBC trail.
OK, *technically* this is an ensuite room, but come on! – how are we supposed to use the toilet without the seat?! Surprisingly the one Christmas tree light bulb stuck on the ceiling was actually pretty bright
The teahouse at Dzongla was absolutely FREEZING – the clouds rolled in about an hour after we arrived, so no more solar water boilers to keep us warm. The dal bhat was good, but we had to eat and run as the dining room was full of sickies! We felt bad running out on Phurba so early (we had just taught him how to play rummy, and were looking forward to a few games), but we took our pot of ginger tea into our room in order to avoid contracting the plague
Our final day before the EBC was a pretty easy, level stretch of trail which brought our loop back to the Khumbu Valley. We braced ourselves for the crowded onslaught of Everest trekkers as we officially rejoined the trail at the village of Lobuche. Earlier on in the trek we had chatted with a pair of Canadians hiking solo, who told us that Lobuche had been so crowded that their reservation was given away and they were forced to sleep in the dining room! We were so relieved when Phurba handed us a key that we didn’t even mind when he told us there would be no more private bathrooms until we started heading back to Lulka.
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The next morning was bright and sunny, so Lindsay ran out of the room to try and warm herself like a meerkat, before we headed back out on the trail, passing random yaks along the way
We finally enter the Khumbu Valley, on the opposite side of the river as the official EBC Trail
Ginormous massifs toward over the village of Lobuche – our next stop for the evening
We arrive at the Altitude Oxygen Hotel pretty early, so we spend the afternoon in the dining room playing cards and chatting with some fellow New Yorkers. The place is really popular (no complaints – one of the better teahouses) so it turns into an absolute zoo at dinnertime – we manage a few rounds of cards before our daily serving of dal bhat then we retire to our room. Each night it gets colder as we rise in elevation, but tonight is the first time we get *double* the amount of blankets! We got super excited when we saw an electric heating pad on our bed, but plummeted into disappointment when the owner told us our room wasn’t set-up for electric plug-in yet. Boo.