September 20
We woke up at 3:45 am to hike to the top of Kala Patthar to get the best views of Everest as the sun rises. It's usually very cloudy during this time of year, so many people that hike to the top of Kala Patthar never end up seeing Everest. We were thrilled when our guide, Govi, knocked on our door at 3:45 am yelling, "It's a perfect morning, no clouds!" It had snowed the night before, so there was about 2 inches of snow cover on the ground and it was a full moon, so when we woke up (practically in the middle of the night), the moon was so bright and it reflected off the snow so we did not need our headlamps to hike. We could see the whole spectrum of mountains perfectly in the moonlight (Everest, Nuptse, Pumori, etc)!
We woke up at 3:45 am to hike to the top of Kala Patthar to get the best views of Everest as the sun rises. It's usually very cloudy during this time of year, so many people that hike to the top of Kala Patthar never end up seeing Everest. We were thrilled when our guide, Govi, knocked on our door at 3:45 am yelling, "It's a perfect morning, no clouds!" It had snowed the night before, so there was about 2 inches of snow cover on the ground and it was a full moon, so when we woke up (practically in the middle of the night), the moon was so bright and it reflected off the snow so we did not need our headlamps to hike. We could see the whole spectrum of mountains perfectly in the moonlight (Everest, Nuptse, Pumori, etc)!
Clear view of Everest (mid-peak, darker than the others) and Nuptse (high peak on the right) in the moonlight just before sunrise
View of Pumori
Hiking up Kala Patthar like a heard of cattle
Me and Gene with Everest behind us (middle peak)
Govi - where is your pink hat!
View from the top (1.5 hours later)
Travis, Gene, and I (and Travis's porter on the far left)
Govi climbed up to this icy peak at the top of Kala Patthar.
And the sun finally rises above Everest
View of the mountain range as we head back down to Gorak Shep
Gene, me, and Jin, one of our friends from Shanghai
This is the view looking back towards to the top of Kala Patthar at Pumori as we were hiking back down to Gorak Shep. You can see Gene at the bottom of the picture as he hikes down. It kind of looks like he's skiing.
No comments:
Post a Comment