Day 20: Pangboche - Dole

At first light it did not look good outside as it had rained overnight and we were completely socked in. Spent some time in the morning humming and hawing about what to do. Sara said she felt better although she still had a low grade fever, so after a "test" walk out of town we decided to continue towards Machermo.

The map showed the trail to Phortse as flat, with a minimal altitude difference between Pangboche and Phortse. BUT, the trail is definitley NOT flat - excpet perhaps "Nepali flat". There are a ton of ups and downs. Every time you gain 50 or 100 meters you have to give it back. It is quite a trail with steep drops (see pics) concealed by the ever present clouds, which block out all chance of seeing where you are going. In fact we almost walked right by Phortse (3,810m) without knowing it was there.


After 2 1/2 hours we stumbled upon Phortse and then debated whether or not we should stay on this side of the valley heading up to Gokyo, or walk all the way down to the river (about a 300+m drop) and then all the way back up (600+ m) the other side to get on the main trail towards Dole. Our guide was none too keen on staying on this side, and as the rescue station, should we need it, was on the other side, we decided to cross over. Phortse itself is a nice town, probably the nicest we saw on the upper part of the trek with a wide variation in building styles spread out over quite a large quasi flat area.

Sara had a lot more energy today and seemed to get stronger as the day went on. The really amazing part of the day was the 600m climb up towards Dole (4,200m) from the river, most of which was straight up. Somehow we managed it without hardly getting out of breath. We must really be in good shape, and the lower altitude is helping a lot as well.

Stayed at a large rambling mostly empty place, the Alpine Inn, at Dole. Although we saw a lot of people heading down, there did not seem to be many people heading up - maybe we were hitting the hole in the parade of groups. Had fried tuna mo-mos for dinner which were surprisingly good. Sara had steamed mo-mos but found them almost impossible to eat. The problem was the kerosene water again. The guesthouse, like most, uses old kerosene plastic jugs to transport water from the water tap to the inn. Well Sara said the steamed mo-mos tasted just like kerosene - yuk! Sample prices here: milk tea 40Rs, cheese momos 200Rs, Dahl Bhat 300Rs, porridge 150Rs, fried noodle 210Rs, pancake with jam 150Rs, and fried potatoes with veg 200Rs.

Pic is looking back down the valley from Dole towards Phortse. If you look closely you can see the trail down to the river.