Travel to Nepal, Gorak Shep.

This trek had two main objectives, firstly to reach Everest Base Camp itself, and secondly to reach the summit of Kala Pattar in order to see the 'classic' view of Everest. We achived the first objective yesterday and the intention today was to achieve the second and then begin the return journey to Lukla.

It is generally considered that the best view of Everest from Kala Pattar is around sunrise. In theory Everest can be viewed from there at anytime but in the afternoon it is more likely to be clouded over and therefore the best chance of a good view is early morning. For this reason we were woken at 4am and dressed and met down in the dining room for a cup of tea at 04:30. At 04:45 we left the lodge wearing head torches to attempt to climb Kala Pattar. Kala Pattar is actually part of the much larger mountain of Pumo Ri (7165m) but because it has its own obvious summit (5600m), it can be considered a peak on its own as well. Th walk starts by crossing the cricket pitch-sized very dry powdery mud flat immediately in front of the lodge; after that it is a continuous steady uphill climb. Another group had obviously set out about 30 minutes ahead of us as we could clearly see the lights from their head torches. Passing them before we had been walking for an hour was a psychological boost and we eventually got to the summit at 06:15, just one and a half hours later which we considered quite good. The temperature had been quite mild when we set off but with the exposure at the summit it was now very cold and I was wearing gloves for the first time during the whole trek. The temperature also discouraged us from staying very long at the top and we started descending 15 minutes later. Despite the cold, by the time we got to the summit it was now broad daylight and the views were truly spectacular. There was the slight disappointment that most of Everest itself was obscured by cloud, but the views generally definitely made the morning's excursion definitely worthwhile.

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