We spent the night the whole team together at 4300 meters without any problems. Aching throats, dripping noses but noone has a really serious problem. As the altitude increased we began to pay attention to each other’s general condition. The appetite, water and etc. fluid consumption, sleep regularity, everything is under control! When we arrive at a new high altitude, we try to spend the first eight hours as active as possible without sleeping. On the second day that we spend at the same altitute, this time we go for a trekking to a higher altitude and come back. Today was our second day at Tingri. We climbed to an elevation close to the town. The physical geography of these places is very interesting, everywhere is dust, there are neighter trees nor plants around. Around this huge dust plateau there are summits around 5000 meters high, and at the furthest away, as you know, majestic Everest and its high neighbours.

Today we climbed a summit around 5000 meters, and we spent lots of time around 4700 meters. It was a good training for acclimatizing to the altitude of the base camp which we’ll reach tomorrow. But more important than that, we had an early encounter with something else that waiting us at Everest: The wind! The wind, which started around noon times and didn’t stop the whole day long, was together with us all the time. Its hum pounded our ears, its force beat our bodies. At the very far away, at Everest, the situation didn’t look very different, the wind scattered Chomolungma’s hair the whole day long...

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Photo Gallery :: April 5, 2006  

We saw Everest today! The way from Nyalam to Tingri goes on around an altitude of 4200 meters. There is a 5100 m-long pass on the way. When we came to this pass, we first saw ‘Shishapangma’ from the distance. Afterwards as we were continuing on the high dry, and dusty way, they suddenly appeared opposite to us. We asked our driver, with whom we couldn’t communicate in a common language, by pointing it out. He shook his head and first pointed to the mountain on the right “Cho Yu”, after that he pointed his hand to the one on the left: “Chomolungma”. Even though Everest is yet very far away, it looks pretty majestic and beautiful. We can’t know if it saw us, but we recorded its posture to our memories and took pictures of it.

We arrived at Tingi after a 4 to 5 hours’ trip. Our hotel here is a bit different. 8 people are staying at a place that looks like a room of a village house. The girls are staying at a small motel room that has a separate entrance. The rooms are a bit too ragged and dirty, but whatever, we saw Everest today!

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Photo Gallery :: April 4, 2006