Lobuche to Gorak Shep

Well after almost 12 days of trekking and gradual acclimatisation we are due to arrive at Base Camp tomorrow. Everyone is looking forward to the next stage of this epic journey. Not least because we are all getting fed up of living out of a bag that has to be repacked most mornings! 

 We woke this morning to 10 cm of snow on the ground and thick cloud. We certainly couldn't have done yesterday's walk in today's weather. 

 The walk up to Gorak Shep is only a couple of hours or so although we made a detour to have a look at the Italian Research Station. This is a pyramid shaped building that was built 21 years ago by the Italian government originally to confirm the heights of Everest and K2. Nowadays it is available to any research institute wishing to undertake scientific research into any subject that would benefit from being undertaken in such a location. It's no longer limited to just high altitude research. 

The track up to Gorak Shep narrows after Lobuche and seemed even narrower in the snow as we made way for the numerous porters and yaks making their way to EBC. There's no doubting the popularity of this route. 

Today's ascent was only a couple of hundred metres and it was nice to arrive at our lodge in high spirits and with relative ease compared to our previous two days. 

Things only got better when Phil proudly shouted out ' my dongle is working!'. Not to be confused with an anatomical euphemism those of the IT generation will know this meant Ncell had repaired the mobile mast. Once again we had an Internet connection!