Thursday 8 November 2001

An earlier breakfast this morning at 0730 hours, before we left the hotel by jeep at 0815 hours. We visited a Buddhist Monastery before heading for Uttarey (2685 metres) which was the end of the road and the start of the trek. Here we met up with the porters, kitchen staff, yak men and sherpas led by Tashi (Wangail Soth Tashi) who was to be the local leader.

Our bags were packed onto the yaks and we set off through the woods on the start of the hike. Originally we were to start elsewhere but due to problems between the Nepalese and Indians this wasn’t possible. The trek was led by a sherpa and around 1200 hours we stopped for lunch. Other sherpas were positioned throughout the group thus allowing us to walk at our own pace. I was normally up front, in the first four, with Rex and a sherpa taking up the rear.

After lunch we continued uphill, slightly steeper now but with no real problems, to a small grassy plateau at Chitre (2685 metres) where the tents had already been pitched. We had hot orange, a briefing, and allocated our sleeping quarters. I was very fortunate as I was allocated a two-man tent for my own use as Ian, whom I shared with in the hotels, had paid for single occupancy. The rest of the party were paired up. We had some hot chocolate and then sorted out our gear.

Dinner was in the mess tent at 1830 hours and was followed by another briefing before we retired at 2000 hours.

The weather that day was sunny periods then clouding over with some rain, thunder and lightning around 1800 hours.

Ascent for the day was 765 metres with a descent of 45 metres. Maximum altitude was 2680 metres.