October 16, Rongphu Monastery

We travelled over 2 passes measured at 5200 meters and 5220 meters to Rongphu Monastery. One of the passes showed 4 of the world's 14th tallest peaks. Everest, Lhotse, and I'm not sure on the other two names, but have a photo of them.

Accomodations at the Monastery Guest House were very basic - 4 people to a room, broken windows, and cots. Upon arrival we walked to look at Everest and sat down to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous and very impressive. That night after dinner in a common room at the guest house we played Show, talked with other trekkers and cyclists from around the world and then went to sleep. We slept at 4950 meters and were the only ones of the group who really got any sleep. The next morning we started hiking at 8:30 AM to Everest Base Camp. It was very cold. The water froze in our water bottles on the way there. It was 8 km each way and as I wrote earlier, we made it in record time. We took a lot of photos and a video of us hanging/tying our katjia (white prayer flags we were given on arrival into Lukla) on a pole marking Everest Base Camp. It was very exciting and the Tibetan people cheered us as soon as they realized what we were doing.

We all had lunch at the Hotel California. Surprisingly there are quite a number of tents at EBC where you can get meals and even stay the night. According to the Lonely Planet, this is quite different from the Nepali EBC that notes only having trash from previous expeditions. The tea house, Hotel California was named after a few trekkers who passed through years ago that were from California. Our entire group was able to hike up which was impressive. About 2/3 of us hiked back down - a few hopped in a horse draw carriage. Once back at the Monastery we all hopped back into the Land Cruisers and headed for Tingri.