Day 8: Dingboche

Hiking time: 4 hours

After taking in the splendor of the high Himalayas, we’ll continue climbing to the village of Pheriche (13,907 ft./4248m), which is not far from Dingboche (a village en route to Island Peak). Pheriche has become famous for its high-altitude medical clinic. The clinic attracts world-renowned physicians who from time to time acquire data to analyze the effects of high altitude on human physiology. We’ll visit the clinic and learn more about the effects of high altitude on Himalayan climbers. We’ll also spend an additional day further acclimatizing and hiking.

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Update from the Team:

6 miles and a roughly 2,400 ft ascent brought us to the lovely town of Dingboche at 14,300 ft elevation for two nights! While we’re still holding out for a blue bird day, today was pretty glorious with many audibly “WOWs!” around each bend. The skies met us this morning with a light snow as we left Deboche and did it make for some glorious sites our eyes are still trying to process. We laughed that we’re out of adjectives to describe the glory beheld by our eyes! Today’s trail greeted us a bit more friendly than yesterday’s constant switchbacks and the sun peeked out at lunch to overall give it a “this has been my favorite day of trekking so far!” reviews from the crew. The effort is there and our bodies has been adjusting well to the altitude! The temps are getting colder and the air is getting thinner which must mean we’re getting closer and closer to our goal of reaching Base Camp and Kala Patthar (and the availability of amenities reflects that too!). Tomorrow we will do a short, but steep day hike to help the bodies acclimate before we head to 16,000 ft in Lobuche on Monday. We are excited to spend some time in Dingboche tomorrow afternoon as we’ve heard some of their bakeries are quite impressive for baking at 14,000 ft. 

We gave Uno a break tonight and broke open Monopoly Deal with Reb taking the leader board first. Between a little friendly competition and team voted trail nicknames, it’s always something something special when you want to keep hanging out with the people you spend all day on the trail with. That’s the magic of adventure and doing hard things in wild, remote places with others (who we’re only a few days ago strangers!).