Day 18 -- October 15 => Dingboche Acclimitization Day

Today's playground above Dingboche

Today was our second acclimitization day of the trek, spent in Dingboche (4252m/13,950'). After breakfast, everyone gathered their climbing equipment (sans helmet, ice axe) and we headed up to a small rock wall about ten minutes above our campsite in Dingboche. Pemba, our climbing sherpa, went above the wall to fix the ropes for practicing our rapelling technique.

Sarah giving the wall a workout

Island Peak (6189m/20,305'); Cho Polu (6734m/22,093') behind.

Our playground above Dingboche gave us nice views of the west face of Island Peak, our objective 7 days from now.

Sarah starting her rappel, Pemba with a watchful eye. Dingboche below.

Although it was a beautiful sunny day, there was a strong chilly wind blowing up across the rappel station. Lal and Pemba took turns assisting us with preparing for the rappel. Lal didn't take his jacket up with him the first time, so after a while he hunkered down between some rocks to get out of that nasty wind. He didn't forget his jacket the next time he came up!

Yours truly showing how it's done!

This was the first time I had ever rapelled in my life and I chose to do it at 4300m/14,100'! I don't know why I hadn't done it sooner -- it was a lot of fun. I joked that we move on to a bigger wall a bit higher up!

We also practised using the jumar (mechanical ascender) to get up to the rappel section. As I would learn later on Island Peak, this practice was a walk in the park compared to the true effort required up a snow slope with crampons on.

After four ascents with the jumar and four rappels, that was it for me and everyone else. Back to camp around noon for lunch shortly thereafter. The afternoon was free to relax, do some laundry, catch up on my journal and enjoy the afternoon sun. Some people took a shower but us Jiri walk-ins held firm to our no shower vigilance. By 4pm tea time, the clouds had thickened up, the temperature dropped noticeably, and any thoughts of sunset pictures were quashed.

Day 17 - Phortse to Dingboche Day 19 - Dingboche to Dughla

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Created: December 22, 2002