Our 'High'light - Cho La Pass

This is the day we've been dreading - Cho La Pass!

We are down to two guides and a porter now. Dambar is the lead, and Naran backup, although he still ports. We obviously impressed them as our set off time has been moved back from 4am to 5, which we are very happy about!

A quick brekkie and we are on the trail, in the freezing cold and just the light from the stars. As is the norm, as the villages are in valleys, its a climb to start and today it continues for a couple of hours. We reach the ridge and look across the valley, and there looks to be absolutely no way through there but we are assured there is!

The climb starts normal enough, heading for this wall of a hanging valley. Then we spot a small trail up the edge of the cliff face. It is brutally steep, with steel cables for a lot of it. After a couple of hours of hard slog we finally reach the top, and are rewarded with amazing views down the valley covered in snow.

We put on our crampons and hike about 30 mins across the snow and ice, which is joyful after what came before! Its over all too soon and the crampons are off again, then we ease our way down the gentler slope down the valley. Then up again over the next, and this path seems to go for ever. We eventually stop for lunch at the first place, some 6 and a half hours later (the sign said 8 so we're obviously still on a good pace).

We were all dead on our feet, but some hot food and drink slightly replenished us. We then have a long, long stretch of 'Nepali flat' (up, down, down, up) before we eventually rejoin the main route to EBC, and the extra traffic is noticeable. We eventually crawl exhausted into Labouche, after 10.5 long hours and at least 700m up and down again.Read more