Everest marathon 18th November

It was an early cold start with "bed tea" and getting the bags ready before breakfast.  We both felt a bit groggy probably due to the cold night and lack of sleep. Breakfast of porridge, egg, toast and peanut butter set us up for a trip to the monastery to see the Yeti skull. The only problem was that the Lama was nowhere to be seen. We waited in the sun for a few minutes before heading down to the path to Mong La- without seeing the Yeti skull! We were led by Sherpas who made sure we did not get lost and another Sherpa brought up the tail. It was quite crowded and quiet a climb up to the pass. Apparently this was the birthplace of Lama Serge Dorje who brought bhuddism to the Khumbu valley. We had a nice relaxing cup of tea in a tea house at Mong La before making a steep decent down to Phortse Tenga where we had a lovely picnic lunch in a meadow by the river.  After lunch we had a hard hard climb of about 400 metres to our camp at Dole. This took about 90 minutes through a rhododendron  forest and past frozen waterfalls. Quite a few people suffered on the way including Mark who we walked with in the morning. The campsite was cold and felt colder than the night before but at least the stove in the lodge was alight to keep us warm. We had pasta for supper that was a nice change from dhal bhat.  We felt really tired so headed for bed in our tent by 8.15. The night was not as cold as we had feared and we both slept reasonably.

Our group.