Early in the morning, most of our group woke up to climb Kala Pattur, 5550m (18,209ft), which would give you great views of Everest and the other surrounding mountains at sunrise. It is the highest one can climb without a permit. Due to not dying to feel altitude sickness again any time soon, I opted to stay in bed a bit. A few of our group also opted to rent donkeys to take them up so left a little earlier than the hikers. I woke up around 6, intending to go outside and get some decent photos in peace and at my own pace.... but the weather was not good - it was very overcast and seemed quite windy.
Apparently, this was exactly the case. Not everyone summited and those who did had no view - they quickly took a group photo at the marker and raced back down. Two that rode the donkeys returned before submitting (the donkeys only go so high and you have to hike a bit more), apparently since they were more or less stationary on the donkeys instead of getting the juices flowing, they were pretty much popsicles and unable to go on. A third
guy toughed out the and was able to summit. So, apparently, I did not miss anything. Not that I am glad, but it makes it easier for me to handle not attempting.
We waited, and waited, and waited some more! The weather did not just affect our hike, it also affected the safety of flying to get us. room was freezing as most tea houses did not start the stove until when they expected people to start arriving. We played some cards. We sat. We chatted. We went through our photos. I wrote in my journal. I read a book. Finally, around lunch time, we ordered some food. D and I split a pizza, which was surprisingly delicious - maybe we were just starving. He and I had not been feeling that great and were worried, but this actually seemed to help. We played some more cards. I napped a bit. We overhead a nearby Malaysian couple trying to order a helicopter as they had altitude sickness; I think originally
they were either supposed to hike down or have a helicopter for another day. They were on the phone quite a bit, at one point, I heard someone say this is not a taxi service. I felt a bit bad for them, but with altitude sickness, while you do just kind of have to suck it up a bit - there are exceptions of course. Our guide said it was most likely due to them having ridden donkeys to EBC the day before - they did not get time to acclimate. Anyway, they seemed pretty miserable, as were we all at this point.
Finally, at 3pm, the door banged up and Sudharsan told yelled time to go, lets go now!. I was reminded of the scene in Aliens when Sgt Apone yells for his team to Move it out move it out move it out! Move it out move it out move it out! So, we popped up quickly and made our way the short hike to the helicopter pad to wait for our rides. Apparently the helicopters had made two earlier attempts to get up here, sitting in Pheriche (that I mentioned on Day 5) waiting for
So we were all ready to board, our luggage waiting on the pad. The first helicopter took two people and a guide from a separate group, while the remaining was just us. We were going to go three at a time to Pheriche first, a place to get to much lower altitude but close enough to hopefully get everyone at least there. Then we would make our way to Lukla, weather permitting. Since me and G were the ones considered ill, we were the first to board. I was actually ok at this point, but the guides wanted me at lower elevation anyway. I was given a water bottle, a candy bar, and a barf bag for G, who actually almost collapsed on the way to the helicopter. Remember, he was the one that good yak food poisoning on Night 2, but toughed it out (also one of the two donkey ride attempts to Kala Pattur). But his collapsing shocked me; he said afterwards, that it was because when the chopper came, he inhaled a bunch of dust from the
swirling air and could not get a breath before boarding.
