Dingboche - 14,290 Ft.

The skies were cloudy this morning so unfortunately the views weren't specatcular. Pangboche is the best point for views of Ama Dablam, one of the most picturesque mountains in the Himalayas, so I was really hoping for nice, clear skies today, but no such luck. Maybe on the way down the weather will be more fortunate.

Min, Pemba the porter, and I left at about 7:00 to hike to Dingboche. The scenery changed quickly as we rose above the tree line. The pine trees and rododenderon disappered and were replaced by wide brown plains with occasional grass or shrubs covering the ground. I'm a little frustrated because I know that everywhere we are hiking the world's most incredible mountains are towering overhead, but I can't see any of them because of the clouds. Today the sun broke through the fog and the sky was even pretty clear for a while, but a ring of clouds covered the edges of the valley and only allowed occasional glimpses of the snowy mountains above. The best view of the day was of a mountain named Thamserku. I never got a clear view of the whole thing, but every once in a while the clouds would clear away from the top of Thamserku and for a few seconds I could see perfectly to the top of it.
I checked into my room at the Himalayan Lodge in Dingboche, crashed onto the bed, and slept for two or three hours. When I got up I wandered into the kitchen of the lodge where Min and Pemba were having a meal with the owner of the place. Lunch for them was a few dusty potatoes and a pile of fried pickle shards. The offered me some but I declined and munched on my peanut butter cookies that I brought from Kathmandu. The three of them invited me to join them and I sat and ate my cookies in the kitchen that looked like a blacksmith's shop as they all jabbered away in Nepali.

This afternoon I hiked up to an old stupa overlooking the Dingboche valley. There's not a whole lot to see in Dingboche and the stupa is in pretty bad shape, but at the same time that's what gives it it's character. To me the stupa was symbolic of this part of the Himalayas - cold and desolate, deteriorating, and completely subjected to the elements.
Dinner was rice and dahl again. The local Nepali fare is dirt cheap up here and it's also the best tasting stuff around. The menus at all the lodges are nearly identical and most of them feature Western dishes such as pizza and spaghetti as well, but the Nepali interpretation of a Western dish can sometimes be very different than mine. It's best to stick with what the Nepali people know, and they know their rice and dahl.

Over dinner I chatted with Min about some of the nearby peaks. I asked how difficult it is to hike Island peak, which is very near Dingboche. Min said that a return trip could be done in ten hours, and even offered to take me tomorrow. I'd love to climb a peak in the Himalayas while I'm up here, but a permit from the Nepali government is required to climb each one of them. Min told me that if we got caught climbing Island Peak without a permit then at the very least I'd be fined 700 US dollars and Min would be sent to a Nepali jail (not a happy place). He offered to take me anyway, but I decided that wouldn't be a very prudent decision. Sometime, years from now, I'll come back to the Himalayas and climb to the top of one or two of the smaller peaks up here.