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We were warned today by Lakpa that it would be a hard day of trekking - it really lived up to the expectations! We trekked for about 6 hours to Lobuche (5,000m), during which we had to climb three "hills" and a good one-hour long of "Nepalese flat" trek at the end which was much harder than any other "Nepalese flat" treks that we've done as it was after all those hilly climbes and at 5,000m altitude, which really makes a difference!
We were clearly nowhere near being considered fit as even yaks carrying a hundred kg of goods raced past us!
We did catch up a group of people led by the ex foreign minister of Nepal Mr Shailendra Kumar Ubadhyay, who is at 82 years of age attempting to become the oldest person to summit the tallest mountain in the world. I managed to take a picture with him and spoke to him at lunch in a small but very crowded restaurant im Thukla (I sat next to him!). He was in very high spirit and said that he's climbed a six-thousander and a seven-thousander (couldn't recognise names of those mountains), both of which were more technical than Everest (by the way, despite being the tallest, technical climbers find the likes of K2 more challenging). So he wantes to conquer Sagarmatha (Nepalese for Everest) before too late.
We both left the restaurant at the same time (I had Dalh Bat, a delicious dish that is paked with cab that sherpas eat everyday, for the first time. Pretty good!) and I trekked past him pretty quickly. He had to stop for a rest, clearly old age has taken its toll. Also that big hill was a bit of a b**** to climbe! I said good luck and shoke his hands and moved on (he has a small team of people trekking with him and look after him).
Frankly, I'm not sure if he can make it to the top. But his spirit and determimation are admirable (he's doing it for charity too). Whatever the outcome, I hope he'll come back safely - we just heard that a Japaneae died at the Base Camp. We don't know what happended or if he/she was a trekker or a climber. But we went past a few little memorials along the trek today for people who didn't make their way back from the summit of Everest. One thing the book Into Thin Air said was right: it is ultimately Everest who decides who can summit, not the summitters. After all, at 28,000ft, human determination doesn't count very much. In fact, too much determination goes against summitters - some do not obey the "rule" that however close they are to the summit, they must turn back by 2pm (by 2pm, summitters would have climbed for more than 14 hours from Camp IV) to avoid fatal problems such as insufficient oxygen for the way down, rapidly deteriorating weather etc. We have seen, along the trek, a lot of memorials for people who died on the way down (apparently 1 in 4 summiters die).
Nevertheless, I wish my grandpas were as cool as Mr Ubadhyay so good luck to him!
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