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We were woken up by knocks on the door. It was 4am and it was Lakpa who was going to tell us if the weather allows our last event of the trip - summitting Kala Patther.
Unfortunately, after one night of heavy snow the weather did not improve and it was still very cloudy around the area (Gorak Shep, where we stayed the night after reaching EBC; Everest; Kala Patther). As such, we decided not to summit. Frankly, the weather would not have prevented us from summitting KP but the whole point of doing this gruelling climbe (3 full hours of 60 degree up climbe) was to see top of Everest at sun rise. Since summitting would only enable us to see tons of dark clouds, which we see plenty in London, we decided to trek back to Lobuche slowly and take in the view along the way, which was magnificent after a night of snow.
Although the trek was short (about 3 hours), it was extremely slippery. So slippery that it was actually easier to trek up than down the mountain. Good thing is that I had no problems with altitude. A lot of people could not sleep at night due to thin air but fortunately I didn't have any problems. In fact, it didn't take much effort to breath during the sleep.
After arriving at Lobuche, we sat in the dining room and had some very stimulating conversations about our experiences in this trek, cultures, politics and economics with the owner of the Lodge and an American guy who spent two years working for Microsoft in Shanghai. The topics may seem dry but these are pretty much what you talk about in the mountains when you meet people from all over the world! I was very surprised at how fluent local people are in English and how updated they are with current affairs.
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