If we had known what the day was going to hold we probably would have planned things differently. We left Thare (4390m) at about 8am and made the long walk along the East side of the Dudh Koshi River Valley past dozens of yak stations and grazing villages. Steadily gaining altitude to about 4500m where we hit snow. Endless snow. It was beautiful, but it was deep so it took a lot of energy to get through.
We continued to climb to Dragnag (4700m) which we reached at about 2pm. Dragnag is located right where the Cho La pass comes down from the mountains (the pass we wanted to take after Everest Base Camp). The town is also right on the edge of the Ngozumba Glacier - which we were planning to cross. The Glacier is just over 1km wide so we figured it would only take an hour or so to cross (boy were we wrong).
After a quick cup of lemon tea at Dragnag we set off North along the lateral moraine of the glacier (the side). It took about an hour to get to a point where we could cut across the glacier and after climbing down into it we realized quickly that the traverse was sure to be rough.
Not only did we have to worry about falling rocks, underground rivers, ice, lakes and crevasses but there was also a 5ft dump of snow which literally covered everything.
We set across carefully following tracks and rock cairns but it wasn't long before we both took the first of many (many many many) falls into the deep snow. Each time it felt like large stores of our energy was being stolen away... It was hard to say the least.
We passed some amazing blue and steel grey lakes but the whole time we were kept on edge by the groaning and cracking of the glacier which did not let us get complacent at all. Rocks were constantly falling, we kept slipping into the snow and all the while the glacier moaned at us like a sleeping dragon.
We finally made it to the other side only to find that the moraine was more difficult to climb than anything we had faced yet. It was sharp and snowy and we were drained of all our energy. It took about 30 minutes to get up the 30m high moraine but when we reached the top we felt like we had achieved a great feat. In total it took just on 3 hours to get across.
A 30 minute walk found us at Gokyo and what a sight it was to behold. Surrounded by multiple 5000m and 6000m peaks Gokyo is located right on the edge of a beautiful blue lake named Dudh Pokhari. It really did look incredible to our tired eyes (and our energetic eyes the next morning) . Finding new energy we pretty much flew to the lodge nearest the lake and were amazed to hear that a double room would only cost us 100/- which is just on $1. Done.
We had a big meal and then headed to bed, exhausted after nearly 9 hours of trekking.
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