For the first time it’s below freezing in my room when l wake up but I can see through the window that the sun is out. Time to rise and shine!

The trail goes up directly from the village and then starts contouring along the ridge line while occasionally stepping up ten or twenty meters. The air is clear and the views breathtaking. Slowly I go up but even so it takes me only three hours before I reach Machermo. Lunch is egg fried rice and the funny thing is when you’re food arrives it come straight from the fire and is piping hot, the plate and utensils, however, have been standing somewhere in the kitchen at ambient temperature that your knife and fork can give you frostbite! Later in the afternoon the clouds roll in again. Pretty much par for the course out here.

Im alone all afternoon but around 5pm a group of Chinese trekkers comes in and they are the same ones that flew on my flight out from Kathmandu. They look shattered. This morning they got up early to climb Gokyo Ri and this afternoon in the clouds and cold they walked from Gokyo to here. None of them look young and at least half of them are older then me.