Three Passes Trek Day 11

Three Passes Trek Day 11 - Chukhung to Island Peak base camp (and return). You really know you've reached the cold part of the trek when you wake up to find the drinking water bottle has frozen over and won't pour. IMPORTANT TIP: always order a "large pot" of mint tea or hot water the night before. These 3 litre thermoses stay warm all night, and are great to nix with frozen drinking water or just have straight. Fortunately we already figured this out from our previous trek 6 years ago, so we had it all set up and ready to go. A beautiful 2 hour walk out to Island Peak base camp this morning and slightly shorter coming back, so about 4 hours total including a 20 min stop for breakfast. The environment is becoming increasingly bleak, with grey-gravelly glaciers and moraines forming moonscapes devoid of vegetation. The mountains, as always are still majestic and awe-inspiring. Purih, our porter/guide (more of a guide today as nothing to carry) was able to tell us the names of most of them. He also pointed out a small army post that had been set up to pump water out of a glacial lake to reduce the risk of GLOFs (described earlier).

As we continued on our way to Island Peak base camp I began to feel increasingly weak and found it difficult to progress forward. We nevertheless made it there but I had to sit on a stone bench while Sama and Purih explored higher to view the lake. I only made it through half of my chapati and omelette before feeling too queasy to eat. Somehow stumbled home, which was quite an easy walk with mostly gentle decline, before sleeping for an hour and a half. Woke up feeling groggy and still pretty queasy. Spent most of the afternoon reading and using the wifi to send messages and check news. Wifi adds a whole new dimension to trekking that never existed before, which is nice at times but all the same takes away some of that feeling of being remote and on an adventure. Hopefully I'll be feeling OK tomorrow to go up Chukhung Ri, 5550m, as our last prep before taking on the Kongma La pass.