Kaume - Dobato

We are woken by the hustle and bustle of the cook boys in the room below preparing breakfast. The smell of un-burnt fuel pierces our noses and hastens our waking moments. Standing on the bedroom balcony of the lodge we see a dusting of fresh snow on the ground and the porters already loading themselves up and continuing the ascent over the brow of the hill. We all sat down for a giant breakfast of porridge followed by cheese omelette – a good way to start the day as we have some tough trekking ahead of us. As we all left the lodge I was asked to see one of the cook boys of our team. He was complaining of severe abdominal pain and had been taking aspirin to control the pain. After a brief history and examination I diagnosed stomach inflammation (gastritis) or more seriously an ulcer. I explained, with the help from a Sherpa, that he should stop taking the aspirin as they were making his symptoms worse. I felt that he should head down to see his doctor in Sedua and not continue with the trek in as if his condition worsened he would be in serious trouble. The cook then packed his kit and trekked off downhill without question. It is imperative that anyone with ongoing unstable medical complaints is removed from the team as we don’t have enough medical supplies to treat them and should their condition worsen it would be detrimental to their health.

Following that little interlude we set off in the wake of the porters. The route upwards was as beautiful as we’d seen so far with amazing views into the Makalu valley and over to the Kanchenjunga range on the eastern Nepali border. The snow was still underfoot as we ascended up towards the famous Shipton La at approximately 4100m. Here we stopped for a few minutes to admire the imposing snow-capped peaks. We were surrounded by lakes and rivers as we continued on the undulating route and the cloud steadily started to build around us. Suddenly the heavens opened and we were pounded by hail and snow for the final 45 minutes of the trek. On arrival at Dobato our tents had already been pitched and bowls of steaming hot noodle-soup were waiting. It’s the simple things that improve morale massively on the hard trek in. After demolishing dinner we all headed to bed for an early night in anticipation of further hard trekking over the next few days.