Day 8 - Chuckung (4,750 mtrs)

This is the first properly cold morning. The condensation on the window has frozen pretty solidly but luckily we are still moving up the valley pretty slowly and so we have another relaxed start with breakfast at 9am. I have struggled with the amount of sugar and grease in most of the breakfast dishes so far and go for a cheese sandwich this time - this is actually really good. Decent bread, plenty of strong melted nak cheese and some potatoes from last night that you can pop into the sandwich to offset the strong cheese. The late start also allows a bit more time to dry our clothes from the wash yesterday as we have the usual blue sky and strong sun in the morning. 

As we head up the valley we get changing views of the mountains

but the valley floor gets pretty barren with only a sparse covering of gorse and some very tough, dry grass.

 It has continued to get colder up the valley and there is now widespread snow. For the first time I put on a second layer after a longish rest when we only have about 20 mins to go. 

We get to our teahouse in time for lunch and I lead a mini revolt against fried vegetarian food and a couple of us have rather good 'meat' curry and boiled rice. Even better is the chilli sauce they have which is both tasty and really rather hot. 

After lunch we brave the usual cloud / mist and significant drop in temperature to play around with ropes for a bit but after about 1.5 hours we retreat to the warmth of the teahouse for cards / reading / chatting etc. Supper is a mushroom and garlic soup then a large plate of spaghetti in tomato sauce and a rather large spring roll. We are heading up Island Peak in about 30 hours from now it is time to start carbo loading!

After supper we are playing cards in the common room when all of a sudden the porters / guides start getting out pillows and duvets to make little beds on the benches and someone then 'accidentally' turns the lights off and on - we take the hint and retire to bed.