7 Gokyo-Ri

I was up at 4:30AM to climb to Gokyo-Ri, but the weather outside was very cloudy and nothing seen beyond the lower 100M of the Hill. Some people had started climbing to Rio and I could see their flashlights moving up the trail on the Gokyo-Ri. I was thinking why are they going? the clouds will not give any good views. Maybe they want to see the Sunrise from behind Mt. Everest and are hoping weather clears by the time they reach the top.

At 6:40AM View outside GH ... snow lying outside and sky overcast cloudy

I decided to stay put and see if the weather clears up later in the morning. Keeping a constant watch on the skies and clouds while having several cups of Coffee and Breakfast too. Even at 8:00AM weather was iffy and I discussed the situation with Bechary and some other trekkers hanging around in the Dining Hall. General consensus was to just wait and see if weather will clear not start until we are sure of weather clearing.

Around 10AM it looked like weather is clearing and we could see patches of blue sky. We decided to start the climb and hope by the time we reach the top in 3-4 hours it will be better and sunny. We set out to the North edge of the lake where the water is there but only inches shallow and there are stepping so stones to reach the base of the Hill. We start climbing by 10:15AM. The trail is mostly clear and snow lying around in patches only. Not a problem to walk up; as multiple bunched up trails are clearly visible. It is a steep climb and required us top to take stop for a few minutes rest every 15-20 minutes. As we climbed up Looking down at Gokyo Village was an awesome surreal sight. Weather was clearing up too.

At 1:20PM we are close to the top now ... see the Prayer flags at the top

Mt. Everest is the black peak to the left ... Lhoste & Nuptse to the right

It was exhilarating standing on top of Gokyo-Ri. Especially for me to have finally completing a dream that took 12 years to achieve. Bichari and I spent 15 minutes there taking many pictures. It was quite sunny by the time we had reached and mostly blue skies as can be seen in the pictures.

We got clear views of all snow peaks to heart's content. There were soem 8-10 other trekkers at the Ri all walking around excited and finding various new camera angles while hopping around the piles of rocks and boulders on top of the narrow ridges there and few short side ridges. The view in all directions were fabulous. Also met the solo Jap on top .. who has been keeping a daily schedule similar to mine since the time we first met in the Namche Lodge.

We started climbing down at 2 PM. Somewhow we missed the main trail down and strayed into a huge boulder field. Kept going further into that instead of going back. Was difficult to hop around on those boulders and it was scary. I was thinking I will break a leg or ankle.. Somehow we found our way out that of that field and joined the main trail down. We reached

the Teahouse at 4PM, totally exhausted.

The GH Owner had kept my Dal-Bhat Thali ready since 2:00PM. I was not in a mood to eat that cold lunch. So ordered some other hot food for dinner and went to bed early.

Finally, it now time to think and decide something ... that I had kept postponing for last few days ... i.e. whether to exit Gokyo via the climb to Rhenjo_La Pass .... OR just walk back down the same way I had come via Machermo & Dole?

At 9:30AM Gokyo-Ri top is now seen ...still clouds are there

11:45AM - About halfway up (i.e. about 400M) the Ngozumba Glacier now appears

very massive .... behind the now very small Gokyo Teahouses! (click on image)

At 12:35PM looking back after 2.5 hours of climbing ... top still ahead

Finally at the Gokyo-Ri top at 1:45PM .... took me 3.5 hours to climb

Started going down at 2:00 PM