Day 8

Base Camp to Glacier 16,404 to about 17,000 feet!!!

It just about rained/snowed all night long! Everything was wet. We had tea and breakfast, but decided to wait a bit before heading up to the glacier to practice with crampons and ice axes! During this time, all the climbing gear was assembled and ropes tied.

When we left, it was still misting and cloudy. We climbed up to a ridge and followed the ridge line. Below us was a turquoise lake that was still partially frozen. We headed back down towards the lake and then up towards the glacier. The whole hillside seemed a scree field where either scree or large rocks could come down at any time. The going was tough along these huge rocks. When we finally got to the base of the glacier, we strapped on crampons and fixed into the line and used our ascenders to help us at the hill.

"Rock!!" I hear and look up and see this large rock heading down the side of the glacier and no one knew which way it would go! It could have wiped out a bunch of people (although we were all paying attention), but it chose to get hung up before it traveled very far. The line got to about 17,000 feet and the weather started getting bad. The wind came up and the snow started to fall. Everyone headed back down quickly to the rocks, took off climbing gear, and stored it in bags among the rocks. We headed out once again for camp across the unstable trail - down and up - until we finally arrived in camp. During the walk, we heard at least 2 rocks from the glacier crash into the lake below. Thank goodness they were on the other side of the lake.

Once back at camp, we ate and then practiced using the ascenders and rappelling down the hillside right by camp. This was to get us all ready for the big ascent to High Camp and then the summit of Ramdung the next day!

During the night, it pretty much rained the whole time. I could hear rock slides or avalanches coming down at least twice. However, in our little bowl, we were safe and sound!