Day 9: Pangboche to Dingboche

Todays trek would take us from 12,665ft/3,860m to 14,305ft/4,360m.
A cloudy and overcast start to the day with, of course, a steep climb out of the village. Quite soon there was a great change in the landscape, it was how I had imagined the higher regions of the Himalayas. As we climbed above the tree line it was very bleak with large rocks & boulders scattered over the terrain.
After spotting a few flakes of snow, we joked about being snowbound, but soon saw that it wasn't a joke and it really was snowing in earnest. Fortunately it was only a 4 hour trek today and we found our lodge for the night before the snow really started to accumulate.
When we entered the main room of the lodge there was a French team already warming themselves and alarmingly one of their guys was in an inflatable decompression chamber!

The team had been put together by the Chairman of the French football league and made up of teenagers from difficult backgrounds in the Paris area. Unfortunately their team doctor had already fallen ill a few days before and another of their team taken to the hospital over the mountain in Periche by horseback. Despite all this the team were in high sprits and entertained us all as we tried to keep warm.

You can read read more about the Expedition Fraternite on their FaceBook page.

Over the next 6 hours the snow accumulated about 4inches, under normal circumstances this shouldn't be a major problem (especially in Boston!), but we were told that the next days forecast was for more snow and it would make our days trek to Loubuche risky and treacherous. We agreed to review the situation in the morning, but the reality of not going any further was a very disappointing  and not something to try and sleep on.