September 26, 2006 - Rest Day in Pheriche

This is Leila Silveira reporting from Pheriche. Yesterday we awoke in Pangboche to lots of rain.  We decided to take the morning off since the hike to Pheriche is a short one, approximately 3 hours long at a slow pace.  It was a good decision because at around 2:00pm the rain suddenly stopped.  We arrived in Pheriche to find other trekkers here that have been stranded for 3 days because of all the snow up higher.  Trekkers woke up to a couple feet of snow outside the lodge so the best thing to do was to rest and relax.

On the trail today we met the yak that we sent a couple of days ago to base camp.  They had dropped the supplies to Gorak Shep, the last small village before base camp and then came back down the valley.  The snow up there was up to their waist so going all the way to base camp was not an option.  They tried to go back up today to pick up the supplies and bring them all the way to base camp but the snow was still too deep.

Our team has been really lucky.  I’m afraid that if we had experienced the deep snow we would have had to delay our trip an extra day as well.  We woke today to a clear sky and at our lodge everyone could not wait to start moving so now we have the lodge to ourselves.  Everyone is doing great, healthy, well acclimatized and after a quick check with my pulse oximeter last night, I’m happy to say that their oxygen saturation is excellent.

Today is a rest day in Pheriche and every member can do what ever they want today.  Jim decided to rest and walk around the village as well as do some laundry, actually he is doing his first alpine laundry ever!  He has always used washing machines so watching him with his Woolite packages supplied by Lauren Boni, wife of one of our Everest climbers and who helped Jim get ready, was priceless.

The other members went for a short hike and as soon as they got back and saw that Jim was doing laundry they decided that was a good idea and soon began washing their own clothes.

After lunch we went to the HRA where they had a lecture on high altitude sickness.  As I mentioned everyone is doing well and tomorrow we will leave Pheriche and trek toward Lobuche.

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