Tuesday May 26, 2009 - Disappointment

We woke up this morning to heavily falling snow. What a disappointment. No site of Everest or any other mountain. The road to the next base camp is closed, no buses are running because of the storm, and to walk up the 7 km over the snowy-stoney road would be horrendous at 5150 meters above sea level, so, as determined as we were to make the hike, for once, we will take the sensible road. We are stuck at the "New Base Camp" waiting to hear reports on the road back which includes going back over the high pass. We are not sure that the Trucks can make it safely because of the storm. Dan is putting chains on Suzette, but Ian is hesitant to do so on Daphne because of the tyre size. The other group has 3 or 4 people who are not feeling well. During the night one lady had oxygen, one man was being monitored for oxygen, one person was vomiting, and several others were feeling rough. They have a real reason to try to get to lower heights as soon as possible. The real fear is that if the storm sets in, we might be stuck here for the next week, so despite the fact we are all wanting to wait to see if it clears so we can see Everest, our guides are advising us to get out. [We did hear later that a Norwegian climber was stuck on the mountain due to the weather during the time we were at Base Camp.] Our Truck group seems to be holding up quite well with the altitude, and really apart from feeling very out of breath very quickly when you try to walk anywhere fast, Ray and I are generally feeling fine.Dan ended up leaving ahead of us and Ian finished off his never-ending repairs on Daphne. Poor Daphne seems like a tired old lady, gear and clutch problems mainly. Shortly after, in the snow and cold, we set off, a weary disappointed group, happy to be going back to lower heights but desperately sad not to have seen "The Goddess of the Universe", one of the main highlights of the trip.We made it to the bottom of the high pass, and Daphne quit. Ian is so patient. He didn't say a word. He and Tamar quietly got out and set about repariing the problem. I can't imagine what they will say to each other tonight out of the sound of all of us travellers. About an hour later we started our climb in the thick fog, on the snowy and slushy roads. There must have been about a foot of snow, and still snowing. Good Daphne made it up one side of the pass, down the other side, through the valley, and out on to the main road with no further mishaps. Once back on the Friendship Highway, it wasn't long before we had a check-point and a couple of very smart polite young men came on the Truck to check all our passports. After about 1/2 hour we were allowed through and after a short drive arrived at our hotel for the night - Qomo Lang Ma in Baipa. No snow, still cold, but seeming luxury with hot water. We ate dinner and crashed around 10 pm. We certainly can't say this has been a "party" group. But then the past few days have been quite hard on the body and we all, young and old, feel in need of sleep.