Nangkartshang Hike

After going to bed feeling awful, with bad stomach cramps and loose bowels, I woke up feeling ok. I only got 6 hours 37 mins sleep which I knew was not enough. At 6:15am, there was some poor person vomiting badly on and off for 15 minutes. I thought to myself, things could be worse.

I decided not to have breakfast this morning, because of my poorly tummy. I know I often do better when I starve a tummy bug. We left around 8:30am and started our hike up to 5000m to help acclimatise. There was a long line of base camp trekkers and also people doing the acclimatisation hike too. But after 10 mins the queue dissipated as a lot of the trekkers continued on the EBC route.

The hike up felt tough. I remember it being hard last year, but I felt like my fitness was better last year which was odd considering I had put some much work into my fitness over the last 18 months. But it’s hard to compare really, and I am sure I must be fitter than 18 months ago, although I am older now. We got to the top, at 5080m, and I waited up here for over an hour to try to get my body used to being at 5000+. We had taken the hike up quite slow for what I would consider my normal pace. I also took the hike down slowly too, to maximise time at altitude. The hike down felt significantly easier than the hike up. I noticed a mild headache on the way down.

We got back to Dingboche around lunchtime. I didn’t eat lunch to continue starving any bugs. I headed upstairs and did some admin.

At 4pm, I went to meet Dhanu at Café 4410 but he was with friends, so we didn’t actually sit together. I ordered a fresh orange juice, pack of salted peanuts, and carrot cake. I felt it was time now to start eating something.

Went back to the lodge, and had some food around 7:30pm – chicken steak with potatoes and rice. It wasn’t particularly nice but it was ok. The chicken they did yesterday was much nicer and on a bone.

Went to bed around 9:45pm and found it hard to drift off to sleep. There was cigarette smoke drafting in my room, I think from the room next to me (even though there is a notice saying no smoking in the rooms). Or it might have been smoke from the yak dung heater in the common area. Took two ibuprofens. Anyway, opened some windows, got some air in, closed them and went to sleep.

Stats
Weight: 69.50kg
Fat: 13.2%
Muscle: 80.8%
Visceral fat: 2.3
Resting heart rate: 72
Nerve health: 88
SpO2: 82%
Altitude: 4352m
Sleep last night: 6hrs 37
Elevation gain: 879m