Fri 6^th April 2012  Pheriche 4240m

Today is a rest day.

Last night the financial aspect of my divorce was completed so the divorce really became final. I am sure it’s a weight off both mine and Sarah’s shoulders. Relief, but a tinge of sadness too. I hope we can both get on with our lives and establish a good working relationship, for the sake of our children as well as each other.

A few beers were consumed. Four and half small cans of lager and a small scotch. At 14,000ft that’s a skinful! Awoke with a slight headache but whether it was the alcohol, the altitude or the smoke from the fires that they start at 5.30 am and which invades the sleeping area, I couldn’t tell.

Breakfast is at 8am....luxury!

I spend most of the day catching up on my Blog and emails. Damn it, had a few emails saying you are enjoying the Blog it so will have to keep going with the blasted thing!

No mobile service so I can’t email the photos from my phone, to my computer and then onto the Blog until I get to Everest Base Camp on Monday.

Just outside the Internet Cafe I am camped in there is a memorial and a plaque with the names of  all of those would have fallen in their summit bid. It’s the one you don’t want your name on!

Overnight it has snowed a couple of inches, but the sun is soon out and as the snow starts to melt we are treated to a view of our first ‘training’ peak, Lobuche East Summit at 6119m (approx 20,000ft).

As part of the acclimatisation process we need to go slowly to ever higher heights but as the most dangerous part of the Everest climb is the transit through the Khumbu Icefield, this expedition minimises this risk by climbing Lobuche twice, including a night camped at the top on the second climb. This means that we only go through the Icefield four times rather than eight, thus reducing this particular risk by half.

So I was expecting Lobuche to be something of a gentle, rounded, snowy hillock at 6,000m.

What on Earth was I thinking? Where on this trip have we seen anything apart from fearsome, steep, pointy summits? Lobuche is no exception. From Pheriche the mountain looks horrendous. I want to go home.....NOW.... I don’t want to climb that ruddy thing ‘twice’!

All my psychological preparations are shattered. It’s a proper scary mountain in its own right. I have been totally misold, I want my money back and a chopper.....and I want the chopper NOW! 

I am not a climber; I am a pansy property developer. What was I thinking? I consult my colleagues and the guides; there is no comfort from them. ’Yer, it’s pretty steep, pretty technical’ muses Woody the Kiwi guide.

Bollocks, I suppose I have to take a lesson from these wounded soldiers, grit my teeth, stop being a complete Nancy and get on with it.

I go to bed ... worried!