Himalayan Odyssey(12)

Thursday 11th October, 2007 (O2 86%, pulse 54)

Woke up tired this morning after a very bad night. I woke up several times during the night literally gasping for breath and it was very uncomfortable. Also had some slight soreness in the upper chest. I'm definitely not looking forward to the stretch from here (Dingboche) to Lobuche which is another 500 metres higher at 4910 metres.

After talking it over with Dominic and Ang Nuru we decided that it would be silly for me to carry on and risk Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) with the early symptoms already well in evidence. If it had been like this yesterday morning and then OK today it would have been adifferent matter. I was happy to go back down to Pangboche by myself with a porter but Dominic decided that he would come with me. I feel bad about him missing out on the ascent of Kala Pattar but it is his decision in the end.

After a light breakfast Dominic and I started back down to Pangboche between 8:30 and 9:00am. It was quite a pleasant walk down but the upper chest soreness made it a bit uncomfortable. This soreness is probably due to irritation of the membranes from sucking in huge quantities of cold, dry air but is unlikely to go off without rest.

We arrived back at Sonam Lodge around 11:20am and chatted to some English guys who are going to climb Ama Dablam. Apparently there will be about 20 different climbing groups on the mountain.

There was also another Brit who lives in Los Angeles and he has come down from Ama Dablam to try to get rid of a cold before returning to climb with his party.

The weather today was much colder than it has previously been and it promises to be a cold night although that won't be a problem for us in our sleeping bags.

Pedometer was 10217.