Sanasa - Dole - October 31st 1999

A cold and frosty morning at Sanasa, soon warmed up with some porridge and a plate of scrambled eggs. Our destination for today is Dole en route to Gokyo. Started off through birch woods with the occasional brightly coloured pheasant, too dark for photographs. Carried on up the side of the valley, two eagles circling in the distance and a flock of grey and white birds wheeling around like pigeons back home, maybe they were pigeons. Lots of finches eating seeds out of pine cones. Steeply upwards towards Mong. Ama Dablam is a spectacular sentinel as we make our way up the valley, next to Ama Dablam is a saddle shaped mountain with a huge layer of presumably new white snow, later someone tells me this is Kangtaiga.

Above the tree line, lots of gentians and berberis covered in red berries, very stunted growth flat to the ground. Stopped for refreshments at Mong La 12,965', Ama Dablam in front of us. Mong has a couple of chortens and tea houses, I needed a bottle of water which cost 150Rp. Then on down to Phortse Tenga, a very bad dusty track with many loose stones. Very hot again today, after lunch the climb up to Dole, through birch woods draped in pale green moss. Lost the sun at 1:30pm, walking on the shaded side of the valley. Dole is a cluster of tea houses, quite picturesque with yaks grazing but much colder with snow banked up against the stone walls.

A bank of low cloud engulfed us to we took refuge in one of the tea houses and had several cups of hot chocolate before going back to the campsite mess tent for dinner. Dole has no electricity, they use Tilly lamps and candles for light. Later on it started snowing and was very cold so we turned in early hoping for better weather tomorrow.