Gorak Shep to Everest Base Camp

Today would be a relatively short day heading up towards the Everest Base Camp.  The path was rough and fairly narrow and undulated along the side of the valley.  As per normal now the views were stunning with mountains towering above.

The path undulated (as usual!) along the rocky moraine/scree.  The path was very busy from EBC.  After the accident lots of teams had abandoned the mountain.  The Discovery channel had planned a major broadcast over 7 nights (A sort of springwatch, Everest Live), but this had been cancelled.  We saw lots of equipment being carried down, showing how big an operation it had been.

The path passed below a steep scree slope before heading onto the glacier.  This was an extraordinary area, with the path meandering up, through and over rocks and ice.  It wasn't what I expected.

Our camp consisted of a cook tent, mess tent, a toilet tent and a number of 3/4 man tents.  I had expected a flatter area, but the camp was on multiple levels, no paths, ice and scree slopes and the only flatish areas were under the tents.

The food was great and we were well looked after. Toilets were very rudimental and not the safest (ice and wobbly rocks).  At night it got cold, very cold.  I recorded -8.6 C in the tent.  Through the night you could hear the avalanches on the surrounded slopes.