Rhododendron Day

Day 5 - what I am calling the Rhododendron day. We started today at camp and climbed 400m up to the pass. It was misty, Ireland/Scotland/Wales misty. Full of Rhododendrons all in full bloom. The path was wide intermittently paved with stone and hard packed earth. There were blooms all over with the air rich with their scent. They kept talking about all the hills - pointing to 5000m MOUNTAINS, wow what can we say now about Mont Royal or Hoggs Hollow - I mean really - who are we kidding?

We crossed the pass, 3500m, and as we started the 900m descent on the other side the skies opened yet again. This time the hail actually hurt. I can't tell you how dispiriting this was. All of our previous days the mornings had been beautiful and the evenings rainy - we were all panicked that this meant a full day in the rain. But just after lunch (potatoes, flatbread, spinach ( Peg - Dale ate his , I didn't [sorry Mom]), yak cheese) we started out and the sun came out. We crossed into Junbensi, delightful town tucked into the folds of 4 separate ranges with a large river and it turned into a magical day.

We then climbed back up the other side 400m to camp at Phurtyang Beni. We had a brief glimpse of Everest too short for me to get a photo but I may stay up all night and just stare into the horizon to see the mountain of my dreams.

H

Junbesi town with directions!

misty road

the beer team