Up, up, up. There’s less and less to write about now. Less people, less animals, less vegetation, less variety. The only thing there’s more of is scenery. It’s getting seriously impressive now.

The trail today went through a high plateau which is where mountaineers who have lost their life in these mountains are commemorated.

Notable among them is Scott Fischer who died in 1996 in the infamous “Mount Everest disaster”.

The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996, when eight climbers caught in a blizzard died on Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. The commercialisation of Everest was widely blamed with rival teams of fee-paying inexperienced amateur mountaineers competing to get to the top. Numerous climbers were at a high altitude on Everest during the storm, including the Adventure Consultants team, led by Rob Hall, and the Mountain Madness team led by Scott Fischer. Both Hall and Fischer died. The events were dramatised in the Hollywood film Everest released in 2015.

Lobuche (4940m, 16210ft) was our goal for the day. It was quite an impressive sight. Not a village this time, just a few buildings for trekkers. And by now it was properly cold, The shorts had long since been packed away.