So when I left off, we had just spent all day trying to get to the village of Dragnag in order to prepare for crossing the Cho La pass, but complications on the trail over the Ngozumpa glacier had forced us to turn back and look for another way across. When we found the bridges also up when trying to cross to the village of Nha, we finally ended the day in Machhermo and had to plan another route around to base camp, skipping the Cho La pass. After studying the maps a bit we all decided that we would head south to Phortse Tenga and then cross the Dudh Koshi river ascending to the village of Phortse. From there we planned on taking the high trail to Pengboche and from there follow the main route up to Gorek Shep and Everest base camp. Our plan was to make for the village of Dughla, and then on to Gorek Shep.
The Village of Phortse
I hate getting behind, and my thought was that if I had been able to get over the glacier and the Cho La I would have ended the day in Lobuche. In the back of my mind this is really where I wanted to end the next day, but the distance seemed to make this fairly impractical. We were on the trail early the next morning and made good time retracing our steps south and we made it to the very picturesque village of Phortse still early in the morning. After stopping here for a few photos and dodging some streams that ran down the main trails through town we made our way to the top of the ridge and headed out on to the high trail to Pengboche.
The Vertigo Inducing High Trail to Pengboche
