The name says it all really - chatting, reading, sleeping. The highlight was our first shower in a week - I think I'll leave my washing for another day though.
It turns out that the Lhapka Ri group hasn't been able to bring out everything that we needed - the key item being the radio transmitter. I don't fully understand what is wrong with the one that they have brought out but it is not going to work properly if at all. I decide not to push the point here as the ultimate end of any such conversation is that since we don't have the required safety systems in place we can't go up the mountain and so would have to come back another year and argue over who pays for everything. I just hope that we don't end up needing the radios as they are a pretty key part of the infrastructure for a safe climb of a big mountain!
We start to get more of an idea of what has been going on on the South Side in the aftermath of the avalanche there. It is not quite clear why, but Maoists seem to have seized this opportunity for their own political agenda and made death threats to any Sherpa or their family that continues to work thereby forcing them all to leave the mountain and bringing an end to the season for everyone. The real losers here being the normal Nepalis and their families who will not now receive their main income of the year which they hugely depend on to advance the political careers of militant quasi trades unionists.
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