Day 7 - Tsergo Ri (4,900m)

Today we are doing our acclimatisation trek for this section. The peak is pretty popular as it is a reasonable challenge and has a great view of the higher mountains surrounding it. We are very lucky with the weather with clear blue sky replacing yesterday's snow storm. The trek is fairly straightforward, but also a great mix of scrambling over rocks and moving over snow and ice.

 

The team about to set off

After walking up the valley for a bit we head up the spine of the mountain until we hit the snow line ridge that leads up to the summit. As we gain altitude we lose protection from the wind provided by the surrounding mountains and take shelter in a small depression whilst waiting for the rest of the group to catch up. As we are now in the snow, the strong sun is reflecting from all around us so a chance to rest in the shade is very welcome.

Spine up from the valley

Not far to the summit

We stay at the top for about 45 mins to have lunch and help with our acclimatisation.

Lunch at the summit

Prayer flag arrangement on the summit




View back down to the valley



Heading back down

On the way back down we come across a group of Japanese tourists who are riddled with altitude sickness. We offer to help, but the group leader politely declines, saying that they are fine. It doesn't really look it as one man can barely stand so a couple of us hang back for a bit to make sure that he does not deteriorate significantly. Soon he is hauled to his feet and a couple of small Nepalese boys take him down the mountain. One gets the feeling that they do this quite often as they are pretty competent and laughing and joking as they move.

We get back down for mid afternoon and have tea and biscuits as the sun slowly descends behind the neighbouring mountains.

There is a change to the itinerary to help some people recover from the trek and instead of heading up to BC today we are going to have a rest day here. Flushed with our summit success today and given the rest day tomorrow, we stay up a bit later than normal playing some rather boisterous card games.