Gorek Shep and Kala Pattar

So the puny little town of Gorek Shep is the last civilized place before you go on to Everest base Camp. There were only three places to stay here. Ours had the best food, but the crappiest rooms. This is a guest house in front of Nupse.
This is me, sitting in front of Nupse.
This a closer up of me, in front of Nupse.
This picture is for Eilie and Chelsea, my nieces who are complete horse freaks. Now, this wasn't a horse as much as he was a stocky, furry pony. However, he's looked like he was doing pretty well @ 17K feet elevation.
At Gorek Shep we hiked a local little mountain called Kala Pattar. This is a couple of Aussies who joined me @ the top.

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We left the guest house @ Gorek Shep at about 6am. Pemba told me, I was hiking and walking so fast that we could get an extra hour of sleep and still beat everone up to the top. I was up and ready @ 5:45. Pemba was still sleeping....Anyway, Pemba he was almost right. I did leave an hour later and get there BARELY before the sun shone on the peak. In fact the last 50 feet I had to run to get to the top before the sun! So when I got to the top some folks were already coming down since it was quite cool up there @ 7am. I sat down just as the sun hit the top and spent the next 2 hours hanging in the sun.

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Frankly I was a little disappointed in this "hike" since on the agenda it listed climb. When I read climb, I think climb, not day hike. It was a nice view, but for a climber, it was a joke and not worth the time.