April 9: Dingboche to Lobuche
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On April 9, we headed from Dingboche to Lobuche, up into the Khumbu Valley. This is the valley made famous by fifty-three years of Everest climbing — it is the route taken by Hillary on his approach on his 1953 ascent of the peak. We walked along an old weathered moraine up to Duglha, where we met the main trail to the Everest region. Here we crossed the river and ascended a fresher moraine alongside the Khumbu glacier.
At the top of this moraine are a large number of stone memorials to climbers who have
died on Everest and other peaks in the region.
Many of them are for Sherpas, but there are also lots of other nationalities represented.
We saw the memorial for Scott Fischer, one of the people who died in the 1996 Everest tragedy.
We walked around and read the names and other remembrances.
At this point we got our first good look at Pumori.
It dominated the view as we headed up the valley toward Lobuche.
It looked tougher than I remembered from my previous visit to the region.
The group planning to climb it had their work cut out for them.