Chukhung

Our trip to Island Peak started from the village of Chukhung in the next valley over from the Everest Base Camp trail. For our third and fourth night on the trail, we headed to Dingboche. It's a farming village with lots of fields and animals where a lot of people on the Everest trail come to acclimitise instead of Periche.



We needed to acclimitise more for Island Peak, so on our rest day in Dingboche, we climbed up to 5,000m on the slopes of a mountain behind the village. We got wonderful views of Ama Dablam and the glacier lake below it. The mountain looked even more spectacular after the moon appeared over it.



Once it was time to move to Chukhung for our mountaineering course and Island Peak attempt, we walked along the Imja Khola riverbed crossing big bourderfields. We spent the next four nights in Chukhung acclimitising, practising jumaring (ascending up a fixed rope) and ice climbing. We also climbed Chukhung Ri (5,550m) which brought us very close to Lhotse. Chukhung Ri's summit ridge reminded us of scrambling on the Cuillins mountains on Isle of Skye in Scotland. After our Island Peak attempt, we came back down to Dingboche to rest and do our laundry which was long overdue. From there, we continued the Everest Base Camp trek and headed for Lobuche.




Back to contents page.