Tonight was a few card games in the late afternoon, dinner at 6:30pm (your's truely had fried potatoes with egg and cheese (Yak cheese)). Afterwards we watched a documentary on Everest - I told you, this Tea House has everything, even an old projector who's volume control was lost a few years back.
After the documentary finished, it was 8:30, definitely time to sleep - some of our members wisely took the option to retire at 7pm. Not a bad idea, but I did snooze this afternoon, so I figured I could afford the sleep loss.
Time to pack for the morning.
I'm of the habit of on arrival at a place, effectively emptying most of my bag onto my bed, so I can find whatever I'll be looking for in the afternoon or evening. The carefully laid out plans at the beginning of the trip have slowly descended into a more simple plan. Red bag = wet clothes. Yellow bag, whatever happens to be dry. Blue bag - sleeping stuff, gotta keep that very dry - that would be very bad elsewise.
So, my first task in packing is to stare at my bed and wonder what I should do, mutter that I must keep things better organised. Today though, I can. Almost everything is dry. So the clothes can go in their proper pouches, pants and tops in one, underwear and thermals in another.
Packing involves muttering "where did I just put that?".
My roommate Jonathon (aka JB) has just walked in, he and I get along well enough.
Now, back to packing, I think I might try switching sunglasses (had to bring a spare pair, they're prescription and I don't imagine I'd find an optometrist up here, let along with same day turnaround). Now where are they? Oh yes, that case fell out of the privileged position of in a dry-bag awhile back. It doesn't matter if they get wet.
Hmm. These ones don't wrap around, I was going for these because we will be up high and I might need the darker glass, but there's a balance on the wrap around of my others. Ok, put the black ones back. I'll use those somewhere.
Now, I was trying to find my short sleeve base layer top. Even with this luxury accomodation it's still a bit cold to go topless. Hmm, I did just dry it, it's somewhere. Ok, deal with that later.
Clothes for tomorrow, definitely most important thing to handle.
- Long sleeve thermal layer - clearly important
- Still not cold enough for thermal pants.
- Pants, hmm, yes, keep the same pair, those freshly washed and dried pants can await me at Gokyo.
- T-shirt - will wear the t-shirt at the start, but since this is a climbing day, it'll be off before too long.
- Jacket - yup, the blue jacket will do fine. Again, I'll wear at breakfast, but at the first rest break I'm sure it'll be back in the pack.
- Underwear - brace yourself. I usually swap to trackpants sometime after arriving at the tea house, and go commando with those. The underwear I sleep with is what I'll wear tomorrow. Hey, it's merino, it's "ok"
- Buff - so awesome. I think tomorrow I shall go with pirate hat again, it seems good.
Ok, all those items are now in this pile.
Where's my line and bungy (used for tying clothes to the washing line today - no pegs - I said luxury, not 6 star accomodation here)... I'll find them at some point.
Packing socks.. hmm. Oh, yes, I'll need some socks for tomorrow. I have a dedicated pair of teahouse socks. They're very fluffy woolen ones that are totally unsuitable for trekking in, but perfect for post trek feet warming (yes, that's different to underwear).
Where's my other light socks? I've got the one pair, and the midweight pair I'm expecting, and a midweight that's sitting in the tomorrow pile... hmmm...
Ooh, there's my short sleeve merino, that's sleeping kit. Just dried today. That goes over there.
Oooohhh 😲 there's my other lightweight socks. One trek they hit the OMG level of smell so they got dumped in a plastic bag at the bottom of my duffle. Time to deal with this... oh.. gag.. they're even worse. I probably should have washed those today. I have just the thing though, I have a mesh bag I can tie to the outside of my day pack and let Mother Nature give them a good airing.
Right, how do we stand? Water - enough clean water to start me off tomorrow. I'll get my camel pack filled tomorrow after breakfast and add the magic iodine tablets. That water should be ready by the first rest break.
Daypack:
- Cord - general useful
- First aid kit - I don't care that the guides carry one, I carry my own small one with the bare essentials.
- Sunblock and Chapstick - top pocket. Someone usually forgets to put some on, the top pocket is very accessible, so it's easy enough to grab out.
- Snickers and Mars bars - side pockets. I seriously wouldn't have gotten this far without them. Great energy kick.
- Very small towel - enough to wipe my face when i accidentally wipe sunblock into my eyes.
- Toliet bag - not nearly as luxurious as you'd think - a semi waterproof bag with toliet paper and hand sanitizer. I won't disturb you with further details.
- Gortex rain/wind jacket
- Daypack rain cover
That's it - in the end will probably be a t-shirt and/or warm jacket.
Right, I think I'm sorted. Beside the bed, headlamp (solar power here, doesn't always last the night), wallet, remind me to tell you about that, trackpants, teahouse shoes... oh, almost forgot, I will need the toliet bag out of my day pack.
Ok... I think that's it. Time to roll out my sleeping bag, and liner, and make a decision on what to use as a pillow cover tonight... easy, trackpants.
Ok, time to go to sleep...
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Where did I put my leatherman?
